Humor in Online Activism

Online activism is all around us these days. In fact, Tuesday saw the start of a viral Facebook and Twitter sign of support for marriage equality in the current Supreme Court hearings. In this particular online activism trend, supporters of marriage equality replace their profile pictures with the alteration of The Human Rights Campaign logo shown above. There are also several other unique alterations on this picture in true internet style--no need to be all serious even when making radical social changes, after all.

The Oatmeal, a popular web comic, made sure to get in on the trend with the "equal marriage rights and bacon for all" spin on the logo. Such casual, albeit quite amusing, antics on the internet does lead people  to see online activism as rather juvenile and not reflective of people's true feelings. After all, the thought is that it just takes enough followers and a catchy logo to make enough noise to get noticed.

In fact, as an article covering the response from the White House to the Death Star petition points out:

Anyone with an agenda and 25,000 signatures can elicit an official response from the White House's "We the People" website. This being the internet and all, requests naturally tilt toward the edges: A petition for President Obama's impeachment, federally legalized marijuana, secession appeals, and a nationalized Twinkie industry. 

In the Death Star petition--a petition I proudly signed, by the way--34,435 people expressed their support for our government to fund the creation of a Death Star. While it was clearly a spoof petition that wasn't intended to pass--one of the top reasons being that it would take "$850 quadrillion" to build--it was clearly geared towards and succeeded in garnering attention. Many people would write it off as the typical comical farce of the internet. However, the internet has often proven that humor can carry very serious messages far and wide. Though no one expected the petition to pass, it did show many people's concern with extremely decreased funding for United States space programs, the poor state of the economy, the extreme amount of money we put into the defense budget, and the connection between these things. The actual text of the petition says:

By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

The Death Star petition was created November 14, 2012, a particularly relevant time considering this August 6, 2012 article on a portion of the public's shortsighted and negative reaction to the funding spent on the Mars rover Curiosity. Most of the comments on Facebook amounted to people saying that the $2.5 Billion budget for Curiosity was wasted when it should have gone to providing shelter for the homeless. This sentiment actually became pretty popular because it was turned into a spreadable media format in the form of a shareable picture on Facebook. I know I commented vociferously on such posts pointing out how employing people using $2.5 Billion dollars does a lot more to stimulate the economy and improve living conditions than does giving it away to treat the symptoms of the problem. However, somehow my singular comments didn't become quite as popular as the photo being shared--shocking, I know.

What better way to combat this mode of thinking, though, than to create an attention grabbing Death Star petition that the White House actually responds to? There really isn't one.

So, before people write off the power of online activism because of its seemingly childish appearance, you really have to look at the underlying and powerful messages that the humor is carrying across boundaries in leaps and bounds that serious, straight laced activism just can't. After all, it's not a new phenomenon that the packaging of the message has to attract people before it can't fully soak into their brains. Internet humor in spreadable media format just happens to be the new transporting agent.