We live in a nation with a short attention span. In an overly sensationalized society that breeds desensitization, we frequently turn away from pertinent issues in favor of supporting causes that make us feel better about ourselves. Anger regarding obvious acts of racism and terrorism against a large portion of the American population instead funnels into campaigns to take down the Confederate flag. Rather than giving money to the many homeless members of the LGBT community, we donate to a ridiculous fundraiser so a woman can respond childishly to common bigotry.
I’ve written about “slacktivism” before, but recent events have shed further light on the lengths we will go to in order to ignore the underlying problems that plague our society. We don’t simply turn away from them; we endorse other causes in an attempt to move past what we can’t see immediately change. Different from slacktivism, what I call “trendy progressivism,” is the millennial movement enabled by social media that promotes causes above others primarily out of convenience and accessibility.
Causes endorsed by trendy progressivism frequently have ties to liberal movements, yet often have some kind of twist to them. Harken back to last year’s craze of posting videos of yourself being dowsed with ice water for the sake of a disease that, until recently, not many people knew (or cared) about. That isn’t to trivialize or cheapen the good that came from the Ice Bucket Challenge becoming popular, but rather to highlight that people accentuate care towards a cause significantly more if it can be commodified as a marker of social activism. In other words, people are generally more interested in completing tasks that make them simultaneously look good and feel good.
One of the most egregious recent cases of trendy progressivism may be found in a GoFundMe campaign: a fund started by a woman to finance her painting her house the colors of the rainbow in the wake of her neighbor deeming her yard “relentlessly gay.” This fund received more than $43,000 in donations from strangers on the internet — it likely would have been more had the (not gay) homeowner not shut it down. At the risk of invoking the fallacy of relative privation, thousands of LGBT youths suffer year-round from homelessness, and rather than giving to them, we choose to support facetious campaigns that divert attention away from more pressing concerns. We walk past people starving on street corners on the way to shoe stores that promise to donate a pair for every pair we purchase.
The “Relentlessly Gay” campaign and its popularity only shallowly address concerns of the LGBT community in cutely snubbing the discriminatory views of the neighbor who wrote the letter. As well, the homeowner herself does not openly identify as a member of the gay community. In a way, this epitomizes many of the problems members of the LGBT community commonly confront — particularly misrepresentation, in that they have many people who speak up for the community without sharing its struggles.
Of course, trendy progressivism can take form in more insidious ways. It’s terrifying to think that only now, after a terrorist attack motivated by racism, we care about removing an age-old symbol of prejudice. Perhaps it’s even scarier that we could think the removal of the Confederate flag could act as a bandage to a system that institutionally oppresses black Americans. The grossness of police abuse, Rachel Dolezal’s appropriation and the Charleston shooting have been obscured by a cause that doesn’t start to touch on the entrenched racism of the United States, yet it has taken the spot of “Race Issue of the Week.”
Why do we do this? It’s easier to address issues that can be fixed in the moment than it is to chip away at ingrained ideals one protest at a time. It’s easier to advocate that a flag be removed than it is to try and change the minds afflicted with deeply seated racism. And given the current state of social media, through which societal movements and fads may be popularized nearly instantaneously, trendy progressivism allows for the illusion of social change without requiring any amount of dedication or knowledge. It is important we take this into consideration prior to contributing to a sympathetic cause because it seems “cool.”
