Roxane Gay has a thoughtful look back at the “year of reckoning” that was 2013, when all manner of folks were called out, from Justine Sacco to the Boston bombers to R. Kelly. Yay for righteous outrage! Except…what hypocrisies and destructions are also wrought on the amped-up battlefield of outrage where we’ve come to live online? Is Twitter outrage our new communal tradition a la the executions in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”?
We all have plenty to gain from righteous online activism. Gay’s brave enough to ask out loud what we also have to lose.
A common thread between the most powerful hashtags this year is that many were created by women and/or people of color, people whose voices are all too often marginalized in the forums where they most need to be heard. These hashtags not only inspired necessary conversations, they were the catalyst for all manner of activism.
Social media is something of a double-edged sword. At its best, social media offers unprecedented opportunities for marginalized people to speak and bring much needed attention to the issues they face. At its worst, social media also offers everyone an unprecedented opportunity to share in collective outrage without reflection. In the heat of the moment, it encourages us to forego empathy.
