The term “woke” is tossed around quite freely both on and offline in current society. To be “woke” means you are socially and politically conscious of social injustice and wish to act upon such beliefs. Up until a couple of years ago, calling yourself woke was a somewhat proud statement; and those who were not, as people say, “woke” would have been labeled as a person who was closed off. If a person is “closed off” or “unwoke,” it would mean, as the word suggests, they remain unaware of such social injustice, and simply do not find interest in these issues, or even contribute to mitigating injustice in society.

The topic of this discussion has grown to be more troubling since 2020—the year Lizzo was called out by her supposed fans when she announced that she was going to start following a detox diet and lifestyle. As her former supporters began hating her for promoting diet culture, it became evident that woke culture had taken a rather toxic twist, now attacking the groups of people it initially meant to protect.

Lizzo’s situation quite closely reflects the toxic truth of woke culture since, as Lizzo claims, “people expect, [when big girls do] something for health, [they’re] doing it for a dramatic weight loss,” and not to take care of their fundamental health and mental well-being. While Lizzo has been one of the loudest voices advocating for body positivity, people seem to have forgotten what exactly body positivity constitutes of. Supporting body positivity does not require a specific physique, nor does one have to sustain a certain physique in order to be “correctly” propagating positivity; it is body positivity no matter the body. In other words, everyone, of any shape and size, can advocate for body positivity. This is just one example that demonstrates the detrimental turn that woke culture has taken against certain people, and most of the time, these “certain people” are those who are already victims of the injustice woke culture wishes to fight against.

The toxic species of woke culture evolved, in a way, because those who title themselves as woke are unable to accept others who have slightly different opinions, thus labeling them as being “unwoke.” The toxicity of woke culture is closely tied to the severity of “cancel culture,” since those who, in any way, show discomfort at the notion of “woke-ness” are immediately shunned and canceled.

While the roots of woke culture still lie with a rather positive cause—to be aware of social injustice and racial inequality (the term having been coined in the Black community)—it is its evolution that has led to, in biological terms, the speciation of woke culture. In this case, a species of woke culture has mutated to have the characteristic of being extremely toxic, in the sense that it is immensely condescending to others who go against its ideals. The toxicity of woke culture continues to gain more momentum in current society, especially since the use of social media is scarily prevalent in all aspects of our modern existence. Many anonymous conversations take place online—and not just conversations that consist of cheerful “Have a nice day”s but those that discuss social injustices, politics and more. This is where the toxicity of woke culture reached its heights.

Another phenomenon that continues to bother me is the supposed trend of veganism. As a person who thought of going pescatarian, I am aware of how adopting a vegan diet can help the environment in various aspects; however, it is not something that should be forced upon others. Regardless, many people have taken it upon themselves to criticize those who are not following the vegan diet. For example, a vegan activist in Korea barged into a restaurant and taunted the customers for eating meat. Many people who support veganism criticize those who carry on with their omnivorous diet, labeling these people as unwoke and continually shaming them for eating meat. Diversity is ironically ignored when one is so sure that their opinion is the only one that matches up to the standard of wokeness.

Now, you may be wondering: is being woke no longer an attitude that pushes for a positive and diversity-promoting change? Personally, I would say it is not a black-and-white situation. Whilst calling oneself woke may implicate a sense of superiority over another person, it is undeniable that it encompasses the vigilant attitude we should have regarding social injustice. But then again, we cannot simply be a bystander and let the culture—which stemmed from the Black Lives Matter movement—victimize those it previously claimed to protect. A branch of toxic woke culture is cancel culture. Whilst one can be canceled for not conforming to the basic ethical standards of society, there are also those who are canceled for being, supposedly, unwoke. Take Lizzo’s situation: although it is difficult to say she was canceled by the entire industry, she was still canceled by a lot of her previous followers just because she advocated for having a healthy diet. From this situation, we can see that cancel culture is twisted—it does not just cancel people for their immoral actions, but also for seeking change to become a better version of themselves.

So why has wokeness become so twisted that we are now talking about its toxicity? The central root of the problem comes from the belief of self-righteousness. To be self-righteous is to believe oneself as morally superior to other people; with wokeness being focused on reaching a higher moral ground collectively—where everyone treats everyone equally—self-righteousness has inevitably become a core element of woke culture itself. Self-righteousness, thus, can be interpreted to have led to the speciation of toxic woke culture.

The self-righteous aspect of woke culture became even more prominent to me when I realized how many people were tackling climate change as if it was an internet issue that could be resolved on social media. Coming across the news of how two climate activists had thrown soup on Vincent van Gogh’s infamous painting, “Sunflowers,” I began to wonder whether such actions should be applauded or frowned upon. While the intention to spread environmental awareness is one that should be commended, the actions and steps they took to call others to action was one that many deemed inappropriate and extreme. To give more personal context, the first thing I thought when I read the news was: did the soup just go to waste? However, it should be noted that some people support their actions by claiming that if people were sad about the “Sunflowers” being dirtied, they should feel even worse about destroying Earth, an artwork created by the universe and nature itself. Their argument gains more support when we think about how these young activists risked their freedom to get their point across—and how we should not hesitate to do whatever it takes to protect Earth.

This situation is similar to one that happened only recently: climate activists poured vegetable charcoal in the Trevi Fountain which led to the Italian government having to use even more water to refill the fountain. Although I understand such an approach being used to spread awareness and to further support the necessity of protecting the environment, such extremity can be interpreted as having derived from a sense of self-righteousness and extreme wokeness. Ultimately, the self-righteousness aspect of woke culture has led to people to become more focused on “calling to awareness” rather than actually acting upon the problem themselves. In other words, rather than actively reducing waste or helping the environment, we tend to focus more on criticism; criticizing and shaming others for not showing effort in making the world a better place.

The coining of the term woke culture and its popularity on social media did help us see an increase in environmental awareness and call for equality. But did it change everything for the better? There are so many different aspects of the culture that need attention, and further we have to be cautious about. There are multiple parts of wokeness that we turn a blind eye to because of the belief that it helped people become more open to diversity. This seems to be the main reason why some people refuse to accept that wokeness has, in fact, taken a dark turn. Perhaps the problem with woke culture is not only in its grammatical incorrectness but rather also in its extremity.