Performative wokeness, or virtue signalling, is a way people can appear to be ‘woke’ or politically correct without actually engaging in discourse around the subject. This ‘wokeness’ is dangerous because it provides a façade behind which we can do the bare minimum whilst appearing to do more. It suggests an artificiality to our compassion and humanitarianism, and most of all suggests a temporality. This type of wokeness is dripping in privilege: the person in question is able to jump on and off the ‘woke’ bandwagon when it suits their image best. Meanwhile, those impacted by the social injustice that the performative wokeness claims to combat have no choice but to suffer. To put it plainly, to perform one’s ‘wokeness’ is a choice and that choice to engage in these topics is a privilege.

The following days after George Floyd’s murder, my Instagram feed was full of posts supporting Black Lives Matter, posts calling for the defunding of police, posts calling for racial justice and highlighting racial inequalities in our society. At first glimpse, it looked like hope: a hope that maybe, just maybe, people were beginning to get it. It looked like things were going to change and racial discourses would continue. However, I remember the outcry on social media when it was Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Philando Castille, Breonna Taylor; I remember the swift silence after a few weeks. In fact, as I was researching for this article, I typed into Google ‘performative wokeness’ and articles from 2014 about the dangers of the term popped up. People have been performing their activism online for years, so why do they continue to do so? I watched on social media as the whole world jumped on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon for the month of June and then went back to posting pictures of summer fun.