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Slacktivism (noun)..... [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-03
petitions , characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. "such email alerts make slacktivism easy"
The youngsters here probably have no knowledge of Hands Across America, a 1986 charity event which brought out more than 5 million people at one time is support of addressing the problem of homelessness. It had institutional sponsors, the support of State, local and Federal elected officials…..and a year of planning to pull the event off.
Today, what we seem to have are websites and meme posters:
“Economic Blackout”
“No Buy Friday”
“Boycott Amazon”
“General Strike”
each set up a few weeks before the target date and relying almost exclusively on social media echos of whatever the message owner has proposed. Each with a different date, different target and no clear ideas about “what if we succeed?” And so far there’s no sign that they are engaging participation by anywhere close to significant numbers of people.
I appreciate that many people (especially here) feel the need to “do something”, and want it done “now”. But doing something slapdash can be worse than doing nothing in the short-term. Getting people energized about an event that turns out to be ineffective risks frustration and an unwillingness to participate further. And flooding social media with multiple different calls to action can blur the attention of potential participants.
I’m not personally a fan of protest movements as an effective way to change policy, especially in today’s world. You’re welcome to disagree, but if you want to bring about an economic revolt, you’ll need to put in more effort than a blog post.
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