On "Click-Through Activism"

Inspired by the nice discussion we had in class, I just wanted to dedicate a blog-post to this subject. After reading the Washington Post article on "Neda", I felt surprised about how many actually ended up supporting this cause on their facebook. According to the article currently, groups on the subject had "nearly 36,000 members; dozens more had 1,000, or 100, or 10.". This really shows that this Click-Through Activism has become a seriously big thing to participate in.

For one, I have not partaken in it, since around a year ago now probably. The worst case seen at my high school, was during the peak of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis this year, when practically everyone donated their status' to "the .... victims". It was obvious from the beginning that Palestine had the main support in our school (it was an international school - had it been a typical American high school, things would probably have been different). No one actually did anything apart from joining the "fad" of donating their status' and joining groups. I can say this because i was seeing it happen.

It actually got really bad because, even though it was only an online show of support for either nation - the overwhelming number of Palestine "supporters" would actually make fun of, or bad mouth whoever few were donating their status' to Israeli victims. Especially a few Jewish highschoolers  had a hard time during that period of time. It was almost as if this overwhelming online support for Palestine created a little form of antisemitism at our school. It is incredible to see how far these armchair activists can take something, that they won't even support beyond their facebook status, or in discussions in school.