Are We Being Performative? Yes, Yes We Are

It’s social media, not identify the idiot

The name is right there in the monster: it’s social media. A social species requires affirmation from others of our species. It’s what get us ‘likes, tweets, upvotes, stars, and emojis.”

We are told not to pile on to identity politics, but social media is all about the social aspect of being human. It is all about acceptance, a necessity to our species.

Don’t ask yourself if the person responding to the idea that “mass shooting is bad” is being performative. Yes. Don’t ask yourself if the latest outrage about choice and forced birth, or even Heard and Depp, is performative.

Of course it is.

It just has to be recognized as being more than that.

We are asked to choose sides to sell products. Always remember that your time is the product, and your outrage must stay on the target of change over and over again.

It is only that, once we realize this, a social media meme becomes a movement. There is that word “social” again. We are in a social movement to recognize and stop climate disasters — or at least stop subsidizing polluters. We are in a social movement for pride. And, for Black Lives to truly matter. We are in a social movement to see, eventually, that #Me too sees women as people and not just victims of harassments, abuse, or punitive reproductive laws.

Be the change, not the victim

It is okay to be performative, at least the first day. The topics will not go away. They will return again and again. It is the reoccurrence of them them that changes a social notice of a thing into a movement to change a thing.

Therefore, do not worry that much about being accused of being a performative actor. The people who want to challenge your ‘virtue signaling” have nothing else to attack.

Culture war sells, just know this. Don’t be duped by constantly having to defend your stance. Identify instead, a moral compass that always points forward toward ethical inclusion.

Detractors know the system is rigged against some people, and all they can dig up is the accusation that you are just a snowflake showing off your delicate, crystalline arms. Or, worse, you are a hypocrite.

You drive so you must accept big oil. You eat meat, so you can’t criticize deforestation. You laugh or joke, so you don’t really care about trans people. You retweeted something, showing you only care until the news cycle changes.

Guess what? We all are affected by a bombarding news cycle. It does not mean that we don’t care. Indeed the whole social aspect is about society.

We do care about all that is social. Should we all do more? Yes, but decaying Rome wasn’t burnt in a day, so we all have to first buck up under the constant attacks telling us that we just want to look good.

It turns out, in the long run, the people who look good are good. They DO find slavery abhorrent, or that toxic messaging drives violence. They find oppression of women harms everyone, find that shunning dirty fuel for clean is better for the world, find that growing large numbers takes a huge amount of repeated agreement.

A publicly acceptable idea then goes from being ridiculed to be the “obvious truth.”

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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