Performing virtue online can crowd out actual behind-the-scenes solidarity and relationship building

Evidence

The students I teach are troubled by where all of this doubling is leading. Nonetheless, almost all feel duty bound to participate in creating their own digital doubles on social media (as do I). One student shared that she had gotten off Instagram because the pressures to perform an idealized version of herself, and the inundations of images of others doing the same, were ravaging her mental health. But then came the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings. “My friends all told me I had to get back on Instagram and post pro-BLM,” she said, “or everyone would think I was racist”—this despite the fact that she had been participating in all the protests in her area, albeit in a quiet, behind-the-scenes way. She logged back on and posted, but reluctantly; she knew there was something wrong with a culture that valued public performances of a virtuous self over more tangible solidarities and relationship building. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 197

Categorization

• SEED: The student’s dilemma — coerced public anti-racism performance penalizing quiet practitioners — is a strong essay angle about performative activism vs. tangible solidarity.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader thesis about left-wing self-presentation and how the Mirror World metabolizes abandoned grievances; also resonates with performative allyship critiques.