Is Social Media Making Activism Performative in 2025?

Performative activism

We’ve hit a weird point where being "seen" to care has more currency than actually caring. Culture today is less about practice and more about performance. You don't need values in your everyday life, they just need be there online.

I've seen many people post about Gaza or repost Greta Thunberg Quotes. They put some photo at a protest and hope it goes viral. Something to promote feminism. All of this is great and can certainly help bring awareness. But what's the point if you don't back it up in real life?

Branding over belief

This isn’t hypocrisy in the old-school sense. It’s branding. A person’s values are now an accessory, like sneakers or tote bags. You’re eco-conscious? That's nice, do you have the reusable coffee cup aesthetic shot? You’re socially aware? Wonderful, now where’s the viral clip of you clapping back at some troll? The appearance of value often has more weight than the action itself.

When activism becomes aesthetic

Part of the reason is the environment we live in. Social media rewards being loud, not being authentic. A photo of you at a protest gets 50 comments but actually volunteering every weekend doesn’t show up in the feed. So we learn fast, do the visible thing, not the hard thing. It’s not even malicious, it’s survival in a system that prizes perception.

But here’s the catch. When values get flattened into performance, they lose their bite. Activism morphs into aesthetics. Culture becomes clout. What was once radical like queer rights, feminism, anti-caste politics, they all get watered down into hashtags, logos on t-shirts, and limited edition sneaker collabs. Like everything, it all goes back to capitalism.

So the question isn’t just why people perform values instead of living them, it’s whether we even remember the difference anymore. If a value goes unseen, undocumented, unapplauded… does it still exist in 2025?