activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause. It is often associated with surface-level activism, referred to as slacktivism.
I kinda like slacktivism, too. That gets an even bigger definition:
...the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions,
characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. Additional forms of slacktivism include engaging in online activities such as "liking," "sharing," or "tweeting" about a cause on social media, signing an Internet petition, copying and pasting a status or message in support of the cause, sharing specific hashtags associated with the cause, or altering one's profile photo or avatar on social network services to indicate solidarity.
I get why "likes" are good for blogs and posts and stuff like that. I know I want to know if people like something I wrote. I'm okay with that stuff. But what I'm no longer okay with is symbolic bull-oney on profile/avatar pictures, copy-n-paste-this "I know who my friends are if you repost this" nonsense, and other assorted labels. I mean, it's really, really meaningless, dontcha think, to put a WE LOVE MONKEES frame around your profile picture when one of them dies? The only thing you're saying is that you're stuck in some other decade and that maybe you liked the Monkees when you were 8.
Am I being harsh? Probably.
If you look a little more closely at this "status," you'll see it's from 2018. This has been such a successful campaign that acts of antisemitism have increased substantially. In fact, the ADL created a graphic that illustrates that point quite well.
You can see that in 2012, prior to the legitimization of Feckless Loser's MAGA movement, incidents were under about 1000 per year. But look at the jump in 2016...and now, 2021. Data for the year 2022 is not yet available, but it's expected to look much like 2021. With celebrities touting their hatred in very public forums, the receptive audience for those attacks grows every month. Ignoring the upswing is not an option. Standing around moaning about it is not an option. Putting up status boxes with statement circles is pointless. At some point stands must be taken and they must be truly activist.
Alongside those status boxes, by the way, are the ribbons and the tie-ins. Buying something because it has a pink ribbon on it does not do anything for people with breast cancer. Better you should sign up to be a chemo buddy or bring meals to those who are fighting the disease.
Truth is, no matter what the cause, you have to put your money where your mouth is, and put your mouth in the public arena. Mass demonstrations have their place in activist society, but turning up at town halls, school and library board meetings, and even sitting at information tables is where your cause needs your body just as much as your checkbook. If you're not a public person, there are envelopes to stuff, articles and letters to the editor to be written, PSAs and visual art to be created. The list is endless.
Buying milk with pink ribbons on the carton is not on that list.
All those winter nights chanting and waving protest signs at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza taught me many things. not the least of which were these:
- Wear a hat when it's cold. (Thank you, Dr. Heschel)
- Persistence is good even if your action doesn't yield instant results.
- Participate any way you can.
- BEING PRESENT IS EVERYTHING.
Seriously.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
COVID is not a thing of the past.
It's all around and people are still getting sick.
Do yourself and those around you a favor:
wear a mask when you go out in public.
It really does make a difference.
I think part of why this is so seductive even to people who aren't terminally online is that 12-14 years ago, the way social media worked was you added the people you knew--so the people a simple post would reach had a similar cross-section to the community you lived in, plus the communities you used to live in. That made those statuses analogous to lawn signs, which while also a very low-effort form of participation, do have measurable impacts in elections especially for candidates and causes with low visibility and name-recognition. It's just that social media that reflects the broad communities we live in hasn't existed for the better part of a decade, so not only is it cheap political theater, it's theater without an audience--as you say, masturbatory.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, corporations are quick to encourage it, because emphasizing individual action and participation in performative activism is a fantastically effective way to take the wind out of the sails of real, systemic change, and the online left in particular is receptive to it due to a weird resurgence of Puritanism on the far-left.
Quebecois student activists have complained in recent years that their anglophone counterparts in Ontario don't riot nearly enough, and instead protest through ineffective statements and petitions--and sometimes you really need to set stuff on fire in the streets. They're not entirely wrong.