The Digital Sackcloth and Ashes

Performative Outrage and the Cost of Moral Theater in the Digital Age

There is a strange kind of social currency in the air these days, and it's not traded in silence, reflection, or reasoned action. It's outrage. Not just your own—but the insistence that everyone around you perform it on command, at volume, and with proper costume and hashtags.

You've probably seen it: a crisis unfolds—real, devastating, worthy of grief and engagement—and within moments, the Outrage Police are scrolling your feed, silently judging, or openly posting, "Why haven't you said anything about this?" or “Why have you posted something whimsical today? Don’t you know the house is on fire?” As if your moral compass is broken unless it registers a public reading.

There's an implicit assumption that if you're not loud, you're complicit. If you're not resharing infographics, updating profile pictures, marching in the street, or metaphorically (or literally) gluing yourself to a Van Gogh at MoMA, you must be fine with injustice. Never mind that outrage expressed this way can often devolve into theater. What matters now is the appearance of caring—the right caption, the appropriately solemn tone.

The digital sackcloth and ashes.

But what are we to do when we're genuinely devastated, yet quiet? When we grieve in private, process slowly, or act in ways that don't include a megaphone?

We're left with a question that gnaws at the edges of sanity in our hyper-mediated age: Is moral worth now determined by a rage ritual of volume and virality?

Of course, this is not to dismiss the value of protest, advocacy, or raising awareness. History is shaped by those willing to stand up and shout when the moment demands it. But there is a difference between calling attention to injustice and demanding uniform displays of outrage like some bizarre civic religion.

Performative empathy isn't empathy.

Rage cosplay isn't courage.

The deeper issue is this: outrage, when compulsory, becomes a conformity test, not a catalyst for change. It creates a moral monoculture where nuance is heresy, hesitation is betrayal, and silence is violence. People who are deeply thinking, investigating, questioning, or even actively working behind the scenes are cast aside because they didn't perform fast enough for the algorithm.

There's a term in psychology—emotional coercion—which feels apt here. It's the expectation that others will feel and show emotion the same way you do, or else you see them as defective or unfeeling.

But humans don't process grief, injustice, or chaos in the same way. Nor should they be required to.

Beyond the Performance

So what are we to do?

Should we rend our garments in the town square? Hang banners from monuments? Self-immolate in the town plaza of Twitter? Dementedly throw soup on the Mona Lisa? Or, more productively, should we recognize that real change rarely arrives from flash mobs of online outrage? That sometimes, quieter forms of resistance—diligent organizing, thoughtful conversations, votes cast, donations well spent, students mentored, policies reformed—make the most lasting impact?

If your outrage leads you to meaningful action, Godspeed. But if it curdles into shaming others for not emoting on your schedule, maybe it's worth interrogating whether you're fighting for justice… or for attention.

In fact, research indicates that performative outrage—especially when it manifests as public shaming or purity tests—can backfire, alienating potential allies and diverting attention from meaningful action. Such dynamics can fracture movements and impede progress, as the focus shifts from collective goals to individual displays of virtue.

The Cost of Real Engagement

At the risk of sounding like I’m indulging in a little outrage myself, I have to say: I take real umbrage at the smug dismissal from anonymous scolds nestled in digital comfort.

Come back and talk to me after you've stood on a televised debate stage with your integrity under assault. After your name's been dragged through the mud. After your family's been targeted for ridicule and harassment. After your motives, your finances, your very identity have been twisted into campaign fodder. After once wide-open career doors are quietly closed. After you have been threatened with bodily harm by strangers and people in authority.

You want to know what it means to fight for something real? Try that.

I've put my name on the line—publicly, not from behind a keyboard. I've stood for election, not for clout or clicks, but because I gave a damn. I've fought for what I believe in when it cost me dearly. These experiences have taught me the difference between performative posturing and meaningful action that carries real consequences.

This isn't to claim moral superiority—quite the opposite. It's a recognition that engagement takes many forms, and the loudest aren't always the most effective.

Unity in Diversity

Let's reject the false binary that says silence equals apathy and volume equals virtue. Let's allow for different emotional tempos. Let's give space for people to mean what they do—rather than merely show what they feel.

Things are bad right now—DEFCON 1 bad. But this constant internecine finger-pointing doesn't help. No one is ever pure enough, fired-up enough, true-blue enough for everyone. And that plays right into the hands of the people who benefit most from division.

Because they know: a divided opposition... is no opposition at all.

Fight for what you believe in. Just understand: not everyone marches to the same drum. Some organize. Some vote. Some write. Some build. Some reflect. Some teach. Some heal. To each their own mode of engagement.

What matters is that it's real.

Because in the end, civilization isn't saved by the noisiest—but by the most resolute. By those who who volunteer every day. By those who persist when the hashtags fade, when the cameras turn away, when the timeline moves on to the next crisis. By those who understand that lasting change requires more than momentary virtue-signaling outrage—it demands sustained attention, difficult conversations, and the humble, often invisible work of building a better world.