My school’s chapter of the SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) mobilizes, advertises, and announces protests exclusively through social media. This was not their initial modus operandi. In their first semester of existence, they put up posters and placed pamphlets on tables. At one point, they even hijacked the College president’s email to announce a demonstration.
At the end of the spring semester two years ago, they began an encampment, like many across the US. I attended the protest where they set up this encampment. The sun had gone down, and I was near-shivering in the cold. I watched as other students stumbled through the steps of setting up tents. I felt admiration for these people, who had pooled resources and their meager muscles to do something, mixed with dread at what I knew would follow.
There are no happy endings here. The camp was destroyed, students beaten and arrested. The slaughter in Palestine continues. America tumbles toward fascism. I do not say that lightly, but it is clear to anyone who knows what to look for. We live under a conservative government, looking to restrict free speech and reduce society to the norms of an idealized past. It abhors difference and dissonance and loves propaganda. There is no comfort and no clear answer, but there is some hope. Social media has offered a new generation a way to organize. It is not a full answer nor a perfect solution, but it is a start.
The purpose and pitfalls of social media activism
Nothing ever happens for the first time. Palestine is hardly the first cause to find wings on social media. The clearest, earliest example that comes to my mind is the Arab Spring. This was a swell of social unrest and revolution across roughly 20 Arab countries. Social media indubitably played a role.
Social media provides an instrument for activists. They spread awareness and give information, such as locations of ICE agents, what to do at a protest, and how to get involved. They spotlight news that may otherwise be ignored. Yet there are also arguments that it reduces activism to liking an image or sharing a video. Malcolm Gladwell says it best:
Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things people do when they’re not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.
Malcom Gladdwell, quoted in The Role of Social Media in the Arab Spring by Sabiha Gire
Others have claimed that it builds sympathy for the protestors and that it leads more people out onto the streets, where their bodies and voices really mean something. I tread a middle ground. In my opinion, social media can serve both purposes. At its worst, it allows people to assuage the guilt they feel over their political inaction. At its best, though, it can motivate people to make the tangible sacrifices required for meaningful change.
It also reminds us that we have a moral obligation to treat others as we would want to be treated. How would you feel if the injustices you suffered went unnoticed? We have a duty to, at a minimum, serve as witnesses to the injustices imposed upon those less fortunate than ourselves. The voices of social media enable this process, eliminating excuses for ignorance. That is, when the mouths amplifying those voices aren’t duct-taped shut.
Censorship is like Darth Vader choking you
Censorship is not new. It has simply found new faces and new names. You can find it in both traditional media and social media. When Jimmy Kimmel’s comments regarding Charlie Kirk angered conservatives, the largest owner of local news stations in the country, Nexstar, dropped him. They did so to avoid the ire of our ruling party in a clear example of censorship.
On social media, it takes the form of shadow-banning, or the practice of limiting the viewership for a post or piece of content because the content is not admissible. It typically targets content about conflict, such as the genocide in Gaza, or other on-the-ground footage of humanitarian crises. You could also be shadow-banned for “political content” or even for using the word “vote”. Platforms vehemently deny that they do this, of course, but there is compelling evidence that they do.
The primary difference between these forms of media isn’t whether there is or isn’t censorship, but that with social media, the wall of censorship is much more porous. Creators will engage in algospeak to fool or bypass algorithms. This can be as simple as deliberately misspelling speech captions or replacing words with emojis, but it can involve more sophisticated methods as well.
Gen-Z is the first true “Social Media” generation. We can see how that has transformed our political discussions. We don’t rely on call-ins on radio shows or letters to the editor. Our public forum for sharing or receiving information is social media, and we are the first generation to truly grasp the rules of engagement on this platform. This has given rise to a deeply held suspicion of established institutions. We grew up under the specter of the worsening climate crisis and under the presidencies of two elderly white men, one of whom was a convicted felon. We’ve found less and less to trust in the world we’ve been handed as each year goes by.
Why are you laughing? How we cope using humor
I think that our nature as the first social media generation is shown in another way, too: how we process the events we learn about. One way is organizing a protest. Another is spreading awareness. A third way is through humor. What that humor looks like varies wildly, from inane memes seeking merely to make fun or to satire.
Why do people react this way? Pinpointing a single answer would be impossible and counterintuitive. People process information in different ways, and people joke about different things for different reasons.
For some, it is a means of processing and responding to the bleakness of our world. When you find yourself in darkness, you look for light; if you cannot find it, you invent it. A contrasting demographic simply does not believe that these events affect them, so they make fun of contentious political events because they don’t take them seriously.
For still others, humor is not a coping mechanism or means for processing but a tool for activism. This seems counterintuitive at first: How does laughter drive people to political action? But this works for several reasons. Laughter brings walls down. It forms a connection, and if people feel they have a connection to you, they’re more likely to listen to what you have to say. It can also act as a means of attack rather than subversion. Finally, given so much of the internet vernacular is humor and memes, it functions as an efficient way to convey ideas.
Great communicators
There’s a secret fourth group, too, but I’ve purposefully separated them from the average citizen. In recent years, we’ve seen politicians looking for new and novel ways to spread awareness for their campaigns as well as garner funding and support. A recent example is the new mayor-elect of New York, Zohran Mamdani. My personal favorite, though, is the Portland Water Bureau.
Both the Portland Water Bureau and Mamdani recall FDR‘s Fireside Chats. These conversations, through the then-new medium of radio, were meant to reach out to Americans and assuage their fears by making policy and government more transparent. They also sought to garner support, since the addresses painted the government and policymakers in a positive light.
These new social media posts serve a similar function, from the pop culture references of the Bureau to Mamdani’s clear policy explanations. Older attempts at social media campaigning, such as Bernie Sanders’s terminally memed fundraising ad, speak to a similar purpose. The savvier politicians have realized the public forum, where people search for information, has moved. No longer is it in newspapers, on television, on websites, or in email newsletters; it is online.
Gen Z and the generations that come after will be turning to social media to find the political voices they want to support. Though they’re looking in different places, at the end of the day, they want the same things. Gen Z is craving politicians who are relatable and who can make them laugh. We’ve seen new voices rise out of the melee of social media, and I expect that we’ll soon see more.
Is it the damn phones?
You have likely encountered the narrative that social media creates polarization. While I certainly don’t think it lessens polarization, I don’t know that it’s the true cause. Social media is a symptom, just as corporate censorship is a symptom of an unhealthy, poisonous political climate. Politics has always been divisive and personal. The very government meant to protect the American experiment endangers it. The global climate hurtles toward catastrophe, with America and the large companies infesting it apparently apathetic. The stakes are there; social media has simply made them more apparent.
It has largely been a helpful tool for activists by helping them stay informed and organize. It’s imperfect; it’s not meant to be used that way, as evidenced by things like shadow-banning, but it works. Social media has also given rise to the troubling trend of performative activism, where people post political messages for likes or to feel that they made a difference. I agree with Gladwell’s point that social media is at best a catalyst, at worst a diversion. Real action happens in the real world.
It’s easy to scroll for hours on your phone and feel alone in a sea of interminable, unalterable suffering. But this isn’t the reality. You may also think that it is somehow your moral imperative to right every wrong in the world, but this endeavor is doomed to fail. What social media can do is make you realize what you are passionate about changing and lead you to dozens of other people looking to change the same thing. These people are looking for community and direction, and they will find direction when they find community. Social media will not create such things, but it can and does facilitate them.
