Slacktivism: A Campaign for Change From the Comfort of Your Home

These days it's very easy to feel involved in issues when we can pretend that we care by ranting about it online or signing away on empty petitions from the comfort of our own chair. This term has come to be known as slacktivism which is essentially someone supporting a cause with little to no actions behind their actual 'activism' making them feel as if they've done something right. This has become a major part of Internet activities in recent years as one can very easily feel like they have done something towards a cause when in reality all they've done is click a button or change their profile picture like in the recent Pink Equal sign campaign for marriage equality. It is the immediate satisfaction of feeling involved but in reality is it really making a change or is it just shooting blanks?

Websites like change.org allow users to create petitions online for anyone to sign, and although they have had successes like the prosecution of George Zimmerman in the Travyon Martin murder case, unless something is spread through social media or people feel like it is a worthwhile cause, it often gets swept under the rug. I myself have even signed online petitions in the hopes of bringing back dead shows (still not over the loss of Firefly) and other things that interested me, but in the end unless it is something the public or the creators feel is worthwhile it largely becomes ignored. So how is it possible to make a change when we only seem to care about things that the masses want? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a petition?

Probably the most prominent example of slacktivism was the KONY2012 campaign which spread like wildfire across social media platforms and around the world making the fastest viral video of all time. But just as easily as it became famous, people had forgotten about it. Aside from the fact that the creator went crazy and did some... interesting things in public, people had felt that by changing their profile picture or sharing the video they had done enough to spread the movement and let someone else actually do the work. But a movement is nothing without anyone bringing it into fruition, and this is ultimately where KONY2012 failed. They misjudged the power of the Internet in joining people in a cause but never committing to anything. So is slacktivism always a bad thing? Not necessarily.

Although the actual word itself sounds very condescending and derogatory, it actually has had notable examples of working, most specifically in the case against SOPA. Major websites like Reddit and Wikipedia as well as countless others took a stand by "going dark" in protest of the bill, but this idea came as a result of major user intervention. Because it was constantly on the front page of Reddit and discussed heavily amongst Internet communities, major websites took notice and decided in unison to stand against it. Even though people may have only participated by leaving a comment or simply changing their profile picture, it spread to levels that made it a worldwide issue so people were forced to notice it.

Does this mean that slacktivism actually works? Well, yes and no. Sure there is proof that slacktivism actually increasing involvement in movements and helps to get people interested in actual activism, but for the majority of us the sad answer is that we just really don't care that much. By clicking a button or signing our name we feel like we've contributed to a major issue by doing the least amount of work possible. "Someone else will take care of that" seems to be the mentality going around and if everyone says that then who's left to actually do something? Maybe one day people will actually get around to doing more than just spreading awareness about an issue, but until then i'm just going to wait here on my computer changing my profile picture every month.