Keeping up with the trends has always been fundamental for people, whether it's the way they dress, the way they style their hair or the type of music they listen to. There's always going to be a trend people want to follow. Now, especially, with social media, society loves to keep up with all the latest trends, including the ones related to social or political movements. People love to keep up with all the latest social and political trends and movements to seem more “woke” and more socially connected.
Many movements, such as Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives and Shein Child Labor, among others, are frequently featured on social media outlets. However, like any other regular trend, they tend to fade away over time. We are now in the midst of the Abolish ICE movement, and we have another chance to create real change, not just through social media or signing petitions, to make a difference and not let this become another example of slacktivism.
“Slacktivism” is a combination of the words "slacker" and "activism," describing a person who participates in these movements by doing the bare minimum, such as liking a post made for the movement, signing e-petitions or using hashtags for the movement, but nothing more.
Slacktivism is always going to be a part of every movement to a certain point, regardless of how popular it is or not, but as a community, we should start holding each other more accountable to these movements. It can be really powerful to speak out on movements you are passionate about.
As a society, we jump on these trends and want to be included in every movement that's put on the Internet, even more so when celebrities are participating. Like trends, movements tend to lose interest, especially when the people who first influenced you to start participating in the movement are not posting about it as much anymore, and eventually stop posting about it at all.
But the absence of these movements on social media influencers’ pages doesn't mean the movements themselves are gone. It’s like they are put on hold until the next major thing, and people start posting about it.
A prime example of slacktivism was the Black Lives Matter Movement, which was officially started in July 2013. This movement was created by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors when George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was found not guilty due to “self-defense,” even though Martin was unarmed, and it created an uproar throughout the nation.
As time went on, the Black Lives Matter Movement slowly faded out, becoming a distant memory in history, when, in 2020, George Floyd was killed by a cop in Minnesota. That sent everyone into a spiral again, and people started to post about it, changing their profile pictures on social media to support. People made bracelets, companies were supporting this movement and many promised to educate themselves on police brutality and other injustices in the country. And of course, when celebrities started to post about it, even more people jumped on, but, like everything else, it started to vanish. People started to talk about it less, people started to change their profile picture back, celebrities stopped talking about it and suddenly it wasn’t a trend that people were a part of anymore.
We, as a community, have the opportunity to hold ourselves accountable and keep up with the things we say or do. Right now would be the best time to change your slacktivism into real activism. Abolish ICE has become a widely spread movement affecting many lives, especially following recent deaths and injuries caused by the officers in cities across America. ICE is taking children and tearing families apart, no matter what. They have caused a lot of pain to our society. We have the chance to create change, to actually help those in need and to not let this movement die like the others.