How to Recruit to a Cause
First, we need to identify the primary objective. An example: JK Rowling is using the funds she obtains from her ownership over the Harry Potter franchise to directly fund hate groups. Therefore, we should recruit as many people as possible to stop giving her money and deprive her of those funds.
Perfect, excellent. Now let's identify who to approach. The most obvious first steps are those close to us in real life and those we interact with here on tumblr. Simple, easy to get in contact with. Perfect.
Now, how do we recruit them to our cause and achieve our primary goal, which is —remember— to deprive JK Rowling of as much funding as possible.
We have a couple options. First, we can continue doing what many of us have been doing, which is publicly shaming those we see continuing to interact with the Harry Potter fandom and then promptly block them. The problem with this is that in shaming and therefore alienating someone, we make it that much more difficult for the next person to approach them about the cause because they already have one if not many negative experiences with it, and we have also cut off our own contact with the person, so we cannot follow up with them further. The only thing this approach accomplishes is to make ourselves feel morally superior to someone else and give ourselves a sense that we have done something. It accomplishes absolutely nothing more than that. Sustainable change is never accomplished by guilt or shame. Never. Clearly, or we would be much further along in our goal by now.
So what do we do instead? Meet them where they're at. Meet them where they're at. It's hard, but it's necessary. How do we do that? What does that even look like? First, remember our primary objective, which is to deprive JK Rowling of funding. Second, accept that we are likely not going to be able to stop the overwhelming majority of people from interacting with Harry Potter given the enormous cultural impact it has had on many western nations, such as my own. That said, we can still accomplish our goal, which is to deprive JK Rowling of funding.
Example: hey, I heard you say you were gonna watch Harry Potter later. I try not to watch it on Amazon Prime or on TV since JK Rowling uses a lot of the money she gets from that to fund anti-trans rhetoric in the UK. Have you heard about that? Let's talk about it. Can I show you where you can get it for free?
With this, we still accomplish our goal. You've maintained a connection, you've provided education, and she doesn't get a dime from a pirated film.
Example 2: hey, I heard you talking about wanting to get a wand. The most obvious place to get one is on an official website, but those profits go to JK Rowling which she uses to fund hate groups, and they're super expensive anyway. But hey, I found this small time artist who makes them, let me show you.
With this, we still accomplish our goal. She doesn't get a dime from the sale of the wand, and we support a small business.
Example 3: hey, thanks for inviting me to go see The Cursed Child when it comes to town. I try not to give JK Rowling money because of how she's been using it to hurt vulnerable people. It hasn't been well covered by mainstream media, but I can show you where I learned it. And there's a way you can find entire showings of The Cursed Child on youtube for free, if you know where to look. Let me show you. While we're at it, I'll show you how to use adblocker, too.
At the end of the day, choosing to yell and shame and block is the easier of the options. It provides instant gratification. Meeting people where they're at is hard and often infuriating work, because if we just all banded together, we'd get this done so fast, you know? But advocacy work never works that way. It's slow. It's labor intensive. And it's driven by focusing on our primary goal, which is to deprive JK Rowling of the funding she uses to do bad. By meeting people where they're at, we give them a way to still engage with the media they were likely never going to stop engaging with anyway if we shamed them, and we do it without giving JK Rowling a dime. We also make a connection with that person, and maybe they'll share that knowledge with their friends, and their friends. JK Rowling's actions are common knowledge in some areas of tumblr (but not all) but they're not common knowledge in the outside world. Providing education and an alternative to giving her money is how we recruit people to our cause and how we accomplish our primary goal.
I believe that most people attempting to accomplish this goal are coming from the right place, but have been taught the wrong methods by the increasingly hateful climate of tumblr. We can change that, though. I also believe that most people are good and willing to do the right thing given the right information. We just have to give them that information and present it in a way that will be well received. We might not get the response we want right away, but by engaging with a community like this, we continue to build connections, and connections give people space to think, and space to think leads to changing minds and behavior. Shame and anger shuts that all down.
TLDR: to sustainably recruit to a cause, establish a primary goal, keep that goal in sight at all times, meet people where they're at, and engage with them in a way that will leave you space to follow up with them and continue working with them until you accomplish your primary goal.
