Field Note: Has Protesting Gone out of Fashion?

One way or the other, we will get there.

I’ve been thinking about protesting lately. Not any specific protest, but the act of protesting. And I can’t help but wonder: Is protesting out of fashion? Is it still effective? Or have we reached a point where it feels more like performance than pressure?

I remember the Hong Kong protests from a few years ago. Like, it was practically the entire city. protesting and yet… nothing really came of it. No liberation from Hong Kong and the deal between China and Britain continued on. Same thing, in a different way, with the George Floyd protests. It was supposedly nationwide. Also supposedly the biggest in U.S. history. And I think it maybe resulted in some bill or act? I’m not entirely sure. And that says a lot.

So, I wonder if the protesting just hasn’t evolved. It still looks and operates like it did in the ‘60s with big crowds, signs, chanting. On the other hand though, the system that is protested against, that has evolved. It’s digital and distant now. Perhaps even more apathetic. It’s harder to reach or disrupt in the way protesting was originally designed to do. I mean, if the politician you’re protesting is working from home in Vermont, does standing outside their D.C. office even matter?

Also, let’s be real, protesting is risky. You step outside that comfort bubble and you could lose your job, get arrested, or get doxxed. And honestly, people today, whether they'll admi it or not, are really comfortable. Like, Tinder, DoorDash, air conditioning, TikTok, Netflix all allow the common folk to live more comfortable than any king merely 200 years ago. The system doesn’t need to violently suppress you if it can just keep you inside on the couch. Perhaps comfort is the new oppression.

And then there’s "digital protesting". Remember during the George Floyd protests when people changed their profile pictures into black screenshots on Instagram? It was called “protesting.” That’s wild to me. It felt more like a social signal than an actual act of resistance. Almost like a new kind of ritual. You post the square, feel like you “did something,” and then the urgency is gone. Like the box is checked. You’ve been seen. Now back to scrolling.

And that’s the thing, I feel like people are being tricked into thinking that awareness = action. That visibility is the end goal, not the beginning. But that’s not how anything gets done. That’s not how you change policy or shift power. It’s how you look like you care without ever being uncomfortable.

I don’t really know what protesting is supposed to look like today. I just know the current model doesn’t seem to work. The people you’re trying to reach can’t hear you. Or worse, they can hear you and just don’t care.

P.S. I apologize if you got semantic satiation for the word "protest".