Inactive Activism

            There is a lot of activism these days, but a lot of it is done online. This is a rather ineffective method for a number of reasons. As we discussed in class, it is extremely easy not only for people to be a part of something, but to be an organizer. When too many people are organizing too many events, things become extremely organized. There are so many simultaneous happenings that it is almost not even worth going to them.

            For instance, on Facebook I receive an innumerable number of invitations to events from NU AfterHours. There are so many that I just ignore them, and I feel as though I miss out on a lot of events simply because there is too much going on for me to take a legitimate interest.

            The Occupy movement is also a good example of people being too active. I went into the Northeastern Occupy Facebook group to look for a possible source for a story on the movement and all I saw was post after post of people telling the other activists to come to this event and that event. It seemed as though there was just far too much going on to keep track of.

            Similarly, when there is such a large volume of invitations online, it is very easy to just skim over them or forget about them, which is a huge issue with online activism. People click a button and feel like they are involved, but do very little to actually support a cause.