Page 8 - Oracle September 2020

8 OPINION TROY HIGH ORACLE
Simply posting on Instagram does not bring about substantial social change
By Andrew Sung
STAFF WRITER
“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
After the video of George Floyd saying these words over 20 times while a police officer was pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck went viral May 25, Black Lives Matter protests propagated across the United States.
With posts about George Floyd flood- ing the social media, many people soon became aware of the horrific police brutality. Indeed, social me- dia can be helpful in shedding light on important social issues
and rapidly mobilizing widespread support. But just being loud on social me-
dia will not result in an enduring social change for the betterment
as a unified protest against police brutality and racism in the US. The next day, there were over 28 million Instagram posts with the hashtag #BlackOutTuesday, compared to less than 14 million signatures for the “Justice for George Floyd” petition on change.org. This demonstrates that over half of the people who posted a black square that day likely ei- ther treated the movement as a trend or just posted for the sake of avoiding backlash. The misconception that posting on social media
is itself an effective way to advocate has cost millions of signatures and potential for more impactful change. The stark difference in the numbers
show that the “collective action of
of posting a black square. For a truly sustain- able change, the same zeal to post must fol- low through in other actions beyond social media. People must understand the stark distinction between the outcomes of a five- seconds-feel-good
hashtag was to raise awareness about victims of female-targeted violence in Turkey. This misinterpretation of the fun- damental purpose of the movement re- veals the tragic downside of social media
post and supportive actions offline like protesting, signing petitions or con- tacting legislators.
Social media is a great platform to spread awareness
“Just being loud on social media will not result in an enduring social change for the betterment of our society.”
“advoca- cy”: it is too easy to hop on a band- wagon but far more difficult to retain the true meaning
of our
society.
We must
avoid in-
effective
tivism”
stems from a
desire to con-
form to popular
opinion and not
true conviction
in the social cause
and full understanding of it.
Although people sharing the posts probably have good intentions, a social media campaign becomes ineffective when the activism exists only online. During Blackout Tuesday June 2, peo- ple posted black squares on Instagram
about societal is-
sues, but only if it is used with pur-
pose. If followers do not know the underlying social issue and purpose behind the posts, then they cannot sustain the move- ment,
which renders the whole effort mean- ingless. In #Challenge-
CARTOONBYPEARLYOON Accepted, which was
popular during July 2020, people shared glamorous black and white photos of them- selves under the impression that they are advocating for the empowerment of wom- en. However, the lost original intent of the
behind viral campaigns.
As an old proverb goes, “Actions speak
louder than words.” In the Internet-dom-
inant world of today, people seem to be
mixing up the two by focusing too much
on chiming in their short-lived opinions
over social media. Keedron Bryant, a
12-year-old gospel singer, went viral on-
line when he sang about the fear of liv-
ing as an African-American. He did not
let his post become one of the many vi-
ral posts on social media, but announced
that all of the proceeds of his song, “I Just
Wanna Live,” would be donated to
“ac- that
Advancement of Colored People. While this does not mean we should produce hits to influence so- cial changes, it is a good example of purposeful social media activism that led to a successful outcome in real-life.
H S E o A c Di a E l R m P He d O i a T O i S s A o N u D r L Ag Ye n O e U r a T t i I o N n S ’ P s I R n A e T w I O N weapon, but true activism should not only exist in cyberspace. We must fo- cus on how we can effectively show real support beyond the Internet. Let’s inform ourselves before we inform oth- ers. Let’s think critically about new ideas instead of dismissing them immediately. Let’s join petitions to change unfair laws rather than passing on the responsibility.
solidarity”
has actually
drowned out use-
ful information and resources
in the hashtags, and has watered down our perception of “support” to a couple seconds
the National Association for the
CARTOON BY PEARL YOON
HEADER PHOTOS AND LAYOUT INSPIRATION COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM
Zooming into a Virtual World by Pearl Yoon