There is no doubt that many of us turn to social media as our main news outlet to keep up to date with what is happening in the world. Particularly when it comes to complex political situations, we can receive quick briefs on an issue instantaneously, which is an attractive prospect.
Performance allyship is activism done to increase your social capital rather than a genuine devotion to a cause. Often someone will post about a current affairs situation or issue not to help the matter, but rather for the sake of how it will look to others, making it activism purely on a surface level.
Allyship itself is an authentic support system where someone from outside the marginalised group in question can advocate for those who are victims of discriminatory behaviour or a crisis. Within this authentic allyship, the individual wants to use their privilege to help those who lack it, to support them and achieve genuine change.
Juxtaposed to this is performative allyship, where their supposed solidarity to a cause is strongly vocalised yet disingenuous and often can do more harm than good to the marginalised groups in question. I would go as far as to argue that instead, this maintains the status quo and feeds into supporting structural racism. To fully explain what performative allyship is, it is better to demonstrate through examples.
This collective action was to protest racism and police brutality and was catalysed by the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and killing of Breonna Taylor. People urged businesses to pause their operations for that day, in a show of solidarity for the cause. Most notably on social media, the BlackOutTuesday was a globally trending hashtag and involved users posting a single black square to show their solidarity with the movement.
