Social media has changed the accessibility of revolutionary action. A single post can be a great part of global change. But can we convincingly say that we are part of the revolution after reposting an already viral image? Or does it take more than a virtual statement and a hashtag to be a revolutionary?
Illustration by Fenne Dolmans
In 2020, the murder of George Floyd marked one of the historical turning points in the global Black Lives Matter movement. Floyd’s murder, committed by police officer Derek Chauvin in broad daylight, was videotaped and rapidly gained attention. The homicide led to an uproar from the general public in response to the systemic violence committed by the police towards Black individuals. One of the biggest viral responses to this was the Blackout Tuesday, which took place in June of 2020. This action, originally organized within the music industry, called on a silent day of no releases nor other business operations as a tribute to Floyd. The initiative quickly turned global and with growing virality the movement shifted largely to individuals joining the movement by posting a black square on social media. Within hours, every social media platform was dominated by black squares.
Blackout Tuesday revealed the widespread compassion that people showed for Floyd, accompanied by the rage concerning the brutality, inhumanity, and pointlessness of his murder. However, a lot of the people that posted the black square returned to the comfort of silence about the matter afterwards. The protests on the streets went on, yet the numbers did not match those of the black squares on the internet. While 24% of U.S. adults using social media supported the movement online, only 7% attended a Black Lives Matter protest (Bestvater et al., 2023). Now, did posting a black square really substantially contribute to the revolutionary momentum of Blackout Tuesday? Beyond this singular gesture, what impact does an individual’s action truly have within the grand scope of a revolutionary movement?
“The protests on the streets went on, yet the numbers did not match those of the black squares on the internet.”
What are the mechanisms that create willingness to take a stand on social media but hinder individuals from taking action in real life? And is activism as a performance on personal platforms not as effective and important as standing on the frontlines of the revolution in flesh and blood?
Understanding the core dynamics underlying the activism that is performed on social media is essential to help understand its significance to the overarching cause. It is considerably easier for individuals to repost a viral social media post to their public channels than to take action in person because of two essential concepts. A viral post offers high norm clarity: the opinion voiced in the post has already been externally validated by a large group of peers (MacCoun, 2012). Therefore, the socially accepted viewpoint is made clear and suggests courses of action for the individual in the form of posting the same viral slide. Conforming to the norm clarity is not to be mistaken with voicing one’s true opinion. While gaining norm clarity about a topic can be enabling to voice an opinion one has already had, it can also enable individuals to solely endorse the matter for external validation. In this case, the support for Floyd is secondary, while the personal validation is the primary drive. This is not to say that all reposts are serving a self validating purpose, yet it is an important aspect of online activism that cannot be disregarded entirely.
Once norm clarity has been established, the second crucial concept comes into play: the human need to belong to a community. This is explained by the conformity paradigm, which states that enough external validation of a certain opinion increases the chance of an individual sharing that same opinion publicly (Asch, 1955). This does not necessarily imply an internal conformity with said opinion but rather shows the pursuit of group acceptance by means of voicing a controversial opinion. These two concepts, which MacCoun summarizes under the umbrella term of “social proof”, explain performative activism on the level of informational influence. Yet they fail to justify why the need to get active in the face of overarching political and social issues, often represented by this kind of performative activism on social media, does not lead to a follow-up action by the individual in real life.
“If everyone stops at the borders of their well curated self-representation on their social media accounts, then the change will remain displayed theoretically rather than achieved practically.”
To gain a deeper understanding of explanatory mechanisms for performative activism as a self-contained action without a (public) follow-up, one can look at the concept of cognitive closure. Coined by Arie W. Kruglanski (2004), this theory states that the human mind has a constant desire to arrive at definite answers, especially for complex issues. Posting an Instagram slide satisfies this need because one’s opinion has been voiced publicly. Hitting the post button defines a clear standpoint of the individual and therefore a definite statement has been made. Though this opinion can be subject to change later on, the mere posting action can serve as the completion of the need for a simple solution to a complex task. Its public function is adding to the definite character of the action, as others gain knowledge about one’s standpoint and therefore social identity is further consolidated. Clarifying a standpoint like this makes it easier to regard one’s responsibility to take action as fulfilled.
While the mechanisms behind this process have been explored, the question remains whether posting a social media slide can be justified as a revolutionary act. As previously elaborated upon, performative activism on social media can manifest as a singular act due to cognitive closure. This is also closely related to social loafing (MacCoun, 2012), which describes the individual’s tendency to put less effort into work that is done collectively and towards a shared goal compared to work that is carried out entirely independently. The virality of the matter, which comes along with a large group of (publicly) like-minded people, can lead to a renouncement of one’s individual responsibility to act, as the weight of instigating larger action is mentally relocated to the other people supporting the same cause. A supportive social media post can therefore be hindering revolutionary action rather than enabling it for the individual posting it. Thus, the expectations for further action are assigned to others, while the individual rests assured they have done their part.
Another relevant consequence of this mass reposting, while providing immense support to the visibility of an issue, is the endless stream of identical content, which can drown out helpful information. Taking the example of Blackout Tuesday, the flood of black squares gained a lot of attention, but a lot of important information about the actual murder, and changes in the course of events were disregarded entirely. Additionally, creators who put out informational content on social media, often in a more extensive format than a black square, did not gain the same attention. Content by Black creators fell (and falls!) under this category as well, even if their living reality was (and is) the subject matter. The black square is simply more accessible to the majority of people because of informative influence, as was mentioned before (Asch, 1955). Posts with more or different contents than the viral slides require more critical thinking and are consequently not gaining the same momentum. Therefore, viral posts can be helpful to gain visibility but at the same time limit the information that they are conveying to the public.
(Re)posting a viral social media slide can be a good way to set foot into revolutionary action. It is an accessible and not very time consuming way to feel as though you are participating in addressing issues that feel too big to tackle. The mass of posts can also be helpful (and is often needed) to gain visibility and attention. Still, the advantages of virality need to be evaluated carefully in the face of (unintentional) suppression of important information. However, in our attempt to join a revolutionary movement in a meaningful way, we need to be careful that we do not stop at the repost. It is easy to voice an opinion and feel like that has been the most important thing one could do. But if everyone stops at the borders of their well curated self-representation on their social media accounts, then the change will remain displayed theoretically rather than achieved practically.
We need to get active to cultivate actual change. Revolution has a lot of faces and it comes in many shapes and forms. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that revolution is not polite and, least of all, revolution is not comfortable. Sometimes, revolution demands us to take a step further than just joining a virtual protest. We need to take revolution out on the streets, not solely flaunt it on our virtual signboards.
