Obama’s right about ‘call-out culture’ — we can do better

In a Coleen Rooney era of call-out culture to the max, does it really do any good? (Spoiler: no).
Last week, in an interview with actor and activist Yara Shahidi at the Obama Foundation Summit, the former President objected to the prevalence of ‘call-out culture’ and ‘wokeness’ in society.
Obama attributed this acceleration in judgemental ‘activism’ to social media, stating: “Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb. Then, I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, man, you see how woke I was?” he said. “You know, that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”
His statements have undoubtedly caused global debate. Obviously, and somewhat ironically, people took to social media to get their share of the shout. Many agreed with Obama’s views, praising his ‘wisdom’ in the identification of our righteous highs after slamming someone, or something, online.
Journalists jumped on it too, with the Guardian arguing that ‘Obama’s right, you don’t change minds by damning your opponents’. But of course, not everyone agreed. One writer at the Independent ran the headline, ‘I respect you immensely… but I don’t need lessons about ‘being woke’ and ‘cancel culture’’, describing Obama’s views as ‘paternalistic observations’.
So, after resisting the urge to re-enact the opening scene from Fleabag (God, Obama, you’re just so dreamy), I got to thinking…
I’m part of (sigh, eye roll, etc.) the millennial generation and we’re more woke than ever before. I don’t bat an eyelid at having to battle through the Extinction Rebellion to get to work in the morning or when a mate tells the barman off for giving her a G&T with a plastic straw — ‘you tell him, babe’.
And I’m guilty of it too. I don’t deny that buzz of benediction after reposting a pithy cartoon from the New York Times, slamming Trump’s latest actions, on my Instagram Story. I feel a holier-than-thou warmth as I tweet about how we’re killing all the polar bears during my Sunday night Attenborough fix. ‘Now my conscience is clear. I’ve told THEM’. And off to bed I trot. Guilt-free and woke AF.
But does angrily tweeting about a supermarket’s overuse of plastic packaging, slagging a politician off on Instagram or taking photos of my hilarious banner in a climate march to brag about just how much of an activist I am really make a difference. Really?
In fact, Manifest’s founder, Alex Myers recently argued that, as a generation, we’ve lost our appetite for effective activism. ‘We let off a few chants. And we comment on Donald Trump’s tweets when we’ve had a pint. But it’s startling how gentrified our resistance has become’, he wrote.
Personally, I joined Manifest because we’re an agency with a purpose. A purpose which every single one of us believes in wholeheartedly. A ‘creative cult’, if you will. But the good kind.
And that purpose? I hear you cry. Manifest ‘build brands that change the world’. It’s our belief that it’s not enough for brands to simply stand for something; they must stand up for it. Change is in our DNA. It’s why we get up, and battle the central line, every morning.
With that mindset we’ve achieved a lot — we’ve weaponised the youth vote with Rize Up (next instalment incoming…) and held politicians like Bolsonaro accountable, to plant trees and support re-forestation across the globe with Offset Earth. Yeah, we might slam people that we feel do wrong along the way, but that’s merely a stepping stone on our path to effective change. We don’t, ever, just stop at criticism.
While we can’t change the big problems right away, we can do more than just rant about them on social media. Slagging people off isn’t sexy (sorry, WAGatha Christie). It’s not big and it’s not clever. By all means, voice your opinion on Twitter first if you want, but then take all the anger and energy you’ve channelled into that and do something useful with it.
Take Gina Martin, for example. After a man took a photo between her legs with his phone at a festival in 2017, she was (rightly) outraged. Sure, Martin took to Facebook first, writing about her experience and calling for other women to share their own. But that was just the start of it. She created a petition which received over 50,000 signatures and made the police reopen her case. After months of campaigning Martin changed the law in 2019, making upskirting a criminal offence in England and Wales.

While I disagree with some of the language Obama chose in his speech, for example ‘You should get over that quickly’ felt needlessly negative. I agree completely with his overall message.
We do need to get over ourselves and think about the bigger picture. We need to practice what we preach.
Yes, we should have the freedom to use social media to share our views and stand against that which we believe to be wrong. Social media can be a powerful tool for change. If we use it right.
But if simply moaning or throwing vicious words around online is the only thing we’re doing, then it’s lazy, counterproductive and totally uninspiring.
So, I’m calling out to all millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha… and actually to my parents and grandparents too, because it’s not generation-specific. To everyone who leaps on the outrage bandwagon. We can do better.
We all have the power to make a change. It’s time to take a step back from the social media storms, the nasty words and the cancel culture and claw back the concepts of wisdom and thoughtfulness.
If you believe in something, or against something, don’t just stand for it. Put the laptop down, the iPhone away, get off your arse.
And stand up for it.
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