The Instactivism Trap
Have moral values become the new luxury watches?
This article is not intended to take a stand for any ideology. I rely several times on the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests as a thread to illustrate my point. The goal here is not to talk about substance, but processes. It’s about reflecting on the relationship of each of us with social activism nowadays.
The Internet and smartphones have made every aspect of our lives more convenient. At the press of a button, a private driver will appear in less than five minutes to take you anywhere you want to go, or deliver the cuisine of your choice carefully to your door, at any time of the day or night. It’s magic.
By clicking less than ten times on a screen, you can plan a trip to the other side of the world, learn a musical instrument, rent an apartment, find love, or watch your favorite movie without waiting. The web gives you access to all the knowledge accumulated throughout history in record time. It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s reliable. In short, it’s great.
Similarly, Instagram has made protesting easier than ever. Suddenly, we’re all one click away from being heroes of change. The revolution’s craftsmen. Just share a story.
Being an activist before the advent of social media was all about sacrifice. It meant giving up your time, energy, money, and sometimes even putting your life in danger for the sake of social justice. And in return? Niente. Nada. Nothing. Except for taking some responsibility, and the hope that one day, maybe the world would be a bit of a better place.
Sometimes that is still true today. But I want to discuss a phenomenon that we will call “instactivism”. Because it sounds like a cool new concept. When in reality, it’s just a portmanteau made up of “Instagram” and “activism”, which refers to the politicization of social media.
Unlike real activism, instactivism requires very little effort for an immediate return. By sharing content on social media, you don’t risk anything. You don’t get involved. You don’t sacrifice anything. Yet the reward is immediate: likes and positive comments flow. You’re officially a good person. You are part of the moral elite. As your opinion is approved by the majority, your sense of belonging goes crazy.
All of this is so good for your ego.
Hence instactivism has been democratized. People are constantly outraged on the internet. Everyone’s crying out for scandal. We are shocked to be shocked.
Worse still: we glorify outrage. It inspires respect and sympathy from others. That way, social media has turned into a kind of spiral of infinite lamentation. A place where everyone can evacuate their daily frustrations and then be congratulated for it.
Seriously, I dare you to post one thing that doesn’t offend someone, somewhere on the internet. Just have a quick look on Twitter and find out for yourself.
You know what? I did it for you.
No, you’re not dreaming: Audi was forced to withdraw this ad, as well as to apologize to users who saw a sexual character in that little girl eating a banana.
Bunch of degenerates.
But it’s a good thing we’re talking about sports cars because they’ll help me answer the following question:
Why this outrage culture?
After doing some research, I found that this pattern can largely be explained by 1) virtue signaling, 2) our inability to question our beliefs, and 3) our search for meaning.
1.
Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need to affirm their identity through visual signals. Think of the native American who wears different feathers according to his role in the tribe. The modern lawyer, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and tie, or the fifteen kilograms of jewelry hanging from the neck of your favorite rapper.
Even in our wildest imaginations, we automatically assign symbols to the characters we create. We wear Greek gods with attributes. Apollo displays his lyre while Athena presents her shield. James Bond drives an Aston Martin, while Albus Dumbledore exhibits his long white beard.
These signals are anchored in us. They help us to reveal who we are, through the values we represent.
There is nothing wrong with displaying one’s identity per se. However, it becomes a problem when you use symbols that you don’t actually embody, for your own self-interest.
It’s the guy who buys a sports car he can’t afford, just to take credit for a social class he doesn’t belong to. It is the person who instrumentalizes marriage, with the sole purpose of accessing certain privileges.
But it is also the ones who participate in a social movement to buy a clean conscience, while they sacrifice neither their time, work nor money for the sake of substantial progress. This attitude is sometimes referred to in the media as performative allyship. And yes, instactivism is so popular that it already has an official name.
In the same way that we buy Rolexes, Gucci bags, and Lamborghinis to signal our competence or success, today we join social movements to signal our moral superiority. This phenomenon is better known as virtue signaling.
2.
Over the years, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have accumulated more and more data about us. Thus, the more time passes, the more powerful their algorithms become. When applied to the field of marketing, these algorithms are fantastic: they allow advertisers to show the product you need, at the right time, with an amazing level of precision.
But these algorithms have never heard of ethics. And unlike us, they don’t act according to double standards. They operate in exactly the same way, regardless of the content involved. This means that social media sells you not only the products you like but also and above all the ideas that appeal to you.
Assuming that you form your beliefs based on what you see on the internet, social media lulls you forever into the beliefs that you already have at heart, reinforcing them even more. There is more and more content online to reaffirm that you are right. That you’ve got it all figured out, and that anyone who contradicts you is a bunch of jerks. This is what American activist Eli Pariser calls the filter bubble.
Do you ever wonder why people are so blind that they can’t see what you see? You’re absolutely right because they literally don’t see the same thing you do.
“We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented.” — Christof, The Truman Show
In addition, the degree of separation between you and people who disagree with you has increased with the advent of social media.
Before, when you disagreed with Mark, you’d see him there in front of you. You’d interpret every facial expression and every movement. At least you could hear the variations in his tone of voice. Surely you were able to see that his disagreement was not necessarily ill-intentioned and that he may not have been a horribly perverted individual. Instead, he was just another guy who probably saw the world a little differently than you did.
Today, Mark is just a jerk in a little box next to a “comments” section smaller than your thumb. You can barely see his picture, let alone his body language and voice. You don’t perceive him as a human being worthy of respect, just a character on a white background. You then turn every Mark into a vulgar caricature that must be proved wrong.
As a result, you become less and less tolerant of opposite opinions. You develop an allergy to confrontation. The slightest counter-argument becomes a frontal threat. We are so fixed in our identities that any questioning is perceived as a personal attack.
The left wants to raise taxes to finance paternity leave… “WE LIVE IN A COMMUNIST COUNTRY! STALIN IS ABOUT TO MAKE HIS BIG COMEBACK!” A professor opposes a law for equal pay… “ANOTHER RIGHT-WING NEO-NAZI FASCIST FROM THE PATRIARCHY WHO WANTS TO DOMINATE THE WORLD!”
Damn, Mark.
3.
Ask any traditional business leader what is the greatest challenge they face with our generation of workers. I bet the majority of them will mention the following ones:
- Poor motivation
- Low level of commitment
- Lack of loyalty
But we are not to blame. Leaders must adapt to our greatest quest: the meaning of work. We give it so much importance that sociologists go so far as to call us the WHY generation. It obviously refers to the letter Y, which encompasses all people born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s.
At one of his many conferences, Simon Sinek describes the Golden Circle, a marketing model that states that companies should not try to sell us a product, but rather values, a mission, a story. According to the famous British author, if Apple has become the richest company in the world, it is not only because it makes high-quality products. No, it is also and above all because it is a master in the art of storytelling.
When you buy a Macbook, you’re not just buying a computer. You buy a whole set of symbols related to the technological revolution. A lifestyle. Apple is selling you the ability to think differently. When you buy its products, you become an innovator.
As companies struggle to give meaning to their employees’ work, young people are bored and looking for that meaning elsewhere. Social justice movements have a strong capacity to give meaning to our lives. All the more so when they provide strong emotions. When they are accepted within our group, and reinforced by their popularity on social media. In my opinion, this partly explains the pace at which instactivists consume information these days. Sometimes even at the expense of common sense.
Just think back to the beginning of the year 2020. During the month of April, passions were raging around the COVID-19 pandemic. The popular masses were praising themselves on their civic-mindedness by proudly waving the hashtag #StayHome.
Anyone who was against the lockdown would be severely reprimanded. The treatment of those who claimed their right to freedom was one-sided, and, to say the least, not so friendly. Every evening at 9 p.m., we would applaud the medical personnel on the frontlines from the comfort of our homes. What a touching solidarity.
But a few weeks later, following the murder of George Floyd, these same people suddenly gathered in hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands in the streets, creating new potential sources of contagion. Of course black lives matter, but what about our elders? What about our beloved medical personnel whom we were still applauding just yesterday? It was as if the nasty virus had suddenly evaporated from our streets.
This incoherence demonstrates that instactivists need to feel something all the time. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it makes them feel important.
As long as it fills the void.
There are, of course, activists dedicated to the movement, for whom the Floyd momentum was way more important than the pandemic. More power to them. But instactivists are not dedicated to the movement per se. No, the hashtag #StayHome just got boring after all these weeks. They needed something new. An updated hashtag to rush into. A new reason to get rid of all the accumulated frustration during two months of lockdown.
#BlackLivesMatter was right in time. As proof: three weeks after the murder of George Floyd, the majority of them had already moved on. Most of the brands that had associated their logo with the cause quickly went back to their original branding.
It was time to move on because they had already bought a clean conscience. They had already taken all the advantages they could out of it.
After all, you might think that it’s not that big of a deal. That even if it’s not entirely authentic, instactivism at least sheds light on social issues and thus helps society progress.
More recently, the #FreeUyghurs hashtag has given extraordinary visibility to the movement in support of the Uyghur people. And at the same time, it raised awareness about the problem. It even, to some extent, forced politicians to take a closer look at the situation.
We touch here on the essence of social media: they give the people the power to be heard. This extraordinary quality is undeniable. However, this only benefit of instactivism comes with some side effects — which are much less often talked about.
Although it is very attractive for the reasons explained above, instactivism has no value in itself. The outrage that characterizes it is completely useless, except that it serves as a signal for action. Not only does it contribute little to the progress of the causes it claims to defend. But it is also detrimental to them. All things considered, instactivism may even cause more harm than good to society as a whole.
Instactivism harms the causes it claims to protect.
Because 1) it gives you the feeling that you have contributed to the cause when you have actually done nothing, and 2) you are much more inclined to fall into ideological traps, ultimately dangerous for society as a whole.
1.
One of my favorite reading topics is self-help.
In self-help, we tend to feel that our lives improve just by reading. If you come across a remarkable piece of work, it’s very easy to believe that your problems are solved instantly just by becoming aware of certain concepts.
Unfortunately, that’s not true.
In fact, there is a perverse effect. If you don’t pay close attention, you run the risk of basing your personal development solely on theoretical concepts. Since you feel you have understood something, you believe that your problem is solved. You close your book and go back to your old habits.
And guess what happens when you don’t act? Well, nothing. So you’re more aware, but your problems haven’t changed a bit. It’s even worse than if you hadn’t read it. Because since you think your job is done, you don’t even try to do anything about it.
The same thing occurs among instactivists. They feel their job is done after sharing political content on social media. Since they believe they have participated in the movement, they no longer have a real motivation to act. As a result, we end up with a mass of digital activists and a large number of leaders who fight only in a shallow way.
It can go even further. At the height of the protests related to the murder of George Floyd, the instactivists decided to share a black square in support of the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement on Instagram. As it turned out, they flooded the hashtag with pictures of black squares, making important information almost impossible to find. As a result, the instactivists have taken over the entire visibility of the BLM movement. They believed they were contributing to the cause, while in reality being an obstacle to it.
This is a perfect example of using a social movement for consciousness and performance purposes. If you really care about the cause, it only takes an ounce of common sense to realize that this is a bad idea. Luckily, some savvy activists later asked users to repost the popular black square with another hashtag: #BlackOutTuesday.
2.
If you perceive the cause not as an end in itself, but as a means to feel good, you are much more inclined to dive into potentially dangerous ideological traps. Since the cause itself is less important to you than the positive emotion it provides, you are likely to share emotionally charged information, thereby ignoring the cognitive bias and other fallacies.
At the end of the day, you don’t really care about the truth. What matters to you is how you feel.
Social media, as a major source of information, has become an extremely powerful propaganda tool. The content is less and less questioned. As long as it provides a strong emotion and reaffirms your pre-existing opinions, you share it, as long as it reassures you in your initial beliefs. Not only does this attitude contribute to the discrediting of the movement in question, but it also represents a major threat to democracy.
We no longer base our beliefs on facts, but on the popularity of those beliefs. Facts now serve as a means only to confirm beliefs. The mainstream media, which are supposed to serve as safeguards for the reliability of the information, also fall victim to this infernal pattern. In the unbridled race for clicks demanded by the social media business model, the key is no longer the quality, but the speed of information. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. What matters is to say it before others do.
When emotion is the referee, absurdity always ends up winning the game.
The more shocking the information is, the more polarization it creates, and the more we click. There aren’t many people left to untangle the truth from the bullshit. Few instactivists do the long and arduous research needed to get closer to the facts. And those who do are not heard, because the truth is often far more boring than our fantasies. Indeed, a recent MIT study showed that on Twitter, fake news circulates six times faster than real information.
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read it, you are misinformed.” — Mark Twain, American writer
This undermining of the truth continues to divide our societies. A study by the Pew Research Center analyzes the ideological gap between the median Democrat and the median Republican between 1994 and 2014 in the United States. The speed at which it widens with the advent of social media is impressive. Correlation does not necessarily imply causality, and there are surely many other factors at play. But I’ll leave you to make up your own mind.
One thing is for sure: identity politics are gradually gaining ground. As an example, during his presidential campaign, Joe Biden did not hesitate to assert to an African-American citizen :
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
The Democratic candidate’s assertiveness highlights a clear trend: American democracy is so polarized that it is no more about individual choices than it is about ethnicity.
The danger with identity politics is that its supporters are often willing to sacrifice fundamental democratic values — such as individual freedom — in the name of a social group’s interests. Take the British journalist Cathy Newman who, during a well-publicized debate, asked her guest:
“Why should your right to freedom of speech trump a trans person’s right not to be offended?”
Since when did “not being offended” become a right?
Group identities can be formed around ethnicities, genders, beliefs, religions, or cultural affiliations. Polarized enough, these groups may then become opposing sides, whose aim is simply to suppress the enemy’s ideology. Such a configuration of society is referred to as “tribalism,” some of the consequences of which are already visible. Indeed, Donald Trump’s nationalist politics are not the cause, but the effect of instactivism on a very angry majority of Americans.
This leaning towards identity politics is brilliantly demonstrated through a fallacy that I have often witnessed. During the BLM protests in June 2020, many instactivists said:
“Either you are with us, or you are against us. Your silence equals consent!”
This idea perfectly illustrates identity ideology because it gives us no other choice but to take a stand and pick a side. By excluding any other possibility, this reasoning creates a false dichotomy: either you are BLM or you are racist.
Moreover, by condemning inaction instead of encouraging action, this formulation says a lot about the instactivists motives: they pick a side because of their fear of judgment, and not out of pure conviction. Please don’t let yourself be fooled by this kind of bullshit. As an individual in a free society, you have the right to choose your engagements. And you don’t need to justify them.
This is a nice slippery slope that shows how dangerous the proliferation of false information can be for the stability of a society. Propaganda campaigns have sadly proved it throughout the dramatic events of the past century, which I do not wish to discuss in this article, despite Godwin’s law. Whether this is a fallacy or not… I leave it to your free interpretation.
The existence of all these social movements, as well as their continuity through time, only proves their relevance. If everyone were treated fairly, these protests would have disappeared a long time ago. Their legitimacy is therefore indisputable. On the other hand, the relationship of some individuals to these causes is excessively questionable. The legitimacy of such a movement is too often tainted by a parallel form of victimization.
Many instactivists see these noble causes as an opportunity to deny responsibility for their own fears, limitations, and frustrations.
It is much easier to denounce patriarchy than to undertake engineering studies. It’s more convenient to blame the food industry than it is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It is much more difficult to have a fulfilling career than to pretend to reorganize the entire economic system.
Actually, taking care of yourself and your loved ones is much harder than aspiring to save the world on Instagram.
I am not talking about bad intentions. Most of the time it is an unconscious process. The economic system in which we evolve plays an important role in this. As we become used to instant gratification and unprecedented comfort, many of us assume that there is a fundamental right not to suffer. They believe that the norm is not to encounter adversity in our lives. That it is society’s responsibility to spare us from any painful experience.
Through social movements, instactivists distract themselves from their personal problems.
Certainly, it is much more convenient to blame society for our limitations, rather than take full charge of them. But this strategy only works in the short term. It cannot serve anyone in the long run. Not even its initiator.
Before choosing the path of outrage, I suggest that you consider the following question, and answer it as honestly as possible:
Why do you want to protest?
a) If the answer is
- Have a clean conscience
- Fear of other people judgment
- Feeling good or morally superior
- Belonging to a group
- Associate your person with a positive image
- Giving meaning to your life
- Deny responsibility for your frustrations
If I were you, I’d think twice before going for it. You will most likely engage in vain passions that will do no good to society, neither to yourself. If your motivation is not authentic, if the issue is not really important to you, then you will not have the strength to make the sacrifices necessary to serve it.
Instead, look for the problem at its root, that is, within yourself. As Socrates taught us shortly before his death: take care of your inner conflicts, so that one day you can turn into a source of power that benefits others.
b) If, on the contrary, you want to protest because
- The issue is relevant and important to you
- You are willing to sacrifice your comfort for this issue
- You have the opportunity to provide real support to this social movement
Then all the nonsense will disappear and good deeds will follow. There is no problem in giving meaning to one’s life through humanistic causes. Actually, these movements absolutely need you. Commitment yourself to social justice is capable of providing a sense of accomplishment without equal. But remember: the key is not to instrumentalize them. Don’t use them as a way to feel good, without any sense of responsibility.
For moral values to be truly meaningful, it is inevitable to make sacrifices for them. This is the only way you can really make yourself useful to society. It is essential to treat these causes as an end because behind them are people in need. It is you who must sacrifice for the causes, and not the causes that must benefit you in any way.
Choose your struggle and take responsibility.
If an issue is really important to you, stop making claims from today on. Go straight to responsibility.
Materialize your activism now by joining a nonprofit or startup. Sacrifice a part of your life. Take risks. Give money. Volunteer. Reach out to people in need. Get involved in politics.
Taking responsibility is essential. Many of us systematically separate advocacy from responsibility. They spend their time throwing stones and asking others to fix things for them. Accepting outrage and denying responsibility is a form of hypocrisy. In a way, it is accepting only the pleasant part of activism.
Let’s stop asking adults to change things and instead be adults. The concepts of right and responsibility are inseparable. Let’s stop asking for rights all the time, and start taking more responsibility.
Even in the case of injustice, taking responsibility for one’s life is always more beneficial than blaming others. For a very simple reason: it gives you the power to act. The moment you decide to take responsibility, you go from being a powerless victim to being a driving force for change.
At that very moment, everything becomes possible.
The “How dare you?” may raise awareness, but the “Will I dare?” will definitely make all the difference.
