Performative activism: the root of all evil

The root of all evil. We don't want to leave any wiggle room about where we stand, but we do intend to explain why we want nothing to do with this increasingly fashionable phenomenon: performative activism, as easy to pull off as it is harmful. Our fictional stories can wait a little longer; this plague of our times deserves a post of its own.

Posted in: #fediblog, #internet

Why digital activism matters

The internet and social media give people the chance to share their ideas with all over the world, and they reach an audience that old-school street activism usually struggles to reach: people with physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities, for instance. Large in-person demonstrations are, for all practical purposes, off-limits to them, and anyone in that position who wants to take part has to fend for themselves, often at the mercy of public transport that doesn't always run when the events do. How often have you seen sighted guides for blind people, sign language interpreters, accessible minibuses or wheelchairs laid on for strikes or major rallies? Including nationwide celebrations, such as Labor Day or those related to European nazi-fascism liberation?

And yet who, more than disabled people, still faces discrimination at work? Who, more than them, is pushed to the margins under old and new authoritarian regimes, or even put to death? Despite all this, no official steps are taken to include this group as active participants in those events.

We'd love to be proved wrong, but as far as we know, events that are genuinely inclusive in this sense are few and far between. In recent years we've heard of a handful of Pride marches that provided a minibus for disabled people, and that's about it.

Online, on the other hand, it doesn't matter whether you're blind, deaf or living with any other kind of disability: with your assistive technology, simple or sophisticated, you can speak your mind as often and as loudly as you like, with the theoretical chance that the world will finally notice you exist.

That's digital activism: people who, on their own or with someone's help, show and explain their condition to the world, letting the public see what living with it is really like. Videos and photos, podcasts and blogs, to share what the mainstream media so often leave out.

Except that the privilege is only theoretical, because on social media you have to reckon with the algorithm: the fewer people follow you, the less visible you are.

Building a big list of followers isn't easy. More often than not you get there by knowing the “right” people in digital marketing and, needless to say, by paying. Or, best-case scenario, because someone who already has clout gives you a shout-out.

On top of that, the sites and apps that social networks run on don't always follow web accessibility guidelines, never mind the content people actually post. Ironically, even the most popular anti-discrimination pages regularly leave blind and deaf readers behind, because they don't describe their photos and videos or caption their audio. So where exactly is this all supposed to be heading?

Among others, we're talking about those self-styled “inclusive” communities that, in Italian, use the schwa “ə” as a gender-neutral ending, blissfully unaware that it has no Braille code and that screen readers can't pronounce it properly; or, worse still, use asterisks and @ signs, which sound even more of a mess when read aloud. Include some, shut out others, but hey, they're the inclusive ones! And that's us putting it gently!

The illusion of “success at your fingertips” falls apart just the same if you run a website you work your socks off on, trying to give it the best possible design and content, and pouring time and money into making it search-engine friendly. There too, you have to keep up with algorithm changes that can knock you from the top spot to the bottom of the pile in minutes, effectively making you invisible.

So at this point the whole idea of digital activism shrinks down to size: unless you're an individual or a company that already has a profile and plenty of money in the bank, it's really not worth thinking big. Better to settle for your own niche, small but mighty, relying on good old word of mouth and slowly getting known, without trying to become an “influencer” at all costs. That's if you want to stay honest. And if you're less fussy about regards? There's always performative activism!

Performative activism: what is it?

There's a very fine line between digital and performative activism, so you need a healthy dose of self-awareness if you don't want to drift from one to the other without noticing.

Truth be told, it's nothing new; there are forms of performative activism dating back to before social media that still managed to do enormous damage.

Performative activism by email: chain letters

We're talking about the Stone Age of online communication, when newsgroups and email were the only ways to share anything.

A textbook example is the case of George Arlington and his daughter Rachel. It started in 2000 and the email kept doing the rounds until 2010; here's the full text:

Subject: Leukaemia – Please read below

If you delete this, you really have no heart.

Hi, I'm a 29-year-old father. My wife and I have had a wonderful life. God chose to bless us with a beautiful little girl. Our daughter's name is Rachel, and she is 10 years old.

Not long ago the doctors found cancer in her brain and in her little body. There is only one way to save her: an operation. Sadly, we don't have enough money to cover the cost. AOL and ZDNET have agreed to help us.

The only way they can help us is this: I send this email to you and you send it on to other people. AOL will track this email and count how many people receive it.

Every person who opens this email and forwards it to 3 more people will give us 32 cents.

Please help us

Calling a message like this “performative activism” may be a stretch, but it's a primitive form of it: “Never mind how plausible it is that a third party would donate money just because I forwarded an email, I'll send it on. It costs me nothing and my conscience is clear. What harm can it do?”

Shame that George and his daughter never existed, and too bad if, thanks to the signature at the bottom of the email, your workplace unwittingly ends up vouching for a fake story. That's exactly what happened to the Italy's financial police as well as same nation's public health institute, after some of their employees forwarded the appeal in good faith, complete with signature, phone number and address, landing their employers in hot water as they were suddenly bombarded with calls and messages about a little girl who didn't exist.

You drive half the world up the wall, you end up losing your job, but hey, at least your conscience is clear because you helped someone. Well, no kidding! This kind of email always plays the guilt card: “if you delete this you have no heart”, “I bet 93% of you will bin this”, and so on and so forth.

We have learnt of genuine appeals too, ones that kept doing the rounds long after there was anything left to help with. The case of Craig Shergold is a prime example.

In 1989 Craig, a British boy of nine, was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and an appeal went out asking people to send him get-well cards so he could make it into the Guinness Book of Records. The appeal worked like a charm: by 1990 he had received more than 16 million cards, and around 33 million by the following year. In 1991 Craig had an operation that removed the tumour, and he recovered.

The chain letter, however, never got the memo. It went on spreading for decades, mutating along the way: the name became “Craig Shelford”, “Greg Sherwood” and countless other variants, the get-well cards turned into business cards, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which had never had anything to do with it, found itself dragged in against its will. Guinness ended up scrapping the category altogether to try to kill the chain off, and by some estimates around 350 million pieces of mail landed on the family's doorstep. The Shergolds had to move house, and as an adult Craig's only wish was for the mail to stop. He died in 2020, at the age of 40.

A case of performative activism by mindless forwarders, let's not mince words. Why anyone would bother to tweak and recycle an appeal that had long since run its course, Zeus only knows.

Luckily, these days Rachel and Craig are only remembered as examples of how NOT to use email, but with the arrival of social media, performative activism has gone from bad to worse.

World-saving shares and copy-and-paste posts

“I bet you won't share me because I'm disabled”, “if you have a heart, type amen and share”, “copy and paste this message on your wall in solidarity with [random condition or disease]”.

Plus all those messages you're supposed to copy and paste to reject Facebook's latest far-fetched new rules.

The “amen” posts and the “I bet you won't share me” ones often come with photos attached, more often than not lifted from the internet without the consent of the people in them. Including pictures of people who have died, yes.

We could give a million examples: a straight couple who voted “yes” in Ireland's same-sex marriage referendum, used as the poster couple for the “traditional family” by the “no” campaign; photos of celebrities, living or dead, passed off as robbers, pensioners or migrants to stir up outrage.

There are several cases where photos of Black actors and white serial killers get attached to stories of social injustice and posted on satire pages, only to be picked up by far-right profiles to push the “Black people have more privilege than white people” narrative, banking on nobody recognising the celebrities in question. And sure enough, the keyboard warrior falls for it hook, line and sinker.

Animals and fake news

Performative activism about animals deserves a mention too: it's not the first time videos have gone viral of a bear “befriending” a dog, or of animals reacting in ways the online crowd finds “hilarious”, only for real scientists and animal behaviour experts to have to explain that no, that dog isn't playing at all, it's pestering the bear, and the bear can't wait for the intruder to clear off.

A cartoon version of our relationship with animals, pets and wildlife alike, which ends up harming the very creatures people claim to love. Since they can't speak up for themselves, they become the unheard victims of human narcissism, all the way to extreme cases like that of Freya, a female walrus killed by the Norwegian authorities in the summer of 2022 because she had become a danger to herself and to people, stressed out by getting far too used to the crowds who photographed and filmed her round the clock.

“Social experiments”

The video of the guy holding a sign saying “I'm HIV positive, hug me”; influencers who hit the streets and film passers-by after asking them some bizarre question. Seriously? And just how good are their intentions?

That's how performative activism works: you're the main event, and the social cause you claim to care about is just a side dish. Who cares if, to grab a bit more attention, you trampled all over people's most basic right to privacy by filming them without permission?

Every social platform is full of people slapping on rainbow or peace flags, taking selfies with banners, and sharing tear-jerking texts and videos, all of which shot through the roof after the Covid lockdowns. But how much of what they post is actually true?

Of all the videos of people filmed without consent, one in particular struck us: the one featuring Maree, an Australian woman who was handed a bunch of flowers by a 22-year-old man in a Melbourne shopping centre while his friends filmed her. She had no idea she'd ended up in a video racking up millions of views on TikTok and, quite rightly, said she felt “dehumanised”. Turned into a product by an influencer who is really selling himself and making money through sponsors, and who, on top of that, passed off her obvious annoyance as being moved to tears.

Even though there was nothing compromising in the video, it can't be pleasant to have your face splashed across the world when you're an older woman who has never once set foot on social media. The whole episode was billed as “kindness”, but the guy in question doesn't have the faintest idea what the word means.

Shock therapy

Enough ink has already been spilled over it and we don't want to give it any more airtime, but there's the business of Fedez at Sanremo 2023, Italy's biggest music festival: the rapper and influencer let one of the competing male singers, Rosa Chemical, kiss him on the mouth live on stage. Rosa Chemical explained the gesture by talking about “sexual freedom”, “trying not to hide 'polyamorous' relationships” and “an act of friendship”. We're actually on the same page as them when it comes to sexual freedom, but doing activism this way draws attention to yourself rather than to the message you want to get across. Style over substance.

Not that we don't understand why they did it: as a sort of “shock therapy”, a jolt to make people realise “this is part of the real world too, like it or not”. The usual idea of wanting to “shake things up” in an attempt to change a status quo you're not keen on. A peaceful notion of “revolution”, but one that doesn't always deliver the results people hope for.

So, are we activists?

Absolutely not, and we don't call ourselves that. We could list websites and groups fighting HIV stigma that regularly organise in-person events and travel up and down the world, taking to the town squares; we haven't been able to afford that yet. Not together, at least.

That's why we don't want to be called “activists”; we see ourselves as just two amateur bloggers trying to tackle a difficult subject with a lighter touch. Seeking attention? Never! Posting photos of ourselves with our articles? Even worse. We may well be an empty box, and we're fine with that.

Let's be blunt about it: it would be the easiest thing in the world for us to fake a sex act, French kiss included, on a live stream. With “positive” and “negative” written across our backs, everything on show and no condom in sight, under a banner reading “I'm on treatment and I can't pass on HIV”. But all it would do is draw in the voyeurs and the moralisers. Is it worth it? Definitely not. We'll leave those games to people who are already rolling in money and can land another gig the moment they lose one.

We have no interest in parading ourselves around the internet, posting every breath we take. If someone reads our posts, we want it to be for what's inside. As for the wrapping, you can safely ignore it, thanks.