RT if you cried
In all honesty, I found that writing this post and this topic in general was pretty difficult. I’m not interested extremely interested in politics and how it effects social media and technology. In saying that though, in week 8 Theresa discussed the different aspects and perspectives of new media politic and engagement. “Social media tools are not a replacement for real-world action but a way to coordinate it.”(Shirky, 2012). As I think I said in my first blog, if you aren’t on social media you’re blocking yourself from a lot of the world. I think it was only a matter of time for politics became a thing on Facebook’s latest trend.
In a social-media crazed society, insignificant measures are seen as influential. A mere "RT" on a Twitter post, "like" on a Facebook status or "tag" on an Instagram photo has become the mechanism to create change. You’ve all seen it on your newsfeed, 1 like = 1 prayer for this picture of a man sitting on the sidewalk, with text claiming he’s homeless and that somehow your likes will help him out. And you see people liking it, why? We all want to make ourselves feel better by “helping out” the lesser. It’s what I like to call fake activism. And the culprits aren’t just your Facebook friends; even on Twitter fake activism runs rampant. Numerous tweets state a message synonymous with "something tragic happened. RT this post or you have no heart”. It’s ridiculous; the logic behind this movement is flawed because a retweet does not prove that somebody really cares about a cause. A like isn’t going to change the world over night. Sure it might make people aware of the situation, but liking a picture isn’t going to fix the problem.
Let’s go back to around 2012, if you were a regular Facebook user then I can guarantee you’ve heard of the infamous Kony 2012 campaign. On March 5, 2012 a 30-minute non-profit-made video brewed an unprecedented level of social media buzz and backlash (Fox. 2013). It literally blew up over night, it seemed as though everyone was talking about it. But was it helpful or successful? I can guarantee that it was successful, not in the stopping this crazy military/kidnapper, but in becoming viral and earning the filmmakers millions, yes it was. Over the last year, the YouTube version of the film has been viewed more than 96 million times. On Vimeo, the film's original host, it has been viewed 18.4 million times. Would it have been as successful if it weren’t on social media? No. I can guarantee there is no way it would’ve gotten the views or interest it had if it had been broadcast on the news. People felt compelled to spend their money on this cause. They annoyed friends with the constant updates and posts about this man. Was it successful? Yes and no. While it did draw attention to this matter, Kony is still out there.
While I’m not in love with this topic, but I definitely have a better understanding of it, now that I’ve looked into it more. It shows the effect social media is having on the world. As I said before there’s no way that something as massively popular as Kony, would’ve been successful if it had just been shown on the news. The world is adapting and evolving and we have to as well if we want to keep up.
Fox, Zoe. 2013. “Kony 2012' One Year Later: Success or Failure?”. Accessed April 17, 2014. http://mashable.com/2013/03/05/kony-2012-retrospective/
Shirky, Clay. 2011 “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change.”In Foreign Affairs 90:1. Available at:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media