Monday open thread: Activism is not a game show
CBS wants the next revolution to be televised.
The network on Thursday announced a new five-week series called "The Activist," which will feature six activists from around the world competing against each other (in missions, media stunts, digital campaigns and community events) to promote health, educational and environmental causes. Their success, according to CBS, will be measured by online engagement, social metrics and input from the show's hosts: Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Julianne Hough.
In its news release, the show is described as one that "will inspire real change." But some organizers criticized the show's premise, accusing CBS of diminishing and profiting off the work of organizers and activists by making it more digestible and consumable for a larger mainstream audience.
Oh, people my people, where can I begin with this?
We had a president for eight years who began his political career as a community organizer, with only an inkling of using it as a stepping stone to greater things. The work was the only reason for what former President Barack Obama. It gave him the skills he would need to take the White House, but nothing was guaranteed.
Now we have our entertainment-industrial complex taking activism and turning it into a game show. To quote the commercial: That's not how any of this works.
This complex will take anything of note and turn it into a churn for dollars. Any idea, no matter how pure, how rooted in the community, will be usurped to bring in money for the complex.
This encapsulates the problem with turning activism into a game show:
"While Gen-Z and many 21st Century activists and grassroots organizations leverage the power of social media to make their movements known ... social media does not, cannot and should not determine the success of any issue, or any human being at all," activist Sofia Ongele, 20, told NBC News on Friday.
Ongele said she was approached for a show with this same premise in April, though she's not sure if it was "The Activist." She turned the opportunity down, she said, because "activism is neither a game nor a competition."
Our media betters seem unable to grasp that activism isn't a scam to wealth and fame. That activism is a calling in and of itself. That activists are trying to make the world a better place, and not just using it as a means to be media influencers.
Of course, some people are using activism as a grift. Cf. Shaun King. And it's the likes of him who will populate this show. Unserious grifters who will use the competition to line their pockets, and thus denigrate the true work of activists.
In general, I have no interest in these sorts of shows. I haven't watched any of them, nor will I this one. It's probably too late to stop its making; once the money is in the spigot, it's all go. But I urge anyone reading this to also not watch, and not let credence to this spectacle of so-called activists competing for a reality show. As I've written before, the times are too serious, and we can't afford fripperies.
This is your open thread.