A Positive Take On Slacktivism

Slacktivism is the self-deluded idea that by liking, sharing or retweeting something you are helping out. We’ve probably all been there at some point. The term derives from the combination of the words ‘slacker’ and ‘activism’, to point out the little effort needed from participants to involve in this virtual support for a social cause. To clarify this phenomenon, I will start with describing a few examples.

If you missed this one, you have been living under a virtual stone: the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which resulted in your Facebook timeline being full of videos of your friends pouring a bucket full of ice cubes over themselves. At the end of the video, people challenged some of their own friends to do the same. During July and August 2014, this challenge went extremely viral all over the world. The idea behind the challenge was encouraging donations to research on the disease ALS, amytrophic lateral sclerosis, which results in weakness of the muscles (with a chance of death).

A participant of the Ice Bucket Challenge in the heat (or cold?) of the moment

Another example of slacktivism regards the online support after the 2015’s Paris attacks. Facebook users massively changed their profile photos into the French flag, to either show respect to the victims of these horrible attacks, to support their friends and family or just to show that they care about what happened.

My brother's Facebook profile photo on November 16, 2015

There has been a lot of criticism of slacktivism: these internet-based social awareness campaigns are seen as a lazy way of showing your support and would be ‘killing’ historical forms of activism, like protests, marching and public speaking. It would just be an easy way out for people to show that they care.

I do agree with the criticism of slacktivism to a certain extent. This online attention on social causes is far from matching the real life work, like going out on the streets or actually donating money to the organization. Of course this is frustrating and simply annoying for the people who participate in political activism in the real world. 

But here’s the thing: slacktivism actually does something. I think if all these forms of slacktivism had not happened – which is unthinkable in the digital era we live in – there would have been much less awareness on many issues. How hard your criticism on slacktivism may be, you can’t deny the fact that people do get more aware. Sure, in case of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a lot of attention was pointed at popularity of the videos and the excitement behind pouring a bucket of ice cubes over yourself. However, on top of more or less 100 million dollars in donations, many people learned about this disease for the first time. The campaign informed a huge number of people all over the world and created higher awareness to the disease. 

Through slacktivism, more and more people get involved in social issues. This way, it gets easier to get what needs to get accomplished, accomplished. It’s not about the fact that sharing an article about climate change is not the same as donating to the organization behind the article. It’s about the synergy of all these small cases where awareness is created, which ultimately results in actual change, either on a political level or on a personal level.

I want to point out one last thing: the cynics of slacktivism should not stop expressing their critics. Slacktivism creating awareness is fantastic, but isn’t enough to actual get us somewhere. It’s great how people can come together over a cause, either by organizing a protest against TTIP on the streets, or by sharing an online petition against it on Facebook. I rather see this, than another article about the physical transformation of the Kardashian family.

What I’m trying to say is that cynics should keep speaking out against slacktivism, because they will address people who realize they need to do more in terms of actual activism. As much as these cynics might disagree, your online voice does draw awareness to the cause you choose to support.