hashtag activism

In our online discussion for lab today, we discussed our views of “hashtivism.”  My interpretation of the term hashtivism is something that is done to raise awareness of and promote a cause via Twitter and other forms of social media.  Hashtivism makes use of a hashtag (#) – formerly known as the number symbol – and any powerful word or phrase after it that has meaning.  For example, some well known hashtivism hashtags are #BringBackOurGirls and #StopKony2012.  Anyone who has a means of using the Internet and has any form of social media can engage in hashtivism.  If you can create a hashtag that in any way promotes a cause or tries to raise awareness and get people to do a certain thing, etc., you can engage  hashtivism.  Usually those people who feel really passionate about something are the people to start the use of certain hashtags.   

To prepare for our online lab discussion today, we were given two pieces of information to look over and read regarding hashtivism and some common issues is arises that are popular today; one was an article about the Cancel Colbert hashtag and the other was a video of Martha Stewart doing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  Both topics were trending on twitter, facebook, and other forms of social media via a ‘#’ symbol – formerly the number symbol, but now known as a ‘hashtag’ – with a word or phrase after it. 

When looking up the word hashtivism on google and finding more information on the topic, I stumbled upon an article about a formerly trending hashtag from April 2014: #myNYPD.  This was one that I had not even known was trending at the time, but I found it very interesting.  Someone from the NYPD News Twitter account tweeted saying: “Do you have a photo w/ a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook.”  They attached a photo to this tweet of a man standing with two NYPD police officers and smiling.  What I gathered from this tweet was that the NYPD initially intended for the #myNYPD hashtag to show how friendly and personal with the citizens of New York the police at the New York Police Department are.  This hashtag took a turn for the worst and became hashtivism in the sense that it raised awareness of something more serious: police brutality.  The article shows a number of tweets that present pictures of the police engaging in violent acts when making arrests.  Not all photos showed police brutality; they just showed the police arresting people in a normal manner.  One photo that someone tweeted, however, shows the police pulling a girl’s hair, an obviously unnecessary act committed by the police when making an arrest.  The point the public is trying to make with this hashtag is to raise awareness of the large number of instances of police brutality by the NYPD. 

                In my own personal opinion, I believe that hashtivism can be both a good thing and a bad thing, in different aspects.  Hashtivism definitely has some positive aspects including, but not limited to, the increased awareness of issues, not only on a small scale, i.e. small communities and neighborhoods, but across the whole world.  The hashtag for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was also a definite positive outcome of the use of hashtivism.  Even though not everyone who did the ice bucket challenge donated, it still helped to spread the word and create much more awareness for ALS which, up until the start of the challenge, many people including myself did not even know existed, let alone was a serious disease.  The other major benefit that came out of that hashtag was that donations to the ALS foundation increased dramatically in the summer alone due to the challenge and the increased awareness of the trending hashtag.  On the other hand, the #stopKony2012 hashtag did not have much benefit.  Though it did increase awareness, not much was done or could have been done to actually stop the event from happening.  Therefore, there are both positives and negatives of hashtivism but, overall, I think a lot of good can come from the use of it.