if i were to make an angry Instagram slideshow.

a note about social media in a time of genocide | + lists, links, recs <3

Dear ones, 

As I’ve mentioned before, I find myself, amidst the genocide in Palestine, thinking a lot about the movement to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. International solidarity has only taken so many forms—there’s a lot of recycling of tactics and then, inevitably, the criticisms and arguments about those tactics, both within and outside of Left and other radical spaces. The militant actions get peace policed, respectability politics encourages “outside agitator” rhetoric, the giant protests take center stage until people get tired, the vanguardist groups start getting called out, wash, rinse, repeat. And the bombs don’t stop. 

I’m sorry to start with despair, but I imagine I am not alone in feeling it. 

The thing that is decidedly different this time around is social media. And I know any of us who exist online have been inundated with not just the horrific images of violence in Palestine, but also a lot of meta-discourse about the correct way to bear witness, when and what to post, when it’s too late to post, the power or lack thereof of posting, and so on. It’s been unsettling, to say the least, to stomach the horror and also process the stern talking-tos, or Correct Analysis™, or full on call outs that it seems many of us are getting everyday. And after an atrocity like the air strike at the refugee camp in Rafah on Sunday, that genre of post escalates. This is an entirely understandable trauma response, an entirely sympathetic impulse to urgency. I have no doubt that anyone who writes or shares these kind of “FUCK YOU YOU’RE DOING GENOCIDE RESISTANCE WRONG” posts has the absolute best intentions: they want the genocide to stop. I’ve surely, over the past decade of social media, re-posted things that have this tone, especially in moments of heightened pain. I get it, but I’ll also go on record to say I really don’t like it. 

(Now here’s the ironic part where I give what I think is a correct, or at least better, analysis of what’s going on with social media in this moment.) 

This is what I think social media has been useful for since October 7th: 

• sharing on-the-ground footage of war/genocide (check out the documentary Control Room to learn how incredibly difficult this was during the Iraq/Afghanistan wars). Whether or not people choose to repost videos of murdered Palestinians is an emotionally brutal conversation that is better had off a platform that spikes our cortisol. There will always be people who feel the urge to watch and share, and there will be many who don’t; neither option stops a US-backed ethnostate from dropping their missiles. 

• spreading videos of the mass protests so that Palestinians can see there is global support; this is a tactic I feel personally sad about after participating in and organizing so many of these marches in the 00s, knowing they won’t stop the bombs, but we’ve heard Palestinians say it’s mattered, emotionally, and I’m glad. 

• providing information about the history of Palestine (though of course misinformation on the internet abounds and for every accurate post there is an inaccurate post). Also, being a platform for people (including many Jewish people) to say clearly, concisely, and repeatedly that being anti-Zionist is not the same as being antisemitic. 

• and maybe most importantly: it’s been a place to share links to GoFundMe’s and eSim fundraisers that get resources into the hands of Palestinians fighting for survival. 

People who aren’t on social media can find ways to engage in almost the same ways, so it’s confusing to me when so much weight is put on how we behave in these little apps. I do think it’s useful when people with some semblance of power or influence speak against the genocide because it has the potential to make it less scary for their audience to do the same, but I don’t know if it’s valuable to spend energy getting angry when historically politically uninteresting celebs/influecers persist in being politically uninteresting. (Nor to spend energy getting mad when a celebrity eventually does post; Margeaux Feldman wrote a thoughtful piece on resisting the urge to say ‘too little too late.’) 

I’m starting to feel like the same asshole who writes the “you’re doing it wrong” posts, so let me clarify that I’m not suggesting anyone stop what they’re doing, and reiterate that I see the value in a lot of social media activism-adjacent work. My distaste for these kinds of posts actually means that I, as a person with agency, get to decide how much time I want to spend on social media (answer: less and less). 

(Here’s the next ironic part where I give my correct, or at least better, analysis of what it might take to stop the bombs.) 

If I were to make an angry Instagram slideshow, here’s what it would say: You can’t stop wars and genocides unless you stop states. Stopping wars once they’ve begun requires mass resistance from within the ranks of the aggressor’s military (the chances that there will be a substantially large enough Israeli Soldiers Against the War group is slim to none); destroying the machinery of war through acts of criminalized sabotage (most people are too scared to do this, usually myself included, and too many people won’t even support other people doing it, so it’s never been enough); or blocking the funding Israel needs to constantly replenish its arsenal; currently after eight months of this, Genocide Joe has only gently asked Israel to maybe tone it down a notch. He’s drawn a few lines in the sand—don’t intentionally attack aid convoys, make sure to minimize civilian casualties, don’t invade Rafah—and then he’s gaslit the whole world when Israel has done exactly those things without a whisper of rebuke from their number one ally. In the meantime, the US is still funneling billions of dollars to the IOF. We cannot appeal to the moral conscience of a state that does not have one. 

The thing that actually gives me hope is that people are starting to realize this; that masses of young people (and people of all generations, really) are seeing the holes in the purported logic of the US nation state; starting to understand that it makes absolutely no sense to support a system that gives billions of dollars to murdering people an ocean away but can’t feed or house or educate its own citizens. That Biden is no lesser evil; that everyone is evil in a system that requires it. 

The end of my rant might go like this: Stop being dismissive of radical movements. Stop rolling your eyes at the ostensibly utopian dreams of your anti-capitalist and anti-state friends. It’s far more unrealistic to imagine persuading the US to stop supporting genocide than it is to imagine abolishing every state and taking care of each other without presidents. Find your local anarchist or anti-state Marxist or Indigenous group and see how you can be part of movement work that is committed to liberation from imperialism, colonialism, ecocide. Or, just be a better neighbor; get to know the people on your block, build relationships that will be supportive as we all move into escalating collapse. Stop giving time and money to electoral politics (if you have money to give, get it directly to people who need it, not to red-tape nonprofits). Stop telling those of us who have already walked away from that delusion that we’re making it worse for people (worse for whom? what Palestinian thinks Biden is better than Trump?). Believe that a world without domination is possible, because then you can believe that a world without genocide is possible. 

…But I’m not going to post that on social media. I’m writing it here, with context and a bit of embarrassed apologia. Take it or leave it; newsletters are even easier to ignore than an Instagram story, and they don’t have the same tendency to fuck with our nervous systems. If it made you think differently, cool. If not, thanks for being here all the same. And also— something much harder to do on social media—feel free to ask me questions. I don’t respond to all DMs, but I eventually respond to all my emails (and comments, also a great place to ask so other people can see). I’m happy to be in dialogue about some of these ideas, or at least share resources for further reading.

I love you. And I believe another world is possible. 

***

Below, a roundup of readings on topics from Palestine to Miranda July; a dreamy musical drama; some Girls nostalgia; the delights of vegan lemon cake, and more. <3 

love & solidarity,

raechel 

Reading. 

• Related to the above, this is a beautifully written reflection from Charlotte Shane about our collective responses to the genocide. As I discuss above, I don’t necessarily share the same outrage over people’s silence, but I still appreciate how she writes on it. I also love her reflection on how this kind of atrocity drives even the most a-spiritual to the sacred: “I’m not capable of conceiving, in the physical realm, a radiant force that would match the interminable loss and destruction. So what does that leave? That leaves God. To see the antithesis of God is to see proof of God.”