Following the most recent London NFPTweetup meeting of charity social media users, I was interested to read a thought-provoking and increasingly commented upon blog from @SamRSparrow (aka Samantha Sparrow) about 'slacktivism'. For those of you new to this term, and according to Wikipedia;
the word slacktivism is usually 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. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. Examples of activities labeled as "slacktivist" include signing internet petitions, the wearing of awareness ribbons or awareness bracelets with political messages, putting a ribbon magnet on a vehicle, writing blogs or statuses about issues on social networking sites, joining a Facebook group, posting issue-oriented YouTube videos, or altering one's personal data or avatar on social network services
This suggests to me that being a 'slacktivist' is considered a bad thing by at least the authors of the definition, who, are the truly engaged and spend their time moving heaven and earth to change the world. You do indeed do a great job but please get over yourselves.
Samantha's blog suggests that being a slacktivist might not be such a bad thing and that many people are involved with charities at this level. And I couldn't agree more. Millions of pounds have been raised by people wearing charity bracelets. Hundreds of millions have been raised through slacktivists supporting initiatives like Comic Relief, Children in Need and DEC Appeals. I don't see anything pejorative about that.
Read more at the Bottom Line Ideas Blog............
