Woke Fail: Left-Wing Press, Critics Slam CBS Series ‘The Activist’ as the ‘Worst Idea Ever’

Last week, CBS announced a new reality TV series based on activists vying with each other to raise interest around woke, social justice causes. But before a single episode has aired, the series is being slammed by left-wing journalists and TV critics as “truly horrific,” “grotesque,” and the “worst idea ever.”

The limited, five-week series will be co-hosted by pop star Usher, actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Dancing with the Stars star Julianne Hough. It will feature contestants picking a left-wing cause, and launching a social media campaign to raise awareness for the agenda. The contestants will be judged on the metrics of their online engagement, and input from the judge/hosts.

Six contestants will go head-to-head in “missions, media stunts, digital campaigns and community events aimed at garnering the attention of the world’s most powerful decision-makers, demanding action, now,” CBS announced last Thursday.

The winners will be flown to attend the G20 Summit in Rome where they will meet with world leaders to raise money and attention for the cause they highlighted on the CBS series.

The series comes a year after U.S. cities erupted in deadly and violent protests over the death of George Floyd. The country continues to see upheaval and unrest as climate activist, pro-abortion agitators, Antifa terrorists, and other left-wing campaigners flood the streets.

CBS hasn’t made episodes available for reviewers but some journalists and TV critics are already tearing the show and its concept to shreds.  said.

“The very idea of blending reality TV capitalism, serious global issues and shilling for retweets into some sort of competitive woke-off is striking many as a rather dubious concept.” the Reporter noted.

The Hollywood trade publication reported opinions of nearly a dozen journalists, and TV critics who thought the whole idea of the series was offensive.

“Could very well be the worst idea for a TV show ever,” wrote BleedingCool.com’s Andy Wilson. “Measuring the success of activism by engagement and social metrics is inherently wrong. I have seen campaigns do incredible, powerful work that isn’t quantifiable by how many retweets it got.”

Forbes writer Janice Gassam Asare felt that amplifying the causes of people who only pushed the agenda to be on a game show was insensitive to the real activists, some of whom have lost their lives “advocating for the most marginalized.” Asare went on to put the idea in the harshest light, saying, ” If you’re going into activism for fame and popularity, then is it really activism?”

“The contestants don’t compete for actual funds to do good works,” Washington Post writer Michele L. Norri wrote disapprovingly, “but merely for the right to crash an international conference and try to shake down world leaders for cash?” He added, “A show that tries to exploit a wave of genuine social activism to create a culture of hazy (or lazy) online engagements is an unhelpful distraction from the real work going on and the real challenges we face.”

There was more. The Verge‘s Makena Kelly thought the show was unserious about bringing real change to anything. Writer and activist Stephanie Yeboah thought it was “truly horrific.” Activist Joey Ayoub said the show was “obscene.”

Hong Kong journalist Yuen Chan called the idea for the series “grotesque,” and noted that, “activists are jailed, maimed and killed around the world.”

So far, CBS has been silent in the face of the criticism.

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