By Bianca Reyes, Staff Writer
Being “woke” is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “[being] aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”. Woke culture has been ingrained in our society, from Twitter timelines being flooded with news about the Black Lives Matter movement to repetition of the phrase “stay woke” in Childish Gambino’s 2016 hit Redbone. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that activism has made a large impact on millennials and Generation Z.
Perhaps, given the definition, being woke would be considered a good thing—however, a subculture has developed in which people put themselves in a position where they might appear like they care about social justice in order to look more sophisticated and increase their “clout” when in reality, they couldn’t care less about those issues. This subculture has been aptly called “fake woke,” and is increasingly becoming a problem.
The concept of fake woke is a curious phenomenon. Faking activism and care for social justice issues in order to appear cool is odd and has reached a point wherein it is hard to decipher if one’s activism is genuine or not. As aggravating as this deceitful activism is, it typically would not be deemed that big of a deal, considering that there are bigger problems in the world that people can focus their energy on (e.g.: climate change, the 2020 presidential election, etc.). It does, however, transform into a bigger problem when large corporations exploit woke culture as marketing ploys.
Take this year’s pride month, for example. There were a multitude of brands that commemorated the LGBTQ+ community in some way, whether it be temporarily changing their logo to a rainbow or selling rainbow merchandise. One such variant of the latter was the sports brand Adidas. During June, Adidas sold what they dubbed as “pride packs”, a collection of various sports gear that had splashes of rainbows on them. Considering the fact that Adidas was one of the biggest sponsors for the 2018 World Cup that took place in Russia (a country that has some of the strictest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world), it begs the question as to whether their support for the community was authentic or not. Therein lies the problem with brands being fake woke—the disingenuous support for minority groups in order to capitalize off of them has become a commonplace.
Another branch of fake activism and possibly the most infamous and controversial is cancel culture. Cancel culture is described as a large group of people banding together on social media to ruin a celebrity’s reputation based on an accusation or interaction. While it first started as an informative way to spread information about a celebrity or influencer’s wrongdoings, cancel culture quickly turned into a toxic way to bash them for relatively small mistakes made in the past. The entire idea of cancel culture denies celebrities the basic right of growing and maturing while simultaneously propping them on a pedestal where they are not allowed to make simple, human mistakes.
Taking into account how common and widespread being fake woke is, it is no surprise that the effects have made an impact in the Bay Area. Some of the most prominent examples of this happening occurs when people who are not Black use the n-word and intentionally butcher African American Vernacular English (or, AAVE for short; slang such as sis, shade, tea)—even the word woke has black roots, making it apart of AAVE. Although use of the n-word by a non-black individual and AAVE are not necessarily things that strictly take place in the Bay Area, it seems to find its roots here. The same people who are allies of the Black Lives Matter movement slander the n-word despite African Americans continuously expressing their discomfort in non-black people using that slur.
Woke culture is not about speaking on issues when it is convenient or using your voice to “cancel” celebrities. It is realizing that you have a voice and that your voice can be used to encourage change. Although cancel culture may say otherwise, it is never too late to grow and change for the better.
