‘Influencers In The Wild’ And The Problems Of Performative Anti-Racist Activism

The wave of Black Lives Matter protests and action following the murder of George Floyd has in many ways been intrinsically linked to social media. Twitter and Instagram have been places where information has been shared, conversations started and news and updates written.

Of course, social media has also been a place for trolls, unhelpful arguments and out and out racism. And it’s also been a place where many influencers have recently seen themselves fall foul of embarrassing efforts at performative activism – that’s to say, making out like you’re in support of a cause, as part of a performance. A performance to make yourself look good. A performance that’s probably not backed up with any intention to do the necessary anti-racist work behind the scenes.

The accountInfluencers In The Wild has been at the forefront of exhibiting some of the worst cases of this. The Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok account have caught influencers acting atrociously, posing near Black Lives Matters protests as picture opportunities.

One of those busted was Russian influencer Kris Schatzel, who can be seen posing in a black sheer gown in front of photographer Mila Voyna as they try to get the perfect shot. Ironically, that post has now gone viral, and Schatzel deleted her Twitter and made her Instagram page private.

According to The Mirror, she then posted on her stories later, saying: ‘This is a huge misunderstanding!!! Later I will explain everything an apologize! My intention was never to disrespect the movement but to add to the movement the way that I know how. Peace.’

While we must assume these influencers meant no harm, the idea that these are just a few outlandish types that are so bad it’s almost funny, is to side-step the issue. Obviously, first, it’s not funny – it’s outrageous.

And secondly, as many of us are learning, the ongoing battle to be anti-racist isn’t just in the macro and the obvious, but in unpicking the daily micro-aggressions and racist behaviours we may have committed and condoned in the past, even unknowingly. In the same way, many have been left upset by various behaviours of Instagrammers and Influencers that are just as bad or insidious in ways they might not have at first thought about.

Influencers in recent weeks have been called out on a number of bad behaviours. Accounts have attracted fury for posting messages about the death of George Floyd and Black Live Matter protests alongside images of selfies, or pretty dresses. Some influencers have switched quickly from a black square to promoting products from brands - even some with a known bad track record in diversity - the next day. Some have previously been caught in racist issues before – and are now saving Black Lives Matter highlights at the top of their feeds. And when some have made mistakes – as sometimes we all do – they’ve not apologised, or have and then exacerbated those problems by blocking black voices and detractors, deleting posts and closing comments.

Former Love Island contestant Yewande Biala has 827k followers - with almost a million people looking at her posts, she understands how important a platform can be.

'Social media can be an amazing platform! It has been a key instrument for connecting with people around the world to push the black lives matter campaign,' she said. 'Most Influencers have done an amazing job with sharing petitions, calling out brands and bringing light to certain situations.

'But unfortunately we have some influencers who haven’t done a great job. We had a vegan influencer who compared black lives to animal lives when she said “Black lives and animal lives matter”, which is not only offensive, but disrespectful, embarrassing and despicable behaviour!

'Some white influencers have used the black lives matter protests as a way to gain more black influencers by going to the protest to get “Instagram pictures” to show their support. In the 19th century, white actors would darken their skin to create caricatures of black people perpetuating a range of negative stereotypes of black men and women. And there have been some influencers who have pictured themselves wearing black face to support Black Lives Matter! We didn’t ask you to. Please stop and educate yourself!'

As Yewande notes, some white influencers and those with an audience on Instagram (from actors to authors) have been attempting to change their own perspectives and others’, trying to do the work and encourage people to do the same.

One white Instagram influencer I spoke to said it’s been uncomfortable watching ‘peers’ totally miss the point.

‘It's been cringe-worthy to see some of the performative posts from influencers and brands on social media recently,’ they told Grazia. ‘Amongst those who genuinely seem keen to learn and change and contribute towards the anti-racism fight, it seems like there are some who feel they should say something because everyone else is, and then bided their time until they could start posting outfit shots and interiors posts again. I guess that's reflective of normal life? Some of your friends will GET THIS and some might just humour listening to you talking about racism and then change the subject.

‘When I say it's been tricky, being a white influencer in the past couple of weeks, I say that with the HUGE caveat of “Anything us white folks are going through now is nothing compared with the generations of racism and abuse that black people have suffered”. It's been tricky because as a white person, I'm having to sit with a lot of discomfort around my white privilege, the fact I've benefited from systemic racism and that despite speaking up about racism a number of times in the past, I'm still not doing enough. But the point is - it's meant to feel uncomfortable. It's not meant to feel easy.'

It's always been easy to knock social media and say it’s a place only for bad – at the other end of the spectrum, sometimes it can look as if there’s too much good if you find yourself locked in an echo chamber. Largely though, it’s an ouput of society and therefore – for the good and bad – reflects it.

As in real life then, we can’t always be sure of everyone’s motives - at least not yet. It’s easy to call out influencers who have been ‘gotcha-ed’ pretending to drill boarded up shops, or checking they've got the right light for an insta-perfect shot. But it’s still, yet, not easy to tell who will commit to being anti-racist moving forward, and who won’t learn anything and make the same mistakes again. We can't predict the future and for many people, only time will tell if their words and pictures meet their actions.

READ MORE: Why Posting A Black Square On Instagram Isn’t Enough

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