trigger warning: mental health, rape, and sexual abuse
Lately I have been seeing social media stories like "repost if black lives matter," "repost if you are against rape... I can see who skipped." Things like these are called performative activism or propaganda. Likewise, it serves no purpose or whatsoever and are usually done to validate one's social image and not to support or show opposition to the causes being addressed. Ask yourselves why did you repost it? because you saw your friends doing it? or is it because you want the public to know you support the awareness? If your answer is because you see a lot of people did it, STOP. The point is posting things like these, doesn't have a point.
Not to mention how offensive this fake activism must look to those who it alleges to help, way to show your your privilege by doing nothing but spreading chain mail and calling it a day. These topics are not "just" basic things for people to talk or even think about. Even just a word itself could easily trigger victims of abuse, so take time to think about what you will be posting.
The pictures below are examples of performative activism and it is continually spreading all over Instagram.
Supporting causes like these are important, but not in a way that you gaslight and guilt trip others. Do not participate in those Instagram stickers if you are doing it for the aesthetic and stop supporting a cause, without actually showing support. You do not have to justify not being racist (or justifying being against sexual harrassment and abuse) by reposting things like these. This is just the modern day equivalent of the Facebook chain "Share if you love Jesus. If you ignore, you will go to hell," or "Type Amen or else you will go to hell." It is clearly nonsense and does not help the issue at all.
If you want to raise awareness about certain issue, make sure you provide a complete information about that. It is not too late to delete if it is still in your stories. Maybe instead of trying to guilt trip people into caring about systematic social issues that you yourself obviously do not care enought about, you should spend your free time supporting and sharing resources that actually make a difference. I can recommend Gabriela Women's Party (@GabrielaWomenPL on Twitter) since they advocate safe spaces without triggering traumas and they are into protecting the rights of women and youth. Also, MentalHealthPH (@mentalhealthph on Twitter) is a safe space to those who are experiencing mental health crisis.
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