Slacktivism

I don't like the term 'slacktivism', for more reasons than just that I could be called a 'slacktivist'.

So here's why. Someone calls you a slacktivist. What does it mean? What are they saying when they say 'slacktivist'? Sure, you support activist causes but you do it from behind the safety of a keyboard, sharing petitions, blogging nonsensical diatribes of outrage, all that sort of thing. ;)

So, you get called a slacktivist sometimes - a lazy activist. Why aren't you out there marching and chanting and placard waving, and hurling your head enthusiastically towards a policeman's baton, like real activists?

Good question. Here's another, directed to the individuals who call you a slacktivist. Why aren't you? In fact, when was the last protest you ever went to, the last petition you ever signed, the last thing you gave a fucking damn about? If someone derides you for not doing enough, when they do more, fine you can take that on the chin. But people who toss the term slacktivist around tend not to do anything. At all. And then criticise you for doing something, no matter how small.

You know when people shout 'Get a job!' at protestors? People who call you a slacktivist are coming from the same mentality - it's not the way you protest they don't like, it's that you protest at all. And you know what? Being a slacktivist is good, you can campaign for a cause while you're at work or doing household chores. It's the activism for a busy 21st century lifestyle, quite neat and convenient.

In decades past, we learned one important thing about street protests - governments don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock, and are quite happy to point the water cannon at you instead. The rise of the internet, and it's application in online activism has reshaped the way modern protests are conducted. Instead of planning one, drawn-out, tiring physical activity after another, online activism means you can dedicate yourself to ten, twenty, one hundred causes all at once. From your computer, you can fight corrective rape in South Africa, Chevron's environmental vandalism in the Amazon, anti-gay pogroms in Uganda, fracking in your own country, internet kill-switches anywhere.

You can send a message of support to any activist group anywhere or not. And that's part of the beauty of it. In the old days, if you wanted to join in a protest, there was usually someone standing there with a newspaper to sell. You either agreed with their whole party line, or ended up in an argument, when all you wanted to do was come out in support of one cause. Now, you can support a campaign where you want, when you want, to the extent you want, and no-one tries to sell you a newspaper or argue about Israel with you.

You know why it's not 'slack'? Because whenever you post a link 'Hey check this out!' or post a petition 'Check this out and sign it if you're interested', there's always going to be someone who says 'd00d, i don't want to see this interrupting my Farmville notifications!' They'll get down on you for letting the real world intrude on the slow drip of their cage feeder. 'Oh man, I had to look at something depressing for four whole seconds!' Cry me a fucking river. You don't want to look at it, skip over it. You should feel flattered. I only like to be friends with people who have a fucking conscience, so I've assumed - because you're a friend - that you have a squirt of compassion, that you're not a vegetoid, apathetic mound of jelly. You call me slack? Shit, you're the tuber who gets cranky if you have to think beyond yourself for a handful of seconds, who can't be roused to spend 15 seconds signing a petition that could stop people being murdered FFS. Slack? Get to fuck.

Look, let's face it, online activism is sexy. People who disparage it are obviously dud roots (or lousy lays as our American cousins would have it). Caring about things is cool, whining about having to think about them is the hallmark of a butthurt dork.

It's not slacktivism pendejo, it's hot, it's more like baby got backtivism.

Now piss off, I've gotta go help save the Tarkine in Tassie.