today on the meme curmudgeon

[pauraque_bk]

I was about to post this on Twitter, but, uh...

Social media has lowered the bar for doing good

This has been going on a lot longer than Twitter and Facebook have existed. Remember when colorbars were sincere and not ironic? Thems were the days. I actually have always felt the same way about awareness ribbons (even though I used to wear one, it was for breast cancer... guess I was a hypocrite!) and bumper stickers and so on. It makes perfect sense that this stuff has migrated to social networking, which for many people is largely about looking good in front of their friends.

I don't think it's as consciously cynical as that makes it sound. I doubt anybody is thinking "Ha ha, by turning my icon green I'll make my political views apparent to my friends, thus earning their approval!" But it can come off that way, and it doesn't surprise me at all that most people stop at the symbolic part and don't do anything concrete.

I wish we had more of the "donate $10 to Haiti with a text" memes and less of the merely symbolic ones, is all I mean by this.

Comments

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I don't know, Pauraque. I think that if we didn't have these symbolic statements, we'd have no political or social speech at all - just material/entertainment speech.

[pauraque]

That could be a pretty grim assessment depending on what you mean. You think there's no content-rich political speech anymore, nothing above the level of a meme? Or did you mean that a different way?

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

amongst the people who do the meme stuff, yes. They're pretty uninterested in political speech or consider it inappropriate for conversation, or whatever. I haven't seen politically inclined people replacing their actions or more content-laden speech with memes. Mostly I just see people who were unlikely to say anything about social or political issues at all wearing their opinions as innocuous little badges - which I'm fine with - better than nothing at all.

[pauraque]

I guess two things come to mind about that. One is to wonder if there's a better way to tap into the "otherwise would do nothing" people, more along the lines of texting to donate to good causes, though financial donations are something not everyone can do.

But the other thing is to frankly wonder about how much a person like that is really expressing an opinion on whatever topic they're memeing about, versus how much they're just parroting what their friends say. And I am bothered by that.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Well, if nothing else that kind of stuff gets the word out about important issues. I re-tweet stuff all the time (as I'm sure you've noticed) and since my tweets are all public I figure at least I'm spreading the word on the public timeline. No idea how many people it actually reaches, but even if it's only one that mouse click was worth it.

[pauraque]

Which seems logical in theory, but the question that the post raises is whether anything really happens beyond people knowing about it, also retweeting it, and then feeling like they're done. That's what I find troubling. Not that nobody does anything, but that a great majority don't.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on the generation. I think younger people might fall into that trap because they think they actually are doing something with a simple re-tweet. I'm old enough to remember the world before social networking became popular, and I don't tweet or post on my LJ or FB about stuff unless it's a cause I'm actively working on because I know LJ memes aren't going to solve social woes.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

see, I think they will to some degree. Particularly re gay rights. It's amazing how many people default to conservative opinions but when some otherwise nonconfrontational person wears a rainbow badge or posts a pro-gay-marriage meme statment they change their mind. Even more so when a great number of their friends do it. I've seen it happen. They won't listen to some activist weirdo but when their "normal" friends just make little comments on their FB or whatever they jump on the bandwagon. As we know, bandwagon jumping becomes habit becomes ingrained opinion - that's how it works with the masses.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

My experience has been exactly the opposite, at least on FB. I find that if you express an opinion on FB, regardless of how non-confrontational your attitude, it entrenches opinions on the other side and things become confrontational. It's to the point now where I don't even bother posting about politics on FB because I don't have the time or energy to argue with people (many of whom I've known since I was a teenager) who do nothing but spew Fox News talking points without doing any thinking for themselves (something I had no idea they were going to do until they started doing it).

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Probably a matter of the circles you move in. I know a lot of people who are benignly (not particularly actively, just a matter of how they vote) liberal or apolitical and just vote conservatively because their parents do. They're all quite happy to be nudged the "right" way. Begging for a bit of leadership almost.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The ribbons and such strike me as low-effort-low-result enterprises, but one thing I HAVE noticed, mostly on LJ because it seems to be the medium best adapted for it, is direct fundraising campaigns with PayPal buttons. Not for a cause or a foundation, but for individuals. "X lost all her stuff in an apartment fire." "Q's dad kicked her and her child out of the house." "B, a talented writer with no health insurance, needs surgery." "Rescued cat has expensive vet bills." Most recently, "T hasn't been able to get out of the house to the laundromat because she's been taking care of her partner after his hernia surgery. There's an online deal going for pick-up and delivery laundry service. You could buy them a gift of clean laundry!"

This passing of the virtual hat HAS made things better for individuals, and it's done so in a way that wouldn't have worked as well without the social networking.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

I think the blogger on the link would probably agree... I don't see that they're saying the virtual hat or the virtual word of mouth is a bad thing, but that some people are (for example), turning their icon a certain color out of "solidarity" and then really not doing anything else beyond that.

Another thing that comes to mind is the now infamous "post your bra color" on FB that made the rounds, but also was hurtful to some breast cancer survivors who felt it backfired terribly.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

What really pisses me off is the bullying version of awareness memes. "Cancer is bad! 93% of people won't re-post this meme! WILL YOU?"

No! No I will not repost that meaningless crap, and, as a cancer survivor, seeing this on my flist all day makes me feel shitty. Did it have a link to donate to a cancer support group? A cancer survivor counselling hotline? Even a link to educational information? No? Then shut up!

(Maybe I should post a meme about how ranting makes you feel better! Re-tweet it or you're a bad person!)

[pauraque]

I'm in total agreement. Oh, cancer is bad, no kidding?! If only Twitter had existed a few years ago, I'm sure the massive power of your Retweets would have prevented my mother from dying...

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

I think what bugs me is how much it drops out of the public eye after the disaster. You can see it happening to Haiti right now, and of course, a lot of people on Twitter have given up caring about Iran. I try and retweet things to give them a signal boost, but then I do think I fall into the category of people who care about such things year round. (Which may be a false self-assessment.)

[pauraque]

That too. There's a long list of things you could name like that, where Twitter and LJ were full of sympathy and support for a few days or weeks, and then it's on to the next thing. I think it's not even just boredom or poor attention span, but that it becomes uncomfortable for people to be reminded that major problems continue to be major after the "post your support" meme has run out of steam. There are aspects of it that can be dismissed as naive, but after a while, when you see it over and over again with every new (or "new") catastrophe, it begins to look self-righteous and wilfully ignorant.

Probably none of us can claim we've never fallen prey to it. But it's no good.