Inactive Activism

Social media has created a huge shift in the way we communicate. From being able to instantly connect with people from all over the world, social media is so easy, even some of our grandparents are using it. But it doesn’t just stop at seeing the latest yarn creation that your grams has created. There has been a shift from traditional advertising on television, in newspaper ads or on the radio. Businesses have been using social media to get to you for years. From creating businesses pages across all platforms and holding giveaways or contests to promote themselves. Taking it a step further, social media is a great way to reach all demographics of people to get information out. It’s no wonder that non-profit organizations, various causes and programs are using social media to get their word out and raise awareness… but is it working?

From hashtags on Twitter and Instagram to challenges on Facebook. Are any of these “raise awareness” campaigns actually accomplishing anything? 

The most recent trend on Facebook these days is the “No make up” challenge. Girls are baring their makeup free faces to their friends on facebook and tagging their girlfriends to do the same. At first it just seemed like a cool campaign to talk about self-image and confidence. But that’s because every girl that was participating in the campaign was not mentioning that the challenge was to raise awareness for Breast Cancer. 

Another popular trend that is happening on Instagram is the hashtag #cockinasock. Men from all over are throwing socks on their fun bits in order to raise awareness for testicular cancer. 

I love the fact that my girlfriends are able to proudly show their makeup-free faces online and trust me, I love the fact that beautiful men are nearly naked on instagram, this girl is NOT complaining. However, I have to take a stand and say that the original message is being lost. 

Are any of these people doing anything else? Are they donating money for research? Participating in a run? Or even directing their followers to places where they can do those things? 

Most likely, the answers to any of those and related question is, in fact, no. So what’s the point? Participating in these trends is just useless as liking a page. You haven’t done anything! Your sense of accomplishment is fake! If you actually cared about any of these causes, go do something about it! 

These two examples are definitely not the first of their kind and won’t be the last. But I beg you, don’t participate in these trends and promote the click-happy individuals who feel proud of themselves for doing something, when really, they aren’t.