So there are these missing girls in Nigeria. A terrorist group whose name I will not deign
to mention has kidnapped some 200 school girls and is holding them hostage,
trying to get the Nigerian government to release some political prisoners.
This is of course despicable, and no sane person will
gainsay that accusation. Everyone,
EVERYONE with a shred of decency agrees that this act was utterly evil, and
completely devoid of any justice or morality.
It was the malicious act of irredeemably reprehensible men, and those
perpetrators deserve the harshest justice that can be meted out to such
villains.
But that is about all that anyone can agree on in the
situation, and naturally I’m not going to waste time in condemning the
malefactors, and expressing my sympathies with the victims, because of course I
don’t need to; that should go entirely without saying.
But not everyone feels the same as I do (which I account the
cause of most of the world’s suffering, but I might be somewhat biased on that
subject.) Indeed, some are so upset by
this (starting with the understandably distraught parents of the missing
girls,) they feel the need to express their outrage at such a malevolent act.
Many wish to draw attention to the plight of these girls, as
they felt that the news media (both mainstream and whatever we are calling the
‘other side’ today,) did not make enough of a deal about it when it first
happened (although to be fair, in America we did have football players kissing,
so cut us some slack here, because priorities and all.)
But for others, they simply want to show that they too are
horrified at the kidnapping, and about what they see as the Nigerian government’s
unwillingness to act. So they have
joined an informal campaign to raise awareness of this crime, while
simultaneously showing their support for those girls who have been taken from
their families.
No one here is shocked that I am talking about what has come to
be known as “hashtag activism.” This is
a hot topic right now, to the point that I think more people are focusing on
the hashtag activism than on the atrocious deed itself.
Of course this phenomenon is not new; from Kony 2012 and
beyond, people use social media like Facebook and that twit thing people are
always referencing to show their support for important causes like kidnapped
children. But since these are the same
platforms normally used to talk about the latest Justin Bieber outrage and last
night’s episode of The Walking Dead, such attempts tend to look pathetic,
pointless, and ineffective, while those celebrities and public figures who pass
it on are viewed as attention whores jumping on the bandwagon.
Now usually when people see there hashtags, they will have
one of two standard responses. They will
either respond with: “wow, I too believe in supporting this cause, I will hit
the like/forward/retweet button and show that I am a part of this global
community supporting/condemning this important issue,” or else they will say
“whatever,” and move on with their lives.
But the situation was changed recently when First Lady
Michelle Obama posted a picture of herself supporting the #Bringbackourgirls
cause. She just wrote it on a piece of
paper and held it up in a photo looking appropriately sad (not a time for big
smiles, people.)
Well that provoked the inevitable response. Our country’s government (similar to the
justice system in many ways,) is an adversarial system. The various sides of an argument (okay yes, I
realize there are really only two sides these days, but I mean in theory,) work
to discredit and undermine the works of the other. This is done with the clear and rational goal
of promoting one’s own agenda at the expense of the opposition’s.
But today we do not just attack positions, we attack the
people themselves, demonizing them as best we can in the hope of crushing their
beliefs and driving them out of government and out of the public
consciousness. And if you should
criticize this practice of constant smear attacks, you are certain to be
targeted yourself (“ad hominem? That sounds like some sort of faggotty
foreign talk, buddy!”)
And the days of treating the president’s wife as a plain old
civilian died long ago. No matter what
she says, no matter what she espouses ("the Nazis promoted healthy school lunches
too!”) she is as much a target as her husband, and must be shouted down, no
matter how little impact she actually has on the government (did it matter if
Laura Bush had killed a guy in a traffic accident? Did that have any bearing on her husband’s
ability to lead?)
So of course the loudest voices on the opposition swooped in
quickly to attack her hashtag activism, and began screeching about how
pointless such sentimentality is. And of
course, this painted the whole concept of using social media to promote social
causes as inherently Liberal (and therefore yet another heinous crime on par
with kidnapping Nigerian girls.)
I’m really not here to argue about whether such campaigns
are effective or worthwhile. Personally,
I’m one of those curmudgeonly types who rolls his eyes at such stuff and
dismisses it all as yet another pointless aspect of modern society that eludes
me, like texting, having pants sag down below the waist, or approaching science
the same way as religion (picking and choosing the parts with which you agree.)
I do not twit, so I only know about these hashtags (which
seems like a wasted name to me; I would have called them ‘waffle fries’
instead, but no one asked me,) when people on the news get upset about
them. So I’m not going to weigh in on
whether they are A: a powerful means of getting important messages out to the
world and bring social pressure on important figures like the military leaders
and government officials of Nigeria, or B: a pointless waste of time for
wooly-headed Liberals who think they can change the world by literally
twiddling their thumbs instead of taking any real action. Or C: a little from both.
Instead, I’m here to give you the D.
Because while I will agree that hashtag activism might or
might not be a complete and utter waste of time, I can tell you with 100%
certainty what is truly pointless, and that is the people who spend their time
screeching about how ineffective it is.
I mean, think about it: you are taking the time to create
and post a photo on the internet mocking people who are voicing (sort of) their
support or condemnation of a cause in which they believe. You never see a big outcry against tweeting
that they are for Team Jacob (or Team Coco, or whatever frivolous crap people are
talking about,) it’s only when people promote these hashtags about important
stuff that the haters crawl out of the woodwork (or at least break out their
photo editing software and the Impact fonts,) to decry such half-assed
efforts.
And most of the ones I’ve seen are complaints that hashtag
activists are simply jumping on the bandwagon (a valid argument,) and that they
are trying to help by simply ‘raising awareness’ rather than actually doing
something about it.
But the people who post these things are putting real work
into showing how pointless these tweets are.
So their argument comes across as: “you people are all lazy! I’ll show you how lazy you are by spending my
time creating something and commenting about your hashtags while not doing anything about the situation either.”
Your whole ‘#you’renothelping’ attitude? It’s not helping either.
Didn’t you get that lesson about “if you can’t improve on
silence” when you were a kid?
But here’s the thing:
these pathetic attempts to raise awareness are really just cries of
frustration. There are serious problems
in the world, and social media has brought these tragedies into our lives in a
way never before seen in history. And
people feel empathy. They see terrible
shit that they can’t fix themselves. So
these silly little (probably pointless) tweets are really a way to vent that
frustration.
So here’s something to consider: If you’ve ever forwarded or retweeted some
snarky comment about how stupid hashtag activism (hashtagtivism?) is, I want
you to step outside for a moment.
No, I mean literally step outside. Take a walk out to where your car is
parked. Now go around to the back of the car and
look, and tell me what you see. Any
ribbon stickers back there? Be honest,
now.
If you’ve ever put a yellow ribbon sticker on your vehicle
‘to support the troops,’ answer this: did it help? Did your yellow ribbon (or star-spangled
version) do anything at all to actually support the troops? Did it stop any bullets or uncover any
IED’s? Did it send body armor to a
soldier on the line of duty, or deliver medical care or morale-boosting letters
from home? Did the money you paid to Wal
Mart or wherever actually go towards the soldiers?
Or did you do it because you believed in supporting the
brave men and women in harm’s way? Did
you do it to show your support,
because that seemed like all you could personally do?
And bumper sticker empathy doesn’t just come in yellow: have
the proliferation of stickers cured breast cancer, autism, or toe fungus? Obviously not, and I doubt most of the people
who slap those stickers on the back of their cars believe that they are
striking a mighty blow in the struggle for these causes, but rather they want
to show their support. To show that they
care, and even though they have no power whatsoever (not even the First Lady,)
to fix this problem, they care about it, that they want to see a positive
ending to the story.
And if such token gestures still piss you off, I want you to
go out this Sunday and drive around. And
every time you pass a church or other house of worship, I want you to go
inside. And when they get to the part
where they ask parishioners to pray for the sick, the needy, or soldiers in the
line of fire, I want you to stand up, look them all in the face and tell the congregation, with that same air of smug superiority, that they are
wasting their time, and that openly displaying their thought and feelings in
the hope that someone will hear their hopes and help a bad situation is stupid
and pointless.
Because we could spend all day arguing about whether or not
a flood of tweets will ever have any real social impact, but you know
what? You know what I know with absolute
certainty?
That wouldn’t actually help anything.
