I think hashtag activism is easy to make fun of, but it isn’t useless. I’m pretty sure #BlackLivesMatter started as hashtag activism (the hashtag is my first clue) but a colleague of mine is now including Black Lives Matter as an important stakeholder group in discussions about reforming the way we investigate police shootings. I have no idea if Ontario’s Black Lives Matter is even affiliated with any other Black Lives Matter organization or whether they formed independently through online awareness. Hashtag activism can spawn independent cells working for a cause locally, and I think it can be pretty powerful to have that happening in so many places at once.
The thing about hashtag activism is that if one in a million hashtag activism attempts gets something done, that would be a lot of things getting done. Hashtag activism is powerful because it generates so much dross.
Of course part of that is recognizing that a lot of the actual hashtags are useless or absurd.
I really appreciate this being said - that being perceived as attractive is an privileged position. Still, it isn’t really a compliment. It’s likely an act of aggression by a man insecure about his own position in the “pecking order”. Going back once again to:
