I used to be a hardcore feminist activist between the years 2011 and 2017. I ran a Facebook feminist community that had 120 000 members at its peak, for about 6 years.

I don't identify with the word anymore. I still believe in gender equality, and I believe in racial equality, LGBTQ rights, as well as animal rights and environmentalism.

The thing is, I saw the corruption of feminism in real time. The main culprit was digital media (especially the advertising-based model) and social media algorithms. These two factors led to feminism going "viral", which initially seemed to be a good thing, but actually over time led to the watering down of feminism, the polarisation of debate and outrage-baiting.

I saw how the content I posted in my community was affected by the algorithms and by social media in general. A nuanced and informative article about how women in third world countries are disproportionately affected by climate change? 12 likes and no shares. A meme about "male tears"? 1000+ likes. An in-depth interview with a survivor of child marriage who now has freed thousands of other girls from slavery? 50 likes if I'm lucky. A Reductress satire piece? 2000 likes.

I noticed the sources where I found feminist news became less and less informative and more and more focused on "microaggressions". I knew something was very wrong when in 2013 Huffpost Women's section wrote at least 6 think pieces about whether or not Taylor Swift was racist and represented "toxic white feminism" over a Twitter feud with Nicki Minaj. This kind of shit - stuff that doesn't actually change any real woman's life for the better, became the trending stories about feminism. Substance became irrelevant, instead "articles" made up of inflammatory tweets replaced them.

Meanwhile in the community itself - instead of women supporting each other to help improve each other's lots - the focus became on attacking eachother for being the wrong "kind" of feminist. Have the wrong opinion on Kim Kardashian? You don't respect women's choices! You are a slut shamer! You don't understand how she contributes to eating disorders! No, the REAL issue is that she's a capitalist and the only way to free women is to smash capitalism and if you don't you'll get the "wall"!! You criticise forced burkas and sexism in the Muslim community? Islamophobe!!! Oh you tried to explain that your comment was taken out of context and didn't warrant a vitriolic ad-hominem response? You're tone policing!! Racist! You're a man, who identifies as a feminist? You are trying to take up space that belongs to women!! Shut up and sit down, mansplainer!!! You're a man who doesn't identify as a feminist? Why not?? What's wrong with you?? Silence is violence!!! You used the term "biological female" to refer to menstruating bodies? Transphobe!!!

Etc etc

I would spend 3-5 hours a day sometimes trying to moderate vicious arguments between people who probably agreed on 99.99% of politics.

Eventually I became so burnt out and disillusioned that I left the activist community. Now I focus on longform writing and talking to people, in person, one on one. It changes way more minds than any social media activism ever did.