College campuses are targeted as prime environments for social advocates and aspiring activists to proclaim the news of their cause. In a given week walking through campus, a student could likely be approached about numerous issues regarding anything from the environment to social justice causes. In the past few years, most college students have, at some point, been asked to engage with an issue by signing a petition or changing their Facebook profile picture. Over this timespan, there were two main Facebook profile picture “movements,” when people changed their picture to a red X in support of ending sexual slavery or a red-and- pink equal sign in support of marriage equality.
The goal of these endeavors and movements is to concentrate on raising awareness for the importance of the given issue that is being advocated for. Social campaigns like these have always existed, but with the advent of social media and its powerful platform potential, these movements have grown greatly. This growth is evidenced by the wave of people changing their profile pictures to equal signs last year when the Supreme Court was deliberating the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. One of Facebook’s studies on data trends revealed that during the week of the hearing, an estimated 2.7 million people changed their profile pictures in support of the marriage equality campaign.
These types of social media movements have garnered both great support and a number of critiques. The term “slacktivism” became popular among those who felt these social media movements serve only as a platform for “slacktivists.” They describe slacktivists as those who feel they are providing real social value while not providing more tangible support; such as monetary donations or volunteering. These “slacktivists,” of course, anger those who are the true proponents of these social issues that back up their public support of a cause with private action and commitment. Though this anger might be justified to a degree, it also has the potential to be rather hypocritical on the part of the true proponents. If these truly dedicated activists care as deeply about the social issues as they claim, would they not be at least somewhat satisfied to see the issue gaining exposure?
Granted, campaigns that concentrate solely on awareness are inherently limited in their capacity to create true societal change. However, to deny the importance of awareness in the process of social change is dangerous. Without awareness, there is ultimately no action. Logically, someone can’t act out against a social problem if they’re unaware that it is an issue. Injustice tends to grow best in the dark, where people remain unaware of what occurs behind the scenes. This unawareness explains, to a degree, many horrific historical events. Consider the Holocaust, which resulted in 11 million deaths, or the eugenics programs in the United States, which forcefully sterilized more than 60,000 people due to racism and pseudoscience. In both of these cases, many citizens were later found to be unaware of the injustices occurring behind the backdoors of their own communities.
These examples demonstrate that the first step to solving a problem is to shine a light on the injustice of it. This light may come in many forms and even include petitions or a booth set up on a college campus. Consider how many people the petition site Change.org has empowered. What about the large amount of funds Rally.org raised in support of many social issues and projects? What about further examples of issues, such as the AIDS epidemic? In areas concerning the epidemic, without awareness of the danger of infection, people won’t get tested. This lack of awareness leaves many potentially infected people ignorant to their potential need for treatment. In a case such as this, awareness of the situation is arguably the most important thing.
Clearly, awareness alone of an issue doesn’t necessarily resolve it. Although many supporters of awareness campaigns fall into the trap of slacktivism, this doesn’t negate from the value of a campaign’s message. At a minimum, these movements make it more difficult for particular social problems to fester further in the dark. Though changing your Facebook profile picture does indeed offer a degree of awareness and benefit to the cause, only actively fighting for social change will result in further action.