When Trends Aren’t Enough

By Arhon Strauss ‘23

Social media has become quite the incredible tool—we use it to spread information, news and messages about everything from memes to pressing global issues. Environmental activism, Black Lives Matter and #MeToo have all been spread like wildfire across Facebook and Instagram, among other apps. But for all the good that social media has done to bring about awareness, has it really brought about change?

The answer to this question is complicated; on social media, there is about as much misinformation being spread as there is truth. Yet, this is not what I want to talk about now. Instead, let’s focus on what it means when our global issues become hashtags and trends—how we as society have lost the ability to act on any one issue because our feeds and our stories are constantly pushing us to move on to the next “big issue.” The constant cycle of rapidly changing hashtags, challenges and trends has made us inept, too erratic to make any meaningful change.

A great example of this is with global warming. Every day, thousands of people post about how this is a major issue, about how we need to act now, about how we only have twelve years—on and on and on. Many of these people, however, do nothing other than post on their stories before moving on to the next “big issue.” We reward lip service to the cause of the day. 

This, in turn, has fostered an online environment where people, particularly young adults and teenagers, use social media as a way to get out of doing something meaningful. They could go to their local legislators, attend rallies or even do community service. But they don’t. Because they’ve posted, they’re able move on to the next issue without having actually done anything to help solve the previous one. Thus, a cycle is born where real issues are treated as trends to show who is “progressive” and “hip.” In the end, nothing is gained other than the temporary satisfaction of those who perpetuate the cycle.

This is not to say that social media hasn’t been used effectively to bring about change in the past. The #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter have both been amplified via social media and the Internet at-large. Social media allowed people to connect, tell their stories and put pressure on different organizations to enact real change as higher and higher-ranking officials were called out for their inappropriate actions. 

It also set the stage for massive protests and greatly aided in organizing those already engaged in activism. The Women’s March, for instance, could never have happened without social media platforms spreading word practically overnight. Black Lives Matter has also been impacted by social media, in both application and effectiveness. I’m sure these are only a couple of many more examples where social media brought people en masse into “real world” activism.

So, it is clear that social media has been useful in some cases yet ineffective in others. Now, this begs the question about what separates the issues it has helped versus those where it has been ineffectual?

To answer this, we need to look at the context. I think that the primary difference is that movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter largely sprang up in response to specific incidents—for instance, the death of George Floyd. There is a short-term goal (along with long-term goals, of course)—justice for George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, for instance—and that allows movements to be organised relatively quickly. Whether it be people protesting a government, a company or even person, it always depends on people showing up. And it’s simply easier to show up in response to a headline that underscores a deeper problem.

 But with things like climate change, deforestation and ongoing humanitarian crises, there is no short-term action nor attention-grabbing headline. One effective policy reform can take years to come to fruition. Now, this is not to say that nothing short-term can be done to fight climate change or that the other issues I have mentioned can be solved with just short-term solutions—that would be absurd. Rather, I am trying to say that some causes more strongly benefit from the short-term news cycle. These tend to be the ones that are most ready to point to a clear immediate demand. Justice for George. Justice for Breonna. The nature of some movements allow them to fit into the trend culture that dominates social media platforms today. They are able to break past and be more than tools for simple information spreading.

Social media has been the driving force behind many influential movements in the modern age. Yet, for all the good it has done, it has trivialized certain issues by making them into trends. On top of that, it prevents us from keeping sustained attention on long-range problems. This not only demeans their importance but also leads to inaction. On its own, social media won’t save us. It can only spread information, unless we show up and do the work.