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

[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.