Talk:Performative activism

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Brigitw.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

25 April 2021

Is Performative Activism inherently bad? How can we work to educate those individuals? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brigitw (talk • contribs) 23:02, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

26 April 2021

The term "performative activism" is a nonsense term, this can be proved by simple research on wikipedia. Or rather, Performative simply does not mean "fake" performative activism would then be activism through performance like political theatre and protest demonstrations. This article should just link to "slacktivism," or at the very least there needs to be clarification that this is not associated with actual "Performatives" and captures a specific period in 2020. Ideally "performative activism" would be included as a subheading of slacktivism. Studies of performatives were crucial in recognizing the legitimacy of queer and specifically trans people. The existence of an article on "performative activism" as a cultural page is antiTrans. The existence of this as a separate article delegitimizes Wikipedia, plus it is not enough actual information to constitute its own article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7000:a703:c99c:74d7:2b34:bc4f:9889 (talk) 26 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Original research, notability

I'm concerned with the way sources in this article are seemingly being used to draw conclusions not stated in the sources themselves. Take the first paragraph in the section on the George Floyd protests:

The term rose in popularity following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. The Los Angeles Times wrote that students have warned against engaging in performative activism online. On May 28, 2020, Rice University student Summar McGee founded Rice For Black Life to help promote fundraising for Texas-based non-profits and to not go through bureaucratic processes of other organizations on-campus. McGee and Kendall Vining, another member of the organization, expressed that this type of "nonhierarchical activism helps avoid performative allyship and activism." Social media has become a tool for genuine discussion. Many people have begun their journey of anti-racism on various social media platforms. On June 1, while expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the George Floyd protests, singer Lorde stated, "One of the things I find most frustrating about social media is performative activism, predominantly by white celebrities (like me). It's hard to strike a balance between self-serving social media displays and true action."

Sources

It's not clear where any of the sources directly state that the term "rose in popularity" following the murder of George Floyd or that "Social media has become a tool for genuine discussion". These statements look like original research. In the article generally, I'm not seeing sources directly mentioning the topic of "performative activism" itself. Most are simply examples of trivial usage of the term by various commentators. Unless sources can be found that explicitly mention the topic, it may not be notable enough for a standalone article. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:34, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

At first glance, it does seem notable as indicated by a simple frequency count of the term and/or the concept thereof in RSes. But I concur that caution should be given when a mention of the phrase is merely a passing reference in an article/commentary that discusses something else. On the other hand, I believe the requirement on RSes should not be so narrow as to focus solely on the etymology. Normchou ^💬 03:08, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I implied that RSes should focus solely on the etymology. My point is that we need sources that discuss the topic of performative activism in reasonable depth. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:33, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• I've undertaken a large cleanup of the article, scrapping the unsourced statements and all the editorials and trivial mentions. What's left is much smaller, but I believe this satisfies the concerns regarding OR and notability. If notability is still an issue, I wouldn't object to an AFD. Please ping me if there are any concerns. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 21:21, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

"Theactrivism"

I was able to find a blog post from 2012 describing a similar phemonemon: https://alfredmacdonald.com/2012/12/17/theactrivism/. Maybe that's worth looking into? Lizardcreator (talk) 20:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

History section

The first story in the history section is not at all relevant to the page’s insistence that “performative activism” is fake and really highlights what “performative” actually means in a philosophical context. By embracing performance art techniques they were successful in protest.

This article should be deleted, as “performative activism” is a nonsense term used by people to sound smart even though “performative” is already a concept. See its Wikipedia page 2603:7000:A700:4EB9:54B3:D414:E9D0:E1E0 (talk) 20:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

"Performative feminism" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Performative feminism has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 May 26 § Performative feminism until a consensus is reached. Vivb1 (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

August 2025

This article needs serious work and whenever I post with sources it’s deleted meanwhile the original article lacks any citations 24.102.66.168 (talk) 13:01, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

There are currently 14 sources listed under § References. Whether they meaningfully support the article text is another matter. I removed the blog post you added as a source because it is not reliable. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:44, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

They clearly don’t, and stop deleting my legitimate concerns! 2603:7000:A700:4EB9:A14F:C82D:E8D7:10AA (talk) 08:23, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Feel free to propose alternative sources or rewrites of the existing material. But talk pages are not for griping about the current status of the article. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:41, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I have, several books, but they are immediately deleted 2603:7000:A700:4EB9:2804:9B:488E:576E (talk) 13:57, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

What are these several books? I don't mean just add random blogs to the article, I mean post sources here for discussion, following the normal consensus-building process. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:01, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

"Pejorative term", "LGBTQ+"

Kutlaca & Radke (2023) specifically mention:

Adding rainbow filters in support of LGBTQ+ movements or changing profile pictures to black squares

as examples of performative activism. They further state:

performative is an adjective that denotes an action that has an artistic or acting performance. Applied to allyship and activism, the term gains a pejorative meaning, because it refers to actions that are enacted in front of an audience with the goal to gain popularity and respect rather than to challenge inequality [...]

The descriptors pejorative term and LGBTQ+ are therefore duly weighted in the lead section and should not be removed without good reasons based on similarly reliable sources. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:39, 9 December 2025 (UTC)