Have you ever seen a friend’s Instagram story with an aesthetic infographic about something horrific — a crisis? You feel the need to repost the same infographic in your Instagram story and a chain of reposts continues. After a few days it starts to die down and people go back to their regular routine as if nothing happened. This is what happens when people make activism a trend.

Social activism has shifted from a commitment to justice into a form of trying to fit in, claiming allyship without the long-term engagement. 

The problem with this is not that people don’t care, but rather that they pretend to be for social activism and justice by instantly reposting information about an issue, as it has suddenly become a trend to care about social problems, only to stop caring after 24 hours.

I noticed this trend behavior after October of 2023, when the state of Israel began yet another mass slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. I started being aware of this situation in November of 2023, watching a massacre live on my phone, happening at the same time I was eating dinner, sleeping and going to school. I was horrified, seeing new videos every day of men, women and children getting killed by Israel.

The awareness allowed me to educate myself about why this was happening, how long it’s been happening and why everyone should care. I began researching, reposting and following Palestinian journalists who filmed and gave updates about what happened that day, proof of the total one-sidedness of the “war” as it has been branded by Western media.

As I began posting and spreading awareness, people started doing the same. Though it didn’t last for long; it dissipated completely and people began to forget and not care, so to me it was just performative activism — trying to fit in with the trend.

A reason why I think activism becomes a trend is that social media’s algorithm rewards the appearance of caring more than a call to practice caring. The algorithm pushes what is viral rather than what is urgent, which is why there’s social pressure to repost something simply because everyone else is. 

Most of the time, people are also not thinking about understanding the historical context or feeling a long-term commitment to whatever they are reposting. And when the trend starts to die down, so does public concern.

Performative activism creates an illusion of mass activism because it’s seen as a trend and there’s no actual pressure being put towards institutions that we want to see change from, for example, the government. 

From all the consistent reposting of a singular post, it can also dismiss the voices that are really trying to spread important information about what is happening, like firsthand journalists and organizations that advocate for those issues. 

And when interest starts to die down, silence becomes bigger; people begin to assume the issue itself has ended. 

Reposting is not necessarily a negative thing; it’s often the first step for some people to understand the issue and care about it. Social media has helped some social movements to gain visibility, but visibility without action becomes hollow quickly.

Facing and having to accept the reality of human suffering is exhausting, especially as a college student, and not having the ability to do much to help the situation makes me feel helpless.

Seeing people slowly decide to ignore and forget about these issues feels isolating, because people treat social justice as a trend rather than humanitarian crises that not only affect those who suffer firsthand but are also slowly affecting everyone everywhere.

“Why do you care so much? It has nothing to do with you; there’s nothing you can do to make a change.” 

These are things that family and friends have asked me. It feels discouraging that even the people closest to me don’t agree with my values and what I stand for. But regardless of that, I still care and educate myself on ways that I can make a difference, even if it’s small.

When activism becomes a trend, its urgency becomes flattened just for aesthetics — something people perform rather than practice. The lives at the center of these crises don’t disappear just because the topic simply stopped circulating in the mainstream. The world doesn’t pause its violence so that you can continue your day normally. Treating activism as a temporary social media trend wave allows public concern to fade long before the suffering does. Real solidarity isn’t measured by how fast you repost an infographic, but in the consistency of staying informed, speaking up and caring even when no one else is watching. If we genuinely want to stand with people for justice, our attention cannot be seasonal; it has to be sustained.

 

Mafe Aguilar Vargas is a junior graphic design and marketing major. She is a first-generation college student. She is part of Voces Fuertes, PIN, art club and MSA. She also enjoys learning about fish and other animals.