I’d like to believe that most people support causes because they believe in helping folks out and doing the right thing.
But, as I’m sure you already know, we live in a social-media-obsessed world where image is everything for some people.
And sometimes people latch onto the popular causes of the day because of how they think it will make them look…but how widespread is that phenomenon?
AskReddit users talked about whether or not most people only care about causes when they become trendy.
Let’s see what they had to say.
1. What’s up with that?
“Hence why literal g**ocides have been going on in China for years now and yet most people in my day-to-day life have no idea whatsoever.
Even when I tell them, they barely give it more than a seconds thought because IT ISN’T TRENDY and there’s nothing for them to gain socially by pretending to care.
But you better believe they’re radical followers of whatever Tik-Tok and their television screen is pushing at the moment.
Also, where are all of those young people who were suddenly civil-rights revolutionaries last summer? The trend d**d down and I haven’t seen them post anything about any of that ever since… It’s back to non-stop selfies and photos of Starbucks coffee.
What’s up with that?”
2. Inauthentic.
“This is why I didn’t do the ‘black out’ social media posting last year. I didn’t want to inauthentically hop on a trend.
I always sign petitions/ signal boost / etc any good cause I see, but I wasn’t going to intensively commit to something I wasn’t prepared to keep up when it comes to social media. It felt fake to do so.
I keep learning and growing as we all do, but that isn’t gonna take the sum of one summer when literally everyone else is talking about it for the same length of time.”
3. A lot of issues out there.
“Part of the issue is that there are so many issues that are important. Enough of us are working most of the time and can barely manage ourselves that even if we care about something, we don’t have time to be active, without potentially putting our own welfare at risk.
When “cause” trends go around, especially if it’s not your primary concern (for example maybe you’re more of an animal rights activists or environmentalist) posting a black square is like the easiest lift for people to say, yeah I’m solidarity.”
4. All support is good.
“Any form of support is good. Whether monetary or otherwise, just showing solidarity is important.
To me, that’s what the black square thing was about, showing the people on the street and, more importantly the white supremacists that are actively combatting that movement in that specific scenario, that the public is on their side.”
5. A hot take.
“I don’t care about social issues.
I know, I know. I should care about everyone and everything. I just can’t mentally handle it.
Sorry no matter how manipulative your language is I can only physically care about a certain amount of issues.
I know I am not cool and trendy, but I’m fine with that. Most people who support every social issue going on in the world tend to be miserable.”
6. Some perspective.
“At a certain point, there’s just so much s**t that is and has always been going on in the world so to assert that you have to care about all of it all the time is, I think, pretty naive.
You can’t only care about things that affect you but at the same time those things should be like 90% of your focus. You’re just begging for a poor mental state in exchange for not really being able to change much.
My personal view is that the ones out there railing about X Issue tend to be young people from wealthy families who haven’t had much adversity of their own to deal with but just want some instance of adversity to get emotionally invested in.”
7. The man in the mirror.
“It is much more effective to just be a better person than yesterday and help everyone around you whenever you can.
No need to find and stay 100% updated on all the highlighted issues of the society on the internet and exhaust your brain and energy on learning manipulative stuff and propagandas of big corporation’s/leaders to make some more bucks or gain some more control/power, while the homeless near you starves for the 2nd day.
The only thing that people should feel the need to change is the man in the mirror.”
8. Overwhelming.
“I don’t think it’s fair how we’re expected to care about everything.
I think if every person cared about one cause then that would be enough, instead of expecting people to advocate for every single group.”
9. Woke.
“Welcome to the 21st century my friend , where people only care about something when it benefits them in some way or are socially pressured into thinking they need to care about something when they really don’t .
Honestly pretty much everyone ( obviously an exaggeration because there a few who genuinely care about the cause ) only care about something when it’s popular to support it , care or h**e on it for some reason or another .
And they couldn’t care less to get to the root of these issues or why they even exist in the first place , because all they care about is looking morally superior/woke or whatever and riding on their moral high horse while looking down on others , as if they’re so superior.”
10. Hashtag activism.
“Hashtag activism gives the individual a dopamine rush with minimal effort.
Basically it’s just a drug hit of self-righteous feel good bullc**p.”
11. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“There are many world problems people don’t talk about. I wish caring about all injustice and pain in the world was trendy so more people could be informed.”
12. Isn’t helping.
“It is called virtue signalling. Celebrities do this all of the time.
Wokeness is also the same thing and hurts certain campaigns rather than helping them.”
What do you think about this?
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