Social media campaigns

Community awareness of issues is a no-brainer when it comes to getting things done. If nobody understands what is going on, no change can possibly come. However, in this day and age, with the Internet and all our technology, people are losing sight of how to actually improve the world around them.
Social media campaigns are turning out to be the most backward, useless ways of affecting social change, and there seems to be no end in sight. Constantly, every day, there’s some new trending hashtag or some new Facebook profile picture one can use to demonstrate solidarity. One of the biggest campaigns in recent memory was #BringBackOurGirls, after hundreds of schoolgirls were kidnapped by the fundamentalist terrorist group Boko Haram.
The Internet is an absolute deluge of information. Millions of messages and bits of information are transferred between people and exposed to millions. Instead of news sources being just TV and a newspaper, anybody can be a source of news on the Internet. It is almost impossible to not be aware of current events, with Twitter, Facebook, viral pages, blogs – the list goes on and on.
Yet, when people want to affect change, they will not go any farther than trying to raise awareness. Change a Facebook profile picture, use a hashtag, and that discharges all responsibilities of a caring citizen. Because, obviously, Boko Haram checks to see how many people are using hashtags. I’m sure congresspeople are counting profile pictures in support of marriage equality. Breaking news: After Bob Smith changes his profile picture, the NSA has decided to stop spying on the American public. It sounds absurd, but what else are people doing?
In the most powerful and advanced communications setup, awareness is guaranteed. Spreading awareness is now awareness for awareness’ sake. When thousands of people are talking about one event, awareness is moot and a distraction. It is, however, easy for people to do.
What is hard is going out and actually affecting change. Want marriage equality? Engage leaders directly. Representatives and government leaders often say that not enough people talk to them. All issues about politicians aside, they can make change, and change must come by talking to them. Politicians couldn’t care less about hashtags and profile pictures.
Money talks better than anything. It talks more than hashtags, that’s for sure. Make a collection, get some crowdfunding going to bring back girls or campaign for marriage equality. In this world of easy fixes, people stop caring about troubling issues and care more about how to make themselves feel better about it. The delusion must stop. Passing the buck must stop. People need to take responsibility to make the change they want to see.
Get up, get out and do something. Making the smallest, tiniest effort to increase awareness of a topic everybody knows about does nothing and is almost insulting. How anybody can believe that social media campaigns are any replacement for action in the real world is truly beyond me.