Until, I think, EL PRESIDENTE, trotted out the term the other day, I had never even heard of it before. I then posted the wiki definition on my Facebook page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism My niece then added this link this morning. Thought it was at least interesting: http://aws.hackingchristianity.net/wp-content/files/les.mis_.equality.jpg Anyway, just curious, where are you on the slacktavism continuum?
Oh, yeah?? [video=youtube;76kd984x5bU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76kd984x5bU[/video] [video=youtube;ogJfEXBOdg8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogJfEXBOdg8[/video]
all of us are, to an extent by being keyboard jockeys and arguing politics online. Its still a little better and with more thought than posting memes on facebook and changing your profile picture to make you feel good about yourself and have your friends "like" your status to prove how "progressive" you are.
I see about 50 things on that page I can click on. So after 5 minutes of perusal I pick this. http://www.subgenius.com/ts/hos_logs/Hour_of_Slack_1382.html This new page presents me with nothing but 28 new links. So I decide to bag it.
I'm a slacker-slacktavist. I didn't want to change my picture, so I just said I'm in favor of gay marriage.
I'm pretty lethargic. But I found the whole Facebook fad of posting the gay red square to be reasonably effective. The whole point is to make tolerance of gay marriage a societal norm (like interracial marriage). An easy way to do that is to surround undecided/wishy-washy people with peers who are willing to speak out. Posting a red box as an avatar on Facebook won't convince a supreme court judge of anything, but it might convince one of your aunts to at least re-think her views. As fast as opinion has changed on this topic, it seems like it'd add fuel to the fire.
or it could make one think, "wow, these fuckers are annoying attention whores." from the wiki: sure, they're "bringing attention to the issue", but mainly they're bringing attention to themself.
My wife decided to change our company's Facebook profile to the red box. We sell primarily to conservative red-staters, and we have nearly 9k likes. It's a decision that will almost certainly cost us sales, but we figured if it changed a few people's minds or at least made them think twice about how they treat a gay relative it's worth it. I don't think my wife's decision to do this is "slacktavist," since she put real money on the line. But she never would have heard of the idea if several of her slacktavist friends hadn't posted it on their facebook profiles. Maybe it's totally irrelevant and just a big circle jerk. But my wife thinks it isn't and is willing to put her money where her mouth is. (lol. I guess by posting this I'm being a slacktavist for her. Maybe it'll get me some tonight.)
There's a related term for the use of this, I have to dig it up. Its basically when a business uses a social platform as a form of marketing.
Astroturfing. But yeah, like I said, this is kind of anti-marketing. That red box will probably piss off more customers than it'll please for us. A ton of our customers are the elderly Fox News crowd.
