Mixed Results of Slacktivism
In the first few days of 2015, two men attacked the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The terrorists, who killed 12 people and injured eleven, were enraged at an image of Muhammad that Charlie Hebdo had produced, which poked fun at the Muslim prophet. In the following weeks, people from all over the world held vigils and promoted the hashtag #jesuisCharlie to support the Charlie Hebdo victims. Demonstrators also wished to bring awareness to acts of terror so they could be prevented.
Despite the overwhelming response from people enraged by the tragedy, it happened again; in November of the same year, attackers in Paris killed one hundred and thirty people, including 89 at the Bataclan theater. Many people blamed France’s lack of security, and its inability to prevent fatal terrorist attacks, on the serial shootings. Others, however, blamed another group of people who had a lesser role in the events: the demonstrators who showed support during the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Calling these people “hashtag activists,” or the less positive “slacktivists,” they claimed that, instead of using hashtags and vigils to promote change, the protesters were better off assisting victims and their families with “real” signs of solidarity, such as monetary and material donations. The phenomenon of the hashtag activist has arisen in reaction to recent tragedies and advancing technology, and its creation reflects the way people deal with large-scale tragedies and social controversies.
Slacktivism, or clicktivism, has drawn strong responses from many people. Just searching “slacktivism good or bad” on the Internet provides news articles and other opinion pieces detailing the pros and cons of putting a patriotic filter over a Facebook photo. People who view clicktivism as a positive force in society point out that with a lot of media coverage, especially from friends and family, people can be moved to help out the victims for themselves. The problem with such activism practices, however, is that they expect people to simply see the reaction from their communities and start volunteering. Without any real guidance as to where they can put their time and money, they might talk a lot about helping but never get around to donating.
In fact, clicktivism often just stops at hashtags; in a study directed by Michigan State University, when people give intangible things to support victims of tragedy, they are less likely to give material goods such as money, or services like volunteering. By wearing pink socks in October, they believe they have “filled” their kindness “quota,” and after having done something that they thought was good for their community, move on with their lives. Meanwhile, the people who have lost family members and property still do not have things they need to enter normal life again.
Even when it does move beyond attending vigils, this brand of activism only works as long as it is in the news cycle. The Flint water crisis is a very good example of this. The city’s inhabitants have been drinking contaminated water from as far back as 2014, but did not receive any attention until it reached a state of emergency in January of this year. People were outraged at the incompetence of Flint’s governors, and started petitions to arrest and impeach officials, uploaded videos expressing their anger and frustration with corruption in Michigan, and, yes, the hashtag #FlintWaterCrisis circulated for a while on the Internet. There were real donations this time, and for a few months church parking lots were bursting with pallets of bottled water. After the news was done with the story, the donations dried up. Nothing had been fixed; the water quality has not improved. The nature of hashtag activism is transient, and deeply depends on what the news is reporting. For change to really take place, it must be long-term and not superficial.
On occasion, though, hashtag activism really does help. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which offered social media users a chance to either donate $100 or pour a bucket of icy water on themselves, tore through media platforms in the summer of 2014. Many people opted to donate and torture themselves, and the challenge raised more than $115 million for a cure for ALS. With the money donated, researchers found a gene which contributed to many cases of the muscle-deteriorating disability. Sometimes, with the right combination of ice and media, change can happen.