#Slacktivism | Nazhlah Thompson | TEDxShakerHS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8GpMaaoG2Y Video ID: Z8GpMaaoG2Y ============================================================ Transcriber: Eric Silberstein Reviewer: Trang Phạm Generation Z, whose members were born from 1997 to 2012, are acclaimed by people of all ages for standing up for what they believe in and sparking change in the world, specifically through the power of the internet, but is that the truth? Can teenagers really demolish the issues in today’s society through TikTok videos and Instagram stories? Many people devotedly agree, but dare I say that they simply cannot? The truth is that the majority of today’s teenagers’ activism is inherently performative and simply accomplishes nothing of substance. It leaves the activists feeling proud and morally fulfilled. But at the end of the day, the problems still remain, lurking underneath dozens of meaningless change.org petitions and Twitter threads crafted by ill-educated teenagers. 2/6/2020, eight days after the murder of George Floyd was declared blackout Tuesday by Instagram users worldwide, millions of people, celebrities included, posted pictures of black squares under #BlackoutTuesday. It was designed to be a moment of silence for victims of race-based police brutality and to show selfless support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which had taken the world by storm. It was a heartwarming idea in theory, but in reality it did more harm than it did good. What does a plain black picture on your feed do to help the issue at hand? Actual useful posts containing GoFundMe’s for families of victims of police brutality and bail funds for those who were arrested at protests were silenced by a daunting sea of pitch black. Those who were supposedly benefiting from the teenagers’ activism were truly being stifled by an abundance of greed, dismissiveness and ignorance. The same scenario can be seen throughout regular uploads by these young activists. Clicking through Instagram stories, I frequently see graphic designs saying, “Black Lives Matter!” or tweets from some random person saying, “We need change now!” Okay, so then what? What comes next? What’s a few empty words or a little drawing going to do for the issue at hand? On the more extreme end, privileged, white kids who get their news from TikTok are turning this into their own dystopian movie. They dream of living like Katniss Everdeen and preach starting a revolution. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen white girls scramble post sparkly pink aesthetic posts on their Instagram or Bigo account that say, “Hello Kitty says acab and my Melody says punch racists” and then vaguely mentions Black Lives Matter like it’s a chore, like they’re forced to for the sake of reputation. I find that teenagers, left-leaning teenagers specifically, tend to idolize the politicians within their party, treating them like they would their favorite actor or singer. Yes, these politicians may have positively contributed to the state of our country and helped to push an agenda that these teenagers wholeheartedly agree with. But idolizing them simply crosses the line. Politics is notoriously filled with disgusting corruption and the politicians at hand are in no way excluded from it. Idolizing these politicians further feeds into the performative nature of Gen Z’s activism. It’s like they’re mocking those that their activism is supposedly helping and blatantly expressing that they care more about personal gain than helping others. One thing that’s truly stuck with me, living as a teenager in the age of the Internet, was a TikTok video that was posted soon after Joe Biden was announced as president-elect. Mindlessly scrolling through my For You Page, I came across a sparkly fan cam of Kamala Harris to the song “No” by Meghan Trainor. “Listen up, we stand by our vice president to be” read the caption with heart and a sparkle emoji at the end. The video received 2.8 million likes. Now, I don’t expect 16-year-olds to be going to federal court and attempt to make substantial political progress. That’s just ridiculous. But what truly has been done as a result of social media-based activism? Black Lives Matter was painted on a street in some city? People are putting BLM in their Instagram bio? Sure, that's a great start. But people are acting like that means it’s okay to call it a day, that all the issues are therefore solved. What my generation is doing is blatantly not enough. If we continue down this path of turning a blind eye once done with the bare minimum, the pain for some will never end. More and more will struggle beneath the shadows until too many are and society deteriorates from the weight of the pain we ignored. Now, when you think of generations, the activists who brought upon apparent change, who do you think of? Malala who spoke out about the importance of girls education after the Taliban took control of her town and continued to raise money for her cause after she was shot in the head? Or maybe you think of Gretta Thunberg the Swedish environmentalist who went from protesting outside the Swedish parliament for more action on climate change and organizing student strikes to speaking at the U.N. Climate Action Summit and becoming the youngest Time’s Person of the Year? Or another person that comes to mind might be Emma Gonzalez, a survivor from the 2018 Stoneman Douglas shooting who gave powerful speeches advocating for more gun control and helped to organize the wildly successful March for Our Lives. But I can guarantee that you do not think of classmates who posts screenshots of random tweets on Instagram story. Well, what can we do? For starters, detaching activism from solely being executed on Instagram and Twitter is essential to bring about change. Yes, these websites may be incredibly effective tools in this journey, but can real world issues truly be solved through a screen? Donating your time by volunteering or organizing and attending protests, writing letters or calling state and local officials, simply educating others without a poorly drawn graphic design can do wonders for the issues that we hold so dearly in our hearts. If we all take steps towards genuine activism like the young and prominent women I mentioned, think about how much we could change the wrongdoings in our world. Police brutality is still incredibly apparent all around this country, homophobia and transphobia continues to rage through our communities. Black people are still being killed and not enough people are talking about it. Tell me, where are these young and aspiring activists now?