A Different Kind of Activism

As I walked from the subway to work, I heard a series of obnoxious noises erupt from my iPhone. AP mobile, CNN, and MSNBC all told me that there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I immediately checked my Twitter and Facebook feeds to find that my fellow Gen Y’s had also been notified about the spill and were making themselves heard.

Then I stumbled upon BPGlobalPR, a Twitter handle posing as British Petroleum to put down the company in a truly witty manner. With tweets like “If you fall off your horse, get back on. If your horse explodes and leaks oil everywhere, try to sell that oil. #bpcares,” @BPGlobalPR attracted thousands of followers instantly.

And then, on Facebook, options to “like” groups such as  “Boycott BP,” “1,000,000 Strong to Boycott BP,” or “R.I.P. Spongebob, who died in an oil spill cause [sic] of BP,” popped up within a few hours of news of the spill.

Gen Y is a protesting generation. We are opinionated and we demand change. Almost eerily similar to the Baby Boomers (they call us Echo Boomers for a reason), we are ready to fight – but not always by using picket signs or sit-ins. With social media and new technologies tightly woven into the fabric of our day-to-day lives, we’ve started to use them as tools for protest.

And the result of tweeting out what we oppose or “liking” a group connected to a current controversy, Gen Y comes together in the millions. With a few characters and the click of the mouse, we unite for a common purpose. It is our large numbers – and the unprecedented ability to easily connect them – that give us more power to influence change than ever before.

The power of the click is undeniable, but the intent behind it might be. Yes, Gen Y is passionate. But, what if we’re clicking away to support this, that, and the other because it means that we don’t actually have to stand up to what we’re against in person? Along with joining groups to put a stop to the world’s many injustices, we also join groups like “Things magically appear when your mom looks for them” or “I hate when you pour a bowl of cereal and there’s no milk.” So yes, Gen Y comes together in protest, but also to acknowledge that they too use their cell phone to see in the dark.

New groups like these flood our home pages and become more and more ridiculous. This brings me to question the difference between drive and following a fad. Perhaps your 15-year-old neighbor you’re now friends with on Facebook is not informed on the BP controversy and is just pressing “like” to seem older or more sophisticated? But I would argue, Gen Y is actively protesting and working towards a brighter tomorrow.

Whatever your take is on how Gen Y protests, we can agree that Gen-Y is causing a stir in cyberspace. For example, when BP discovered the twitter group “BPGlobalPR” they contacted Twitter and demanded for the handle to be deleted. Instead, the handle was required to make it clear in their “bio” section that it was not actually affiliated with British Petroleum. So, of course, they concocted this: “We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 81 days.” And now they’re selling t-shirts, too.

But the oil spill is not the only buzz-worthy story on the newsfeed. When Conan O’Brien was removed as the host for The Tonight Show, there was an uproar and profile pictures sprouted all over the world, appropriately captioned as “I’m with Coco.” And although Conan didn’t get his spot back and had to leave NBC, at least he knew that Gen Y was behind him (and this may have influenced his decision to go to TBS, over another network).

This social media support movement is not specific to the U.S. In fact, social media protests dominated Iran’s 2009 elections as young people across the world banded together against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Tehran’s authoritarian leaders clearly were caught off-guard. They had managed to take down the telephone system opposition supporters used for texting, but for some reason were slow to  eliminate other social media. As open defiance of the election results broke out, citizen journalists used new media to spread the word. And the whole Web was watching,” wrote The Washington Times.

Media outlets started calling the event Iran’s Twitter Revolution. And although some say that the entire uproar was “exaggerated,” it still received a huge response from Iran’s government, which proves that governments of all nations are reading what we put out there via the Internet. And by blocking certain social networking sites, like Iran did after the Twitter Revolution, says that they fear the voice of Gen Y.

And maybe they should fear us, the way the government feared the Boomers. Because of groups like Anonymous, Gen Y has taken online protesting to a whole new level. Through the usual social networking platforms and discussion forums like 4chan, Anonymous creates online protests like  Project Chanology (a protest against Scientology). But they also have been deemed responsible for declaring May 20, 2009 as “YouTube Porn Day,” when they allegedly embedded family friendly videos with porn in protest against governments that don’t favor net neutrality.

Some refer to Anonymous as “domestic terrorists,” but “terrorism” (in my opinion) is a term that is overused and non-specific at this point. So despite criticisms, Anonymous is simply using their right to protest. They just cause a slightly larger stir. Groups like Anonymous is make Gen Y seem unstoppable, which makes me wonder if it is possible for Gen Y to actually “save the world” through online activism?

We are the generation of the social network, and that means “connection” in the broadest sense of the word. Gen Y updates together, tweets together, and stands up together when the occasion calls for it. We’re not just telling our friends what we think. We’re announcing our views to the world.

Photos by scragz (top) and karen90631 (bottom)