Gil Scott-Heron wrote the famous piece "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", suggesting that the true revolution happens away from the spotlight, beyond mediation and spectacle. Inspired by that idea, but looking at current paradigms, I wrote: A Revolução Vai Ser Instagramada / The Revolution Will Be Instagrammed.
In truth, I am not especially concerned with understanding what revolution is, but rather what it is not.
A recurring idea in the contemporary political imagination is that we live in an era of heightened political consciousness and intense mobilisation. It is believed that voices previously silenced now emerge with force, that historically invisible groups finally occupy spaces of expression, and that our generation — better informed and more vocal — is destined to confront inequalities and dismantle systems of oppression. In short, we are a revolutionary generation, or at least we wear the T-shirt with Che Guevara's face on it.
The thing is, the current landscape is far from homogeneous or progressive. Alongside movements that demand social justice, there also proliferate activisms that are openly anti-humanitarian, xenophobic, racist, homophobic, transphobic and authoritarian. Curiously, all of them see themselves as revolutionaries and agents of rupture against an order they consider corrupt or ideologically captured; all of them believe they are on the "right side of history", attempting to inscribe themselves within it — even when history has not yet drawn up the guest list.If positions so opposed share the same revolutionary enthusiasm, perhaps the question lies not only in the content of the causes, but in the form of action. Are we truly engaged in social transformation, or merely in an aesthetic performance shaped by the codes of visibility and consumption? Is this still revolution, or already a sophisticated form of co-optation — a premium version with institutional backing and a quality certificate?
It is worth clarifying that this is not about placing everything on the same moral plane, nor about trivialising struggles for dignity or denying the importance of visibility strategies that have so often been essential for exposing injustices and winning rights. There is an abyssal difference between struggles for dignity and movements founded on hatred. What is at stake is not the legitimacy of the causes, but the moment when visibility ceases to be a means and becomes an end. Even so, both seem to share the same structural logic — the tension between reality and narrative. Some respond to concrete experiences of violence, exclusion and inequality; others are driven by inflated narratives, in which humanitarian values appear as an existential threat. Yet, seen from a distance, the movement and the counter-movement share similar traits: incendiary language, performed identity, the need for visibility and the pursuit of public validation — in a kind of political stardom where having reach seems more important than being right.
Historically, militancy often operated in obscurity. It entailed real risk, clandestinity, direct confrontation with power. There were faces, but also anonymity, informal networks and opacity. Visibility was a means, not an obsession.Today, it seems inverted. What is not seen appears not to exist, and so every action must be recorded, shared, commented upon and, ideally, viral. Political action draws closer to the logic of performance — it must be communicable, documentable and viralisable. Aesthetics, language and framing sometimes become more relevant than the concrete effects of the action.To this is added a paradoxical phenomenon: the institutionalisation of activism. Governments, foundations and large organisations fund political initiatives, promote agendas and, in certain cases, protect demonstrations with police apparatus. When contestation is framed and sponsored by the very structures it ought to challenge, it is time to ask whether we are still in the presence of revolution or already before sophisticated forms of co-optation.
In this context, the revolutionary is transformed. From collective agent, they become an individual figure; from participant, a brand. The struggle acquires aesthetics, language and emotional merchandising. The T-shirt, the slogan, the tone of voice and even the facial expression enter into a recognisable repertoire. Revolution draws dangerously close to "branding" — only with black-and-white and sepia filters. And yet all of this happens whilst criticising the system. Capitalism is denounced through content production, the accumulation of symbolic capital and, occasionally, the monetisation of identity. Courses, books, lectures and documentaries multiply. Dissent does not disappear, but learns to invoice — integrating itself into a logic in which critique also circulates as a product.
In this context, coherence is flexible: one may criticise the academy whilst building an academic career, denounce consumerism whilst consuming in a "conscious" manner, combat hierarchies whilst consolidating new forms of authority — symbolic or real. The contemporary revolutionary does not flee from contradictions; they manage them.At the same time, discourse grows moralised, in an identity field where legitimacy depends more on who is speaking than on what is said. Debate yields to alignments, and disagreement is frequently seen as betrayal. Thinking aloud? Far too risky. Complexity is reduced to simplified versions that fit more neatly into a 280-character post.
Yet the deeper problem may not be incoherence, but the substitution of transformation by representation. Revolution, as a historical process, entailed conflict, risk and invisibility. Its contemporary version, by contrast, privileges exposure, narrative and immediate recognition.It is at this point that a crucial distinction emerges — the difference between revolution and revolt. The institutionalised, visible and regulated revolution may coexist with the very system it claims to combat. Revolt, by contrast — disorganised, anonymous and frequently illegible — escapes capture more readily. Not because it is pure, but because it is ordinarily spontaneous and therefore not yet integrated.
To say that we are part of the problem is not an act of resignation, but a gesture of implication — of acknowledging that we are not outside the logics we criticise, and of interrogating the forms through which we participate in them. Visibility must not become the sine qua non condition for political existence, or one risks transforming the struggle into yet another product — consumed, shared and forgotten. The best form of visibility is presence alongside those for whom one claims to fight.
Marinho Pina