Is 2024 The Year Activism Finally Grew A Backbone?
The armchair activist has become a defining character of the 2020s. Offering an easy way to demonstrate support, individuals, public figures, and brands frequently use social media to advocate for a cause. Mobilising in online spaces can be a hugely powerful tool; today's justice campaigns, from the Arab Spring to the global #MeToo movement, spread far quicker— and wider—than any pre-internet movements. But internet activism has also paved the way for a much weaker form of protest. While posts shared on Instagram may be well intentioned, the cynic in me often wonders what palpable impact reposting a bell hooks quote can really have in the wake of a crisis.
Earlier in the year, a fire caused by an Israeli air strike tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians. An AI-generated image of a tent camp with the slogan ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ was shared 47 million times on Instagram, with many drawing comparisons to 2020’s ‘Blackout Tuesday’, where black squares were shared in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Both images, though highly shareable, offered little substantive insight into the cause they claimed to support. Neither encouraged action; there was no accompanying call to challenge governments or donate to an organisation. At best, they were an exercise to raise awareness, at worst, a sanitised scream into the void.
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But as cynicism around online activism grows, so too do more meaningful movements. In the past month, there have been a spate of celebrities and brands making headlines for taking a very real stand against injustice. News sites like NPR and The Guardian are no longer posting on X in the wake of Elon Musk’s controversial cabinet appointment in the US. The latter shared, ‘This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.’ Many seem to be following suit, with Reddit quickly overtaking X to become the fifth most popular social media platform in the UK.
With last month’s re-election of Donald Trump, there is perhaps a moral prerogative to speak up in a meaningful way. Eva Longoria announced she has left the ‘dystopian’ United States to live between Mexico and Spain. Ben & Jerry's are suing their parent company Unilever over claims they’re being silenced from speaking out in support of Palestinians in Gaza. Closer to home, model and activist Cora Corre went public with her severing of ties with the Vivienne Westwood brand. Taking to social media she wrote, ‘Although the company bears my grandmother’s name, I do not feel at this time that it reflects her values.’ The 27-year-old continued, ‘Moving forward, I will focus my energy on honouring my grandmother’s legacy through the Vivienne Foundation and continuing the work that was so important to her.’
In a culture obsessed with celebrity, public figures wield huge power and privilege, but until this year it’s rare to see them challenged for the ways they engage with it. The #Blockout2024 movement, described as a ‘digital guillotine’ emerged in response to the 2024 Met Gala. Coinciding with pro-Palestinian protests and heavy shelling in Gaza, many compared the opulent star studded event taking place in the wake of a humanitarian crisis, to a scene from The Hunger Games, and a new digital movement was born. Lists began circulating of celebrities who didn’t use their platforms to advocate for oppressed people, with followers encouraged to block them and divest from celebrity culture.
This shift isn’t just part of digital and celebrity culture. Increasingly, climate crisis and pro-Palestinian activists are making their presence known offline in a way that cannot be ignored. Just Stop Oil protestors have been jailed for coordinating direct action protests – from planning disruptions on the M25 to throwing tomato soup over Van Gogh's paintings in London's National Gallery. Members of Palestine Action, who have been targeting Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, have also received prison sentences. The risks of participating in these kinds of protests are high, as are the stakes for what they’re fighting for.
There's a black and white photograph at The Tate's new exhibition The 80s, called Outside Police Station, Bethnal Green Road, London, E12, 17 July 1978. Taken at a sit-in demanding the release of detained anti-racism protesters, everyone in shot looks so defiant the image almost transcends its own boundaries: you can hear the chants of the crowd, which stretches so far down the road that it becomes an endless blur. Worlds away from the low stakes virtue signalling that infiltrated the last decade, the exhibition explores activism during one of Britain's most powerful decades of social and political upheaval; powerful protests with palpable consequences, from race uprisings, and minor strikes to the AIDs pandemic.
There’s something very confronting about going to an exhibition documenting a decade of struggle and protest, during a decade of political upheaval and protest. The women’s marches, Black Lives Matter movement and regular nationwide pro-Palestine protests (to name but a few) have been defining movements of the last few years. We're still fighting many of the same battles today; but for a longtime, the landscape of protest has looked very different. In the 1980s, Instagram didn't exist, and activism took risks. If a person or group wanted to speak out, they couldn’t do it from behind a screen. Real action was, and will always be, much harder to ignore.
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