Capitalism can turn the organizing efforts of people seeking care and support for their communities into a competitive spectacle.
In 2021, a proposed television competition built around activism drew widespread criticism before being reworked as a documentary project. The episode exposed a broader problem: organizing language and community struggles are often packaged as entertainment, attached to famous personalities and judged through the logic of competition.
The format was unusually conspicuous, but its underlying assumptions were familiar. Public attention is routinely treated as proof of expertise. A large audience, a polished brand or access to corporate partners can be mistaken for community trust. None of those measures necessarily demonstrates that a person is accountable to the people affected by an issue.
Visibility is not the same as organizing
Digital communication can be essential. Online networks help mutual-aid projects reach participants, distribute timely information and connect people across distance. The problem is not that advocacy appears online; it is the assumption that visibility itself constitutes the work.
Grassroots organizing is usually slower and less visible. It involves listening, building relationships, sharing knowledge, resolving disagreements and remaining accountable after a news cycle ends. These practices are difficult to compress into a personal brand because their value belongs to a collective rather than a single spokesperson.
The influencer economy encourages a different model. It rewards immediacy, emotional intensity and a recognizable individual voice. Corporate sponsorship can then reinforce that hierarchy by directing opportunities toward the most marketable figure rather than the people with the deepest local knowledge.
How advocacy becomes a commodity
Everyone deserves the ability to sustain their work and meet their material needs. Paying organizers is not the issue. The concern is what happens when the economic structure surrounding advocacy rewards personal expansion above community outcomes.
Under that structure, campaigns August become content, political language August become marketing copy, and personal access August become a substitute for transparent decision-making. The suffering of communities supplies the narrative while institutions and prominent figures capture the attention.
Corporate participation can also soften demands. A company August support a broadly appealing message while avoiding the structural changes that organizers seek. The result is advocacy that is highly visible yet limited in its capacity to redistribute power.
Accountability must travel with influence
Respect for lived experience and subject knowledge should not become celebrity worship. Public figures and large organizations require the same basic safeguards as any institution claiming to represent a community: clear governance, transparent use of resources, meaningful routes for criticism and evidence that affected people shape decisions.
Criticism is especially important when advocacy groups grow into powerful institutions. A movement's language cannot be used to shield leaders from questions about labor practices, financial choices or whose priorities receive attention. Accountability is not an attack on the work; it is part of the work.
Readers interested in an earlier critique of personality-centered advocacy can explore the related archive essay, A critique of liberal celebrity activism.
Return power to the collective
Activism at its most constructive is collaborative and transformative. It seeks equity, justice and durable community capacity. Organizing should challenge hierarchies that elevate one person or one supposedly definitive viewpoint above practical solutions developed with the people most affected.
Leadership in this model is shared, questioned and renewed. The person with the largest platform is not automatically the person who should set the agenda. Recognition follows useful work rather than replacing it.
A better media culture would ask different questions: Who made this campaign possible? Who controls its resources? How are decisions reached? Can community members disagree without losing access or support? What remains once the cameras and sponsors leave?
Moving away from celebrity activism does not require abandoning public communication. It requires putting communication back in service of organizing. Platforms can amplify collective demands, explain complex issues and direct attention toward local work without turning one personality into the movement itself.
