Why we’re OK with sharing problems instead of actually doing something about them Finn Follow Oct 9, 2019 · 3 min read

Spreading the word about an issue might make people like you more, but it won’t do much beyond that.

Sometimes, it seems to me like “activism” in this generation rarely goes beyond our Stories. Not a day goes by when I open Instagram and don’t see a shared post about some horrible thing going on in the world. Climate change, refugee crises, animal abuse, the election — everything wrong with society is being brought to my attention. They demand that I share and repost to “raise awareness” about the issue of the day.

Here’s the thing: this does next to nothing. A video detailing the horrible treatment of protesters by the Iranian government won’t cause Rouhani to take it easy on them. A compilation of all the horrible shit Trump’s said won’t convince Senate Republicans to remove him from office. A CNN story about the wildfires in Alaska and how we only have a couple years to reverse the effects of climate change won’t make the titans of industry sit up in their chairs and go “Shit, really? Only 5 years left?” And yet people seem to think it will.

It’s mostly about branding, of course. It always is. When your followers see an obscure story calling for justice next to your username, it changes their image of you. You’re seen as informed, smart, brave for taking the bold step of tapping “Add post to your story”. But what actually changes? Even if every single one of your 735 followers spreads the word, who’s going to care? Is one of their followers going to see it and decide to actually do something about it, to take real, concrete steps toward solving the problem?

No. Of course not.

The problem isn’t that people think the world is perfect. We know it sucks. We talk about it every day, we lose sleep over it, we try to escape it with Netflix and Hulu and YouTube. But drowning out the world does just as much to fix its problems as “raising awareness” for them.

How many people who changed their profile pictures to spread the word of the massacre in Sudan actually called on the UN to intervene? How many who shared Greta Thunberg’s speech wrote their legislators to demand policy reform? How many Trump haters have actually donated to a campaign or volunteered with an action committee?

Not many. I know I haven’t. Why? Because it’s hard. It’s inconvenient to give some of your time and energy to a cause that might seem hopeless. It’s so much easier to add #neveragain to your posts and to tweet @realDonaldTrump and call him an asshole. It lets you finish the episode or hang out with your friends instead of doing something that might actually have an impact.

I know this is preachy. I’m not trying to pretend I’m a saint here. I don’t do shit. But at least I don’t frame myself as an activist to make people think I care. I read the news, and I vote, and I try to think critically about other people’s opinions and the rationale behind them. I’m far from perfect. It just really gets under my skin that people somehow think spreading the word will have any effect beyond an apology from a brand or a trending hashtag.

It’s really cool when I see people post photos from a protest. It’s awesome that people care enough to get up and join others in demanding action. But you’re not fooling anyone with a caption that says “it doesn’t stop here”. Of course it stops there. What else are you going to do? That was your plan for the morning, and now you have the rest of the day to enjoy guilt free. Let the anger go until it builds up enough for another retweet or angry story.