SLACKTIVISM

AS SOCIAL MEDIA BECOMES MORE RELEVANT, SO DOES THE ISSUE OF PERFORMATIVE ACTIVISM. BUT EVEN IF IT IS SINCERE, CAN THIS ONLINE ACTIVISM EVER BE ENOUGH?

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INSTA VERSUS IRL

A good friend of mine has a saying. It's pretty much his catchphrase at this point: Instagram is the real world. This is the simulation. Now, that may seem almost empty at first, as if it's just a quippy line to get a cheap laugh over drinks. But he's a smart guy, a writer, a selfconfessed student of the social media age. And what I think he means when he says this is that, well, it doesn't help anyone to ignore the sheer power of the medium - the real-world implications social media can have when you learn how to harness its power.

He means that, for many of us (and especially those who form part of the metropolitan scene), social media has replaced the real world as the site of our most precious power plays, our most significant trade-offs, the actions we take that result in our most personal, palpable consequences.

The fact is that never before has social media played such a huge role in our lives. Across the Meta suite, to Twitter, to Reddit, commodities are traded. On Twitter, aphorism is rewarded with followers and cachet. Facebook's power is that it can be the foundation for remarkable business growth. But, for the purposes of this article, I'd like to focus on Instagram the mother and father of the millennial scene, the habitat of the modern-day influencer, and the undisputed birthplace of performative activism.

GETTING INTO IT