The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has taken the forefront of the public eye in recent weeks, and rightfully so. The death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in the United States, was a catalyst for this attention, although innocent people have been hurt and systemically discriminated against for years.
While the Internet has been a tool for sparking social change and organizing protests, using it as the sole instigator for change trivializes the importance of external accomplishments, minimizes its effectiveness, and opens up avenues for hateful individuals to distract from the cause.
Even well-meaning fads distract from the goals of BLM.
Many Instagram users posted black squares on #Blackouttuesday, a day in July for featuring Black creators in solidarity with the BLM movement. These users, while well-intentioned and non-racist, does nothing and detracts from those spreading helpful information. The posts, many tagged #BLM, overcrowded the hashtag and made it difficult for those organizing protests to share information over the tag.
Performative allyship only serves to show that the individual posting believes they are non-racist. It does not contribute to the spread of positive information or to charities supporting minorities.
Those who attempt to make change for BIPOC and other individuals in minority groups by sharing information online don’t always get it right, either. Many who repost “informative” Instagram stories sometimes fail to fact check the information they share, causing confusion and disrupting the progress of BLM and other social movements.
Sharing inaccurate information isn’t the only way individuals who try to support BLM fail. Performative allyship and memes about the movement distract from its greater goals.
Even excessive focus on single individuals’ racist actions undermines the greater change that can be brought about by the Internet. Controversy over popular internet creator Jeffree Star’s racist past distracts from important information surrounding protests and donations to charities. Celebrity gossip should not be the centre of the BLM movement.
The uncoordinated efforts of well-intentioned individuals on the Internet detracts from the severity of BLM, and can even trivialize the movement.
In late June, many social media users deemed Jeff Kinney’s character, Manny, from the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series a “symbol of the revolution.” Doing so reduced the BLM movement and the push to defund the police to an internet meme. Kinney said in a now-deleted Tweet that he felt the use of his character “trivializes” BLM.
The ease of sharing on the Internet may make it easy to share positive messaging promoting BLM, but it also makes sharing hate easy. “Pranksters” recreating the scene of George Floyd’s death mock the integrity of BLM. Joking about BLM as Internet users did with Manny opens up avenues for others to joke about it, which can contribute to more harm than with a meme about a comic book character.
Reducing BLM to a hashtag or a “trend” forces one to consider whether the Internet does more bad than good.
While hashtags and informative posts can be an effective means of making change, using social media as the sole instigator for change trivializes the struggles of BIPOC, especially when reduced to a meme or a fad. Social media posts are an easy way of showing support for an important cause, but to make real change we must also put in the work to look beyond BLM as a fad, and work for change in real life.
