Saturday, January 9, 2010

Fight against Slacktivism

I'm normally not a too "fired-up" person. I spend most of my life shrugging at stupid things people can do. However, after a brunch talk with my sister I got a little enraged about something stupid and therefore will share it with you.

Recently on facebook, girls have been posting colors as their status updates. As normal, I had no idea what was going on so I ignored it. My sis tells me they are posting bra colors to "promote awareness of breast cancer"

...

So, who out there wasn't aware of breast cancer?

What good is posting your bra color going to do?

Well, (as someone mentioned) what HARM is it going to do?

This is where a little thing called slacktivism comes in.
"The word is considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction." ~wikipedia

So you don't overtly hurt anyone by posting your bra color, however you are giving yourself a false "pat on the back" if you will that's not helping anyone either. It's adding to your own sense of collaboration with a cause that's not receiving any benefit. So you feel good, but they still get no assistance.

Here's my challenge. Donate $5 to the American Cancer Society THEN post your bra color.
After all, it's just five dollars.

Fight slacktivism.

https://www.cancer.org/aspx/Donation/DON_1_Donate_Online_Now.aspx

I'm doing so right now.

2 comments:

  1. Love it..i missed that too..i had no idea what the heck was going on until someone told me to post my bra color for cancer...how about volunteer 5 hours of time on the cancer ward...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Slacktivism is a perfect adjective for these kinds of viral campaigns. I frankly don't care what colour of bra anyone is wearing or whether she (or he) is wearing one at all - I care about what one is actually doing about something. Good post!

    ReplyDelete