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

[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.