break up with your boyfriend, he's racist
The Substack equivalent of a woke Canva infographic
Over the past year, social media activism has remained a staple of everyone’s internet consumption. I mean, how could it not be with all of that detailed Canva work?1
The line between good intentions and performative actions is something that has personally been on my mind perhaps a little too frequently: one thing that ticks my anxiety into overdrive is thinking about how I’m perceived by others which has led me to have a really shitty relationship with social media activism over the last year. I constantly felt a fear of being seen as a bad person if I didn’t share a graphic about something, but I also didn’t want to share something that I don’t believe in.
Because I have this constant low-grade panic, I was so excited when Sandra Etuk said she wanted to talk about the shape social media activism has taken over the last year, the recent @soyouwanttotalkabout scandal, and how to make your infographic consumption ever so slightly better.
Sandra: Hi, my name is Sandra. I graduated from Emory University in 2020. I currently work as a consultant, so slaving away to capitalism as we speak! I was a business major in college but I was a wannabe history major. I love history, love the intersection of pop culture and politics, and I have so many opinions. Born and raised in New York City but don’t make enough to move back and live the life that i want. So if anyone is hiring and will pay me $150k to do not that much work— let me know!!! My skills include being charming, observing everything around me, and thinking too much!
Emily: I think you’re the quintessential Emily For President guest then.
Unfortunately for all of you, I had to ask:
Emily: As a new follower of mine on Twitter, am I funny on Twitter?
Sandra: I would say yes because you don’t lean into the too serious. Obviously, the news is fucked up but I personally think you can’t take life too seriously.
Emily: The world is on fire— just tweet bullshit.
The Perfect Segue
With absolutely no other context than one reference to politics and one to social media, let’s dive in:
Emily: In your words, what is social media activism? Is it inherently performative?
Sandra: Social media activism is the effort to raise awareness and organize people through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, etc.
I think it’s great for sharing details about protests and mutual aid funds— so many people went to protests and so many people donated money. But at a certain point, it’s totally performative.
As a disclaimer: I do love Instagram and it is my favorite social media, although think social media as a whole is going to lead to the downfall of our democracy but that’s a whole other conversation.
I do think that social media can be used for good and for bad. The trend of instagram activism really took flight in June 2020 when all the protests were happening and everyone and their mom decided that they were an antiracist and all of these different things. While I think it is great that people want to educate others and also be educated, when people were posting those black squares on Instagram, I quite literally have never been more disappointed in the human race. That’s a strong statement, but people who posted the black square thought they’re the next Malcolm X. You’re not doing what you think you’re doing
That was when I realized that people on social media just like do things for clout. Can you literally imagine that like when the police shoot a Black person, someone’s first instinct is to log into Canva, chose a color palette, and see how they can make an infographic— like what the FUCK???
Emily: Watching everything unfold last year, why do you think white people in particular were so much more comfortable with performative social media activism than getting involved offline in issues?
Sandra: Again, I think it’s that social media is just the easiest way to gain clout.
I can’t tell you how many people who I have either witnessed be racist or have done an act of microaggression to me or any other things, who were posting about activism. There was this one guy who will remain nameless. He is a notorious racist and has said numerous racist things— really crazy things. He posted something about Black Lives Matter and I responded to his Instagram being like, “Bro you’re literally a racist. I’ve heard you say racist things.”
It’s honestly kind of funny: he responded and said “Are you serious?” and I was like “Yes,” and he was like “You can kindly lick my taint idiot.”
Emily: Are you fucking kidding me?
Sandra: No I’m really not.
The person who said this was one of my friend’s ex-boyfriends. Another thing about people posting on Instagram and pretending to be an activist, I see people and I’m like: “You’re dating a racist!!!” How am I supposed to believe anything that you’re saying when you don’t practice what you “preach.”
I think social media is just a really easy way for people to show that they support something— which I think is good. And I think it’s really a double-edged sword where if you don’t post something, people think you don’t care but if you do post something or you post too much, people are like, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!!” “You’re annoying!!” Or whatever.
Personally, I feel like I do have the luxury —because I am Black— that no one can come at me for not posting anything #BlackPrivilege. I didn’t do this but I feel like I could have posted a bikini picture in the midst of everyone pretending to be an anti-racist and like— who’s going to come for me.
Emily: I know this is kind of a heavy conversation, but it’s also one of the funniest heavy conversations I’ve had thus far on E4P.
Sandra: I’m so glad. It’s all fucked up but it’s funny! And, again, that’s my thing: you can’t take life too seriously because it’s literally a joke.
Bo Burnham Singing “White Woman’s Instagram” In the Background
White women: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are doing a little too much gatekeeping and gaslighting to truly be girlbossing.
By now, everyone and their Aunt Karen have heard about the Karen trope, which our favorite historian describes as “white women seeming to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal… who use their privilege to demand their own way.” While the Karens in the chat get offended every time they're referred to as such, it is because they are acting entitled and demanding beyond the scope of what’s normal and using their privilege to get their way (*ahem* Ramona Singer). What’s worse is how many of them have come out of the Kate Gosselin woodwork over the last year.
However, even non-Karen white women are often problematic, and before we say, “But I’m not,” let’s take a pause and just not do that.
With no judgment (because, as always, I’m a troll but a troll with a big heart), stop and ask yourself why you are so eager to close yourself off to growing? Why are you more willing to claim goodness than you are to listen to how you can be even better?2
Is it uncomfortable to realize your role in upholding harmful ideologies, institutions, and power structures? Yeah, it fucking sucks. No one wants to be the villain when you don’t have a super traumatic backstory that has led to a very hyperfocused reason for vengeance or violence and/or a minion to assist you when you get a little too busy. But imagine how much worse it is to be unconsciously inflicting that harm onto others.
All of this is to say it is unsurprising that white women on social media are doing the most with the least self-awareness. I asked Sandra:
Emily: Can you explain the @soyouwanttotalkabout scandal? What are your thoughts on it?
Sandra: To summarize, @soyouwanttotalkabout originated in February 2020 as an anonymous Instagram account posting infographics about current events and the history behind them.
I personally had never heard about this account until June 2020, when the police killed a Black man and everyone suddenly decided they cared about it. While the Instagram infographic culture of June 2020 makes me cringe, it was kind of a nice time when white people couldn’t post on Instagram if it wasn’t BLM-related.3
In everyone’s attempt to raise awareness, @soyouwanttotalkabout gained a massive following, no doubt because of its ability to summarize complex political events into a narrative palatable for the short attention spans of those in the TikTok generation. I’m not going to lie, I followed this account because it was able to capture a lot of my ideas but didn’t require me to have knowledge of Photoshop.
The controversy started in August 2021 when the creator shared a post about a government deportation project that used a slur. The creator (who had previously revealed her name to be Jess but had shared no other identifying information) apologized, stating that the person they had collaborated with on the post was the one who used the slur and that she did not want to censor them. Then the backlash started— obviously, as cancel culture is inescapable.
After people called her out, she put out a Canva version of a Notes-App apology— in millennial pink of course. One thing I found very interesting in her apology is that she emphasizes that this is NOT an “anti-racism” page and that she is NOT an anti-racist educator. While I don’t disagree, I feel like that’s a bit misleading because I DO think people looked to this page to get educated about anti-racism.
To me, it feels like she got caught slacking and now is now feigning ignorance to excuse her using a racist term. No offense to you or any of your readers, but this is peak white woman behavior. It’s very much giving me Amy Cooper-Central-Park-Karen energy.
To top the story off, she got further canceled when people realized that she was shopping a book deal about this Instagram page. This is problematic because she basically stole the name of the page from black woman author, Ijeoma Oluo who authored the book So You Want to Talk About Race in 2018. To compare, the @soyouwanttotalkabout Instagram has 2.8m followers while Oluo only has 524k followers.
To paraphrase Miranda Priestly: “A white woman? Stealing from a Black woman? Groundbreaking.”
My main point here is that what the creator of this Instagram page did is nothing new— she benefited from the work of a Black woman and other people of color, was told she was wrong, changed the name of the page, and carried on business as usual.
Not gonna lie, as I’m writing this, I’ve gotten so heated that I just unfollowed the page on Instagram.
Emily: A couple of months ago, I talked with Taylor McGhee about how social media activism often desensitizes people to the issues that drive social movements and depersonalizes the people who are at the forefront of causes. Do you agree with this, and if you do, do you think there’s any way around these issues?
Sandra: I 100% agree.
I think people are totally desensitized to the impacts of social media activism. I think everyone really wants to be helpful, but I don’t think people realize how exhausting it is to be constantly surrounded by politics when it has to do with your real life.
As a living, breathing, Black person, I know that if the police pull me over I could die. I know that I could get discriminated against while applying for a job. I live with all of these things every single day, and sometimes I just want to go on Instagram and look at Bachelor memes. I don’t need to be constantly reminded about how the world is messed up in literally every single way.
But considering how most white people only have white friends, I don’t think that this phenomenon will change as long as people like the creator of @soyouwantotalkabout exist and make it too easy to forget about the issues at the center of social movements.
Emily: Are infographics actually helpful? Or are they just aesthetically pleasing wastes of space?
Sandra: I go back and forth on this one.
I think that as a whole, they are helpful in that they are genuinely exposing people to information that they might not have heard. But I think that thanks to the American education system, people don’t really have the critical thinking skills to distill what is perhaps an exaggeration, what is perhaps not the complete truth.
I think people who post these infographics have a responsibility to their audiences to rigorously fact check and post their sources because I think if you post something that shows somewhat of an un- or poorly researched opinion, you’re actively harming the people you’re wanting to help because you’re giving people misinformation.
I just think it’s such a complicated issue and I think something else that came out of the Instagram infographic culture is the Instagram infographic to leftist pipeline.
Instagram infographic culture has convinced people that they are “radicalized.” While it has brought to light a lot of systemic injustices in our society, I think at the same time, for example, it’s like you’re on Instagram telling people not to vote for Joe Biden because he’s harmed different communities that you’re not a part of.
For you to go on Instagram and say “Don’t vote for Joe Biden” because you read a bunch of infographics about the 1994 Crime Bill— I’m a living, breathing Black person and I obviously wasn’t happy but I voted for Joe Biden because I feel like objectively, it is a better situation. For people who aren’t part of these communities to go on Instagram and say “He’s hurting these communities!” I’m like what the fuck are you talking about?
I think that Instagram has allowed people to think they’re much more radical than they are and I think a lot of the time, people try on this radicalism as a costume. I feel like for white people, it’s so much easier because it’s not their real lives. It’s like you put on your social media activist costume and then you find a boyfriend who’s a conservative and then you take your costume off. I think a lot of white people see politics and all of these things as a kind of game.
Like the Outdoor Voices commercial that plays every third commercial during Hulu ad breaks says: “You’ve got to grow, you’ve got to change”
Social media is just your outwards-facing personality— or your sun sign, if you’re cool enough to get that. Real work and growth take place offline (and often not even among others). But as we’ve established before in this little newsletter, there is no escaping social media in this lifetime.
With that in mind, I wanted to know if there are any ways to make our personal feeds a little less performative. I asked Sandra:
Emily: Do you think that when people who have grown and changed their opinions share things that they now believe, should they put a disclaimer saying something like, “I used to do or think something. This is how I’ve changed. This is what I’ve used to educate myself?”
Sandra: I think a disclaimer is absolutely necessary. If you don’t put a disclaimer like, “Yeah, I’ve been problematic in the past,” people will pull up the receipts. I feel like that’s way more embarrassing—to have someone call you out on that behavior being performative versus just acknowledging it.
I always joke that cancel culture has gone too far but at the same time, I think people should get canceled for things they said when they were 16. I feel like at 16, you should have enough critical thinking skills to not be saying the n-word.
My official take on posting on Instagram thing is that you can repost infographics but I would add your own commentary. That’s when I think it’s good because it shows that you’re engaging with the content and you actually have thoughts about what is being said. You’re not just like, “Oh this is a pretty picture. Let me like reshare it.”
Emily: One side of my family is predominantly Republican and when I was younger, they used to tell me, “When you get older, you’ll move further to the right. You’ll realize. You’re young and so you’re liberal in your 20’s and stuff but then you’ll move over.” I remembered this belief of theirs when you were saying about how to white people, leftist politics are like a costume and how our conversations ended up being me just having to defend against what they thought of my beliefs rather than why I believed them.
Sandra: When people post all their infographics and all these things, I’m like you’re probably posting to like a 90% liberal bubble. Instead of telling me —a Black person— about how the police shooting Black people is wrong, why don’t you go fight your racist uncle at Thanksgiving?
Obviously, family is hard. I think the Trumpers and the Alt-Right are too far gone to like reason with them but I think at the end of the day, you’re going to have a bigger impact offline and in your real life than you are going to on Instagram.
Emily: So what you’re also saying is if your boyfriend is posting stuff that he does not believe in on social media and you know it, you should break up with him?
Sandra: Break up with your boyfriend if you believe in social justice.
I actually think that pushing men to the left— if women were genuinely like, “I will not date you if you don’t get vaccinated” instead of being complacent, I do think that men would take more time to think a little more critically. I don’t know if that’s a hot take or not.
Emily: I think it is, but it’s one that I would love to see in action.
Thank you so much to Sandra for answering all of these and more!!! I have it on good authority that she has applied to be on a certain TV show, so cross your fingers that she’ll end up on it for the right reasons!!!!
In the age of social media and instant gratification, it can feel like you’ve “done enough” once you’ve shared something online (and I’m not holier than thou— I’m writing this because I know the feeling). But as we all know, social media is not real life, and real life can not fit into 10 Canva slides or one summer.
As I’ve said before in this little section down here in many different ways: don’t be a dick. Keep trying to learn and be better (not to be confused with Be Best…. we couldn’t secure that brand sponsorship).
Sidebar: I did some light detailed Canva work.
Is it because doing so requires us to face the fact that we have been complicit in white supremacy in certain ways of act and thought that are not blatant but are still harmful?
“Fun fact: at that time I did lose a friend —a white liberal— because I told him he probably shouldn’t have posted a birthday Instagram story in the middle of everyone posting resources for people detained or injured at protests.” —Sandra