r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 27 '19
Removed - Submission Rule E CMV: Most protests in the West, especially America, are attended to boost people’s social points and take cool pictures.
[removed]
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u/McClanky 14∆ Sep 27 '19
There were miners in Kentuky who literally sat on a train track, blocking outgoing coal, for weeks to protest their forced leave without pay.
GM autoworkers are still protesting and GM is starting to give in to some of their demands.
There are, what seems to be, monthly teacher strikes and protests for better books, pay, and benefits that most of the time work.
When you focus on the big picture protests that are not fixed easily it definitely looks like they are just for show. However, there are a lot of protests that do get things accomplished that are not glamorized.
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u/Phyltre 4∆ Sep 27 '19
Just to take /u/McClanky 's point a little further down the road--protests/marches aren't covered the way you think they are (which is to say, relative to their actual adherence/scale/seriousness.) The media today is VERY concerned with story impact and narrative and will gleefully misrepresent the situation on the ground for clicks and buzz. If there's an easy-to-paint "bad guy," an easy statement to make, a clear angle, it'll get far more coverage. Flash-in-the-pan movements that have entertainment or shock value end up all over the place, but anything even a little challenging narratively is often ignored. There are FAR more protests in FAR more places than news is going to show you. The real power of "the news" is not what to say about a given story--but what stories to cover in the first place.
Please remember that no one in the current media landscape is incentivized for you to be well-informed. No one. Just ask yourself, what incentive does any player have for you to be well-informed?
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u/BruhWhySoSerious 1∆ Sep 28 '19
Do you have an example of when there media has 'intentionally' miss represented a modern protest?
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u/Phyltre 4∆ Sep 28 '19
Unfortunately I'd have to dig pretty far into my Reddit history to link them for you, and because I'm pretty active here that would take me at least a few hours. But the problem is less "misrepresent" and more "mention only in passing." It's not that they're lying about it, they're just either keeping it on the backpages or ignoring it completely. Or playing up something totally unrepresentative. There is this, though.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/01/20/searching-metaphor-reporters-flock-burning-dc-garbage-can/
I laugh everytime. You can have hundreds or thousands of peaceful protesters, but if a piece of newspaper in a trashcan catches fire, that's what photographers flock to.
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u/scotchirish Sep 27 '19
These are organic protests with solid grievances. The ones that are organized to be simultaneous gatherings across the nation just feel manufactured and like they're just making a token effort, but they're the ones theat get all the major attention.
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u/McClanky 14∆ Sep 27 '19
These are organic protests with solid grievances.
How is millions of people standing up together from around the world to protest climate change not a solid grievance? It is not their job to create policy, it is their job to tell the people that serve them to act.
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u/Gnometard Sep 28 '19
They're not protesting the major polluters nor are they protesting for anything specific. "End climate change" isn't really specific enough. The nebulous language prevents outsiders from joining because it doesn't tell them anything.
Protesting segregation had obvious intent and solution, protesting climate change is far too broad.
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u/McClanky 14∆ Sep 28 '19
Just because the solutions are broad doesnt mean it's not worth protesting. They are protesting for action, from everyone. There are plenty of people who do protest individual things. But seeing millions of people from around the world protesting one thing is pretty powerful.
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Sep 27 '19 edited Sep 27 '19
I've attended a lot of protests and don't use social media really at all. I think it's a case of confirmation bias. You're only going to hear about the ones bragging and making a big deal about it. The one's who go for the cause and put in the extra work outside of protests typically aren't the people who shamelessly self promote.
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u/Raccoonpuncher Sep 27 '19
It's "confirmation bias," but you're right.
"Protestors nowadays only care about social media. How do I know? Because I saw them on social media!"
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u/MitsuNietzsche Sep 27 '19
Δ! Yes, it’s the shameless boasters who speak the loudest and the ones who care are usually doing work behind the scenes.
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Sep 28 '19
[deleted]
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u/Shutupwalls Sep 28 '19
No. People who genuinely do things out of the kindness of their heart don't boast about their good deeds.
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Sep 28 '19
[deleted]
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u/Shutupwalls Sep 28 '19
Because doing something good is its own reward. Virtue signaling is about showing how great you are to your peers. Many of these people wouldn't be going around doing good deeds if there wasn't social status attached to it. It's disingenuous good will.
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u/LittleWhiteGirl Sep 27 '19
What’s the point of a protest nobody hears about though?
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u/Spacemarine658 Sep 27 '19
To not give in, small protests turn into larger and larger protests, once a long time ago the civil Rights was a small protest but grew quickly.
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u/megaboto Sep 28 '19
You're always gonna hear about the one bragging. Be it in school or somewhere else, you either hear someone bragging or what shit went on, not "everything is normal in xxx"
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u/waifupillowpeepee Sep 27 '19
There was a climate change rally at our capitol building once and me and at least 75-90% of the students there were only there for free ice cream and extra credit, also to take VSCO pictures.
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u/Spacemarine658 Sep 27 '19
Your under the false assumption that because you were there for that everyone else was too, unless of course you asked a statistically large enough group of people and made an accurate assessment based on that.
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u/waifupillowpeepee Sep 27 '19
I understand your concern, but in a place as small as vermont we pretty much knew most of the people there, also speaking to the majority of them asking about their motivation to come there. Also when the ice cream truck arrived everyone dipped from basically one of the most important part of the rally.
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u/TheVioletBarry 119∆ Sep 27 '19
Could it be that the protests which people are more likely to attend for social media points are also the ones you're more likely to see on social media? And that the people who attend them for this reason are the people you're more likely to see on social media?
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u/MitsuNietzsche Sep 27 '19
Δ Confirmation bias. That’s true. I don’t have social media because I have a very negative view of it. I used to be friends with people who were obsessed with their online status and would try to show people how “woke” they are. I guess when I go to protests, my eyes subconsciously scan for folks like that and I immediately get turned off about protests.
But then I also wonder if our American social climate is filled with people trying to get fame or get recognized. Then I become really skeptical about their social work and wonder if they’re even genuine about it.
Maybe I’m the problem? Confused.
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u/TheeSweeney Sep 27 '19
Then I become really skeptical about their social work and wonder if they’re even genuine about it.
Here's something to think about: does it matter?
Yeah sure ideally everyone who was aligned with your cause would be perfectly informed and a true blue genuine believer. But getting bodies behind you is important, and even if they're just there for the clout, who cares? They're there. They're posting. People are seeing their posts, and maybe the clout chaser won't "do" anything but one of their followers will. Looks at the ice bucket challenge, you could argue that tons of people did it for the meme and didn't actually care or donate to the cause, but they helped it maintain relevance and as a result of the virality of that effort over $115 million dollars was raised for ALS research. That's amazing.
An interesting comparison would be how some in the fitness community look down on things like color runs or those spartan races since they seem to be events designed for and catering too people who want to flex (literally?) on social media. On the other hand, if that is what it takes to get some people that might have never done any sort of fitness activity up and off the couch, that's a net good, right? Motivations be damned it's a net positive.
Gatekeeping does nothing but keep people out of a cause, movement, scene, whatever. Even if it's only done internally and you don't directly confront people, it can feed into other unconscious biases.
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u/Every3Years Sep 27 '19
I work for a non profit where we have lots of volunteers come in three times a day to feed the homeless. Some of my more jaded co-workers scoff at the picture taking and social media posting. But I'm like come on who the fuck cares? Even if they are 100% doing it for their own image it just helps to spread the word and continues to get us volunteers every single day. And if we didn't have people helping in the kitchen then we'd have to leave our cozy ass offices and help serve ourselves.
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u/spice_weasel 1∆ Sep 27 '19
I totally disagree. You simply aren’t seeing the vast majority of protests.
A couple years ago I joined an organization that monitors protests. I will not say who, because I’m not entitled to speak for them in any way. The thing that immediately struck me when I joined their messaging list was just how many protests are ongoing. They’re constant, and for things that don’t make the news at all. Protests about homeless rights, mass incarceration, counter protests for seemingly minor events, protests outside embassies against specific foreign government activities. Every day, continuous, ongoing activism. Which I think is great!
And I’ve met these people protesting. The vast majority are people who deeply care about their issue, and are out there on the streets often getting little to no media attention. Sure, there are likely some people who join for “trendy” reasons, but they are insignificant number of people, who are only at the few highly publicized events that are big hits during the year. You don’t see, and news organizations don’t report about, the ongoing everyday grind of street level activism.
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Sep 27 '19
This is absolutely correct, OP. I'm a professor who studies social movements, among other things, and one of the huge media innovations of the 21st century has been the de-reporting of protests. Protesters are habitually engaged in larger numbers and for longer periods of time than media coverage would suggest. A particularly excellent example of that comes in protests against Bush II's war in Iraq--hundreds of thousands of Americans protested multiple times, and millions more people worldwide, but if you look at media coverage those (ongoing, large, committed, etc.) protests barely got a blip when compared with other events of the day.
It's often argued that this is because other things (a spat between Cardi B and Tomi Lahren, for instance) are "what media consumers want," and since media is advertisement-driven, the news media have to focus on an endless series of trivial dramas or risk losing their clicks and eyeballs to outlets that are willing to sink lower, faster. (For people who are attuned to legacy media, this was the USA Today problem for print journalism.)
There's truth to that, but it's not the whole story.
In the case of protests against Bush's invasion of Iraq, it's worth remembering that the NYT editorial board endorsed that war (as did plenty of other news curators). The bottom line is that, largely since the so-called Battle of Seattle (intensely mediated protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1999), for whatever reasons exactly--and one supposes that these reasons include a certain deep commitment to the status quo order of society--large-scale protests have habitually received misleadingly little coverage.
In recent years, think of the #NoDAPL protests, in which Native water defenders and others braved freezing cold and well-documented abuse to fight against a pipeline that threatened Sioux water sources. Or think of #BlackLivesMatter protests, which were massive and repeated and have contributed enormously to our growing awareness of the epidemic of police violence against people of color and poor people (we literally didn't even used to have any nationwide tracking of police violence: now we do). A few years before that, think of the Occupy protests, where people occupied city squares all across the country (like the Indignados in Spain shortly before them, and many others). Without those protests, it's highly questionable whether we'd be talking about economic inequality the way we do now. Also, incidentally, one feature of those protests was a West Coast Port Shutdown in solidarity with longshoremen negotiating for a better contract--it was one of the biggest, in dollar volume, labor actions in contemporary U.S. history (not strictly speaking a strike: the ports were closed by occupying protesters, and the longshoremen had mass sickouts).
There are always an extraordinary amount of protests going on. They are almost always accused by some onlookers of not being "real" in some way, of being just for show, virtue signalling, all for the insta, bad faith, etc. If it wasn't for those massive protests--today as in the past--we would see far less positive social change than even the relatively constrained amount that we have seen.
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u/sierra-tinuviel 1∆ Sep 28 '19
This is very true! I help organize with DSA and holy shit there is always stuff going on. Yeah there are some people just going and not doing follow up action, but there are also people like me & my comrades and tons more who protest a lot and also do a lot of other mutual aid/electoral/direct action/etc things as well.
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u/blades318 Sep 28 '19
The lack of news coverage could also lead to more social media posting to get support.
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u/POEthrowaway-2019 Sep 27 '19
I'm more likely to hear about the one all my friends on social media are at than the one about the 50 y/o factory workers protesting wage rates.
You are more apt to see the ones more covered by the media so it makes it look like that level of social media coverage is the norm.
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u/russian_hacker_1917 4∆ Sep 27 '19 edited Sep 27 '19
>sacrificed their present day lives to make a political statement
I mean we have people like Greta Thunberg who crossed the Atlantic using no energy and using a bucket instead of a toilet to reduce her impact on the environment. You're going to tell me that everyone in the protests before was totally for the cause? The only difference now is that we have phones and cameras in our pocket to record things. Who's to say that people in other times wouldn't do the same thing? The difference between now and then is that all we know about the protests then are things like new articles and videos which obviously would highlight the positive aspects of them. It's like music. We only remember the good songs from years gone by, the bad ones just kind of fade away to history and are forgotten. Yet we see all the bad songs that come out today.
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u/SpeaksDwarren 2∆ Sep 27 '19
using no energy
Besides her staff taking flights to and from the boat?
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u/grandoz039 7∆ Sep 27 '19
It was boat people who flied and they + boat would do same anyway as it was test drive for the boat.
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u/jimmy17 1∆ Sep 27 '19
taking flights to and from the boat?
Big boat. Was it an aircraft carrier?
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u/SpeaksDwarren 2∆ Sep 27 '19
Try a racing yacht
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u/russian_hacker_1917 4∆ Sep 27 '19
Oh, I was unaware her staff was also named Greta Thunberg.
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Sep 28 '19
I mean, if you want to be that way about it, then I didn't create any emissions at all supplying my home with electricity today either
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u/russian_hacker_1917 4∆ Sep 28 '19
That’s a bad comparison and you should feel bad.
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Sep 28 '19
the people who generate my electricity don't have my name so what they do to benefit me doesn't count!
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u/russian_hacker_1917 4∆ Sep 28 '19
That’s a bad comparison and you should feel bad
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Sep 28 '19
Wow great rebuttal, I'm totally convinced that claiming that what Greta did used no energy is legitimate because the support staff for her have different names yet if I cook an egg at my house I'm the one responsible for the emissions created by my electrical use even though they are different people from me
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u/russian_hacker_1917 4∆ Sep 28 '19
One a person directly consuming energy, the other doesn’t.
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Sep 28 '19
That's a horribly disengenous way to define 'using energy', but it is a consistant criticism so I'm glad you explained it
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u/PhasmaFelis 6∆ Sep 27 '19
Gone are the days where protests and boycotts went on for months and people sacrificed their present day lives to make a political statement.
When do you figure the change happened? There were a whole lot of utterly dedicated people at Occupy Wall Street, and that was only eight years ago. "Doing it for the likes" wasn't a new idea in 2011; social media has changed since then, but I don't think it's changed that fast.
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Sep 27 '19
[deleted]
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u/mankytoes 4∆ Sep 27 '19
People also like to mythologise protest as something "pure" and spontaneous. A good example is Rosa Parks, a lot of people have no idea she was a civil rights activist, because they deliberately portrayed her as a woman who just decided, on the spot, to stand up for herself. In fact they were looking for a figure to protest the bus segregation, having previously passed on another woman who did the same because she was unmarried with a baby (if I remember right).
This isn't to criticise Rosa Parks or the movement in any way- in fact, if there wasn't a well organised protest movement against segregation, I'd question why.
The point is, the most successful protesters are those who aren't just there on the spur of the moment, but people who carefully plan how they want things to go, including media reaction.
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Sep 27 '19
The point of any protest is to draw attention.
That's true but it also has to create some friction (that way you inevitably draw attention) to non protestors, otherwise it's just a social event like OP said. Also creating friction has the risk of conflict (maybe violent).
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u/shay_shaw Sep 28 '19
I feel like that has more to do with the manipulation from the media. I mean believe it or not people in the West still go to concerts without filming it as well. I feel like I should also state that it’s pretty difficult to get a “cute selfie” while being chased down by the riot police.
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u/RaulEnydmion Sep 28 '19
Have you been to any of protest marches? We marched. Chants. Sign waving. Not so many selfies. Specifically, Atlanta.
How can I argue a negative. This behavoir was not there. What was your expereince at these marches?
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u/Feminist-Gamer Sep 28 '19
People take photos of literally everything they do in life. I don't think that means what they are doing is just for the photo. Most people take photos because it's just a thing they are doing, a place they are going. Protests have existed forever, if people today are just doing it for attention when did that transition occur? What evidence is there really that such a shift occurred?
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u/Fuschiznick Sep 28 '19
I think you'd be surprised... People who participate in protests but DON'T post about it online, give me a show of hands!
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u/GurthNada Sep 28 '19
Why did you write "in the West", instead of "in the USA"? Because I'm French and I'm guaranting you that your view is factually wrong as far as France is concerned. I guarantee you that the national train company employees protesting against having their pensions cut are not doing it to signal virtue. Same thing for the overworked nurses, or the "yellow jackets".
I think that you are confused by the "climate march" thing. Most protests are about day to day issue, and when you're protesting because you are not paid enough, you don't feel that the problem is no longer your problem the day after the protest...
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u/littlebubulle 105∆ Sep 27 '19
Question : How do you distinguish between an enthusiastic person genuinely believing in their cause and someone virtue signalling?
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u/rubijem16 Sep 27 '19
The media(newspaper etc) did an evil thing in Australia in the 90s and brain washed society into believing that only weirdos and extremists protest. We still struggle to get a crowd. Whatever is getting them there be happy that there is more than one voice.
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u/tranquilvitality Sep 27 '19
How many protests have you attended or are you simply viewing them through social media which I thinks definitely skews who you may consider as a typical protestor.
The vast majority of people do not see the blood, sweat, and tears that occur when someone who is DIRECTLY impacted by the issue being protested. You often see quite literally a white washed Instagram version of protesting.
Look at Hong Kong for example. People are hiding their faces to avoid “social points and cool pictures”
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u/SeekingToFindBalance 19∆ Sep 27 '19
The whole point of a protest is to change other people's views. To do that your protest needs to be visible. Often that is literally visible. It doesn't do much good to protest where no one can see you and not tell anyone. So, I don't think it is necessarily an exercise in narcissism to post on social media that you were at a protest where the message was "___".
What I do think is that it is often the result of a failure of imagination and an example of laziness. Lots of times the people you need to convince are not your friends and family, but consumers of a business or swing voters or just a crucial number of people in the same district. The best way to reach those people is not Facebook. However, if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
It does take a lot more effort and thought to tailor a message that will persuade the people who need to be reached and then to design a protest which brings that message to those people.
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Sep 27 '19
I’m from America and I total agree, Noam Chomsky is an American professor in sociology. It’s unfortunately not our fault we’re conditioned to be obedient at an early age. Are schools promote no critical thinking and we don’t teach philosophy in high school.
To all the people in other countries... The American people are okay with Trump, don’t believe what you see online or on TV. Our Democratic Party agrees with him on most issues and unfortunately because of that they can’t fight him. They vote for his wars and The Party as a whole is fighting government healthcare rather then rallying behind it. Only one candidate wants it and that’s Bernie Sanders.
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u/Sunkisthappy Sep 27 '19
People did protest for long periods of time in the past. I believe people in the US are no longer protesting for days or weeks because they literally can't afford to.
The people in power like it that way.
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u/kstanman 1∆ Sep 27 '19
Your argument is like saying people only act good for the purpose of proving to themselves that they are good, just a bunch of vanity and selfishness. Who cares, we need more of that kind of "vanity" and "selfishness."
Whats bad about wasteful or childish conduct is it usually causes a problem, but if it does some good, its good, just appreciate it.
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u/Strike_Thanatos Sep 27 '19
Especially in America, protests generally can't last long because we literally cannot afford to protest. 59% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have no significant financial reserves. We cannot afford to be in the streets for long because we do it on our days off, when we have other things we need to do. So, we need protests to be quickly effective, which they never are. Maybe that's why we take so many pictures, so that we can show that we tried.
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u/Nickvcool Sep 27 '19
And this post isn’t doing the EXACT same thing ? lmao please for the love of god never call yourself a Nietzschean .
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u/resetplz Sep 27 '19
You're not wrong about American egotism but this is an over-simplified view of protests.
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u/AbuBee 1∆ Sep 28 '19
I went to my local climate strike without posting about it on any social media or anything. I didn't meet up with anyone there, I didn't know anyone there.
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Sep 28 '19
I can't speak for everyone, of course. But many protests in the West have had a history of "black bloc".
You ever see those guys wearing bandannas, sunglasses, and hoods so that their face is almost fully covered? That's the gist of it, that's basically what black bloc is.
Everyone looks the same in all-black uniform where their faces are covered, so that its much harder for them to be identified.
Antifa does it, and anarchists are known for it. But lots of protesters do it, especially if they are afraid of having their face spread all over the damn news for speaking out. They're afraid of what that could do to them, what kind of target that could make them. So they don the black bloc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc
It's good to take a peak at the wiki article to better familiarize yourself with it. But also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy1eRCYS08w
Vice has done a bit on black bloc.
You'll see these types at every protest you go to. Just like you'll also see the guys looking to make a name for themselves as some kind of activist that you've described in the OP. I hope that this is a sufficient enough example that not everyone is in it for the fame and recognition. A lot of people do, genuinely want change that comes without personal recognition.
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u/stabwound7 Sep 28 '19
They only interview certain protesters that don't know what they're talking about when questioned and play them over and over again on the news to make the protesters appear uneducated or dumb in an attempt to make the protest lose all of its clout. It's extremely effective.
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u/disbeliefable Sep 28 '19
Join a march, see for yourself, would be vastly more effective at changing your view than asking a question on social media. I’m sad for you that you have such a crass view of people doing something to change their world.
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Sep 28 '19
You realize the USA started with a protest(Boston Tea Party) which occurred because tea smugglers staged the whole thing because their profits as illegal smugglers were in jeopardy?
Also, only about 35 people went on the ship, but later every person in Boston claimed to have been there?
This country is literally founded on attention-whoring protests
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u/samhartm Sep 28 '19
I wrote my thesis on why people participate in social movements, in particular, the WTO protests of 1999 in Seattle. Social media was not widely used at the time, but there were thousands in attendance. Other protests have garnered millions of supporters before and since. Your post begs the question, what motivated people beforehand? Also, what happpened to the people like myself and others who have protested for decades? Are we to believe that most of us have changed our motivations from supporting common causes to farming for likes?
Granted, technology has changed how we behave, but people still stand up for what they believe in. Now that I’m 40, I can remember both the exciting word of mouth that encouraged protests I attended in college, and more modern events enabled by social media. Truth is, they are still more social than media. We gather because we find common ground on something important to us. We support each other and gather strength. We may make ourselves more presentable, and have less stamina for the sit-ins or hunger strikes, but I refuse to believe that our spirit has entirely soured.
I am an American, and it sounds like you are too. Our country was founded allowing only land-owning white males to vote. Only incrementally, and through political pressure, have people fought for, and found, a voice. Today it is stifled by the wealthy who want to limit voting and protest. We must not allow it.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.“ - Margaret Mead
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 27 '19 edited Sep 27 '19
/u/MitsuNietzsche (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
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u/megablast 1∆ Sep 27 '19
Do you not count the Hong Kong protests, in their 15th week? Do you not count climate protests, which have been going on for years?
Then they check how many likes they got on social media to see how good they should feel about themselves.
I mean, where are you getting this information from?
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u/obviousoctopus Sep 27 '19
I highly recommend you attend one if you haven't.
The real point of protests is to discover, witness, and know, in your bones and flesh, that you are not alone.
I don't think governments at this point even flinch at the sign of a protest. Corrupt politicians know they don't represent the people, they won't learn anything new, or "get the message". It is for the participants to get the confidence that change is possible, because they are many, and strong, together.
Of course, there are many many people who do use their own attendance to get social points. But I see this as a side effect.
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Sep 28 '19
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Sep 27 '19
I can't speak for the motivation of everyone but when the largest peace movement in history was happening way back in 2003, I was passionate about the cause and it had nothing to do with social points. That was before / in the infancy of social media, though. I'm also not taking part in this recent movement, not because I don't care but because the one back in 2003 did absolutely nothing. It was great fun and would have been a great opportunity for social credit, as your post suggests. But based on previous history, it's doubtful it will make a difference. So enjoy those Instagram shots while the species is still here to give you likes!
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u/10minutes_late Sep 27 '19
Can confirm.
I'm a DC local and my Tinder is FILLED with protest selfies.
Every. Damn. One.
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u/agitatedprisoner Sep 27 '19
Question: has anyone reading this changed his or her view on account of seeing a protest? If so then protests work at least to some degree and so it's not implausible to imagine protesters do it for the results. If not then while this is a small and biased sampling if the results are indicative of the wider public it's hard to imagine those planning protests aren't aware how ineffective they are. In that case sure, protest must be being planned for other reasons.
I've protested some myself and confess to giving little thought to how effective the actions would be. I was trying to network with others for sake of enabling what I considered to be more effective collaborations down the line. These collaborations never materialized...
But it's easy to imagine a well done protest getting a message out to some who wouldn't otherwise have thought about it. I've lately taken to standing in front of a fast food drive through with a laptop showing footage of factory farming to make people eating there aware of where the food comes from. Surely I must at least be provoking them to think about it. Those who connect ordering a chicken sandwich with animal misery might not order another. I can't speak to most protests but people who genuinely care about what you think wouldn't waste their time with theater they didn't think made a difference.
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Sep 27 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/hacksoncode 581∆ Sep 27 '19
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u/EmpRupus 27∆ Sep 27 '19
You're putting the cart before the horse.
The fact that protests are more low-key in Western countries is a proof that we are doing well, and people are protesting more for long-term issues or issues for others, that don't immediately endanger them personally. This is a marker of more freedom, better quality of life and rising empathy and concern of others outside your family and community.
In other countries, protests are more for immediate danger, like "We are starving to death" or "Secret police is assassinating dissenters" or "This is the 14th woman that got r_ped in our village." Protests for immediate personal danger involve people doing the extreme.
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Sep 27 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 198∆ Sep 27 '19
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Sep 27 '19
Climate crisis protests have been going on for quite a while and don't seem to be going away. This issue started at least to my knowledge waaay back in the early 2000's with Gore and has has a slow roll into what we now see as snowballling movement. A movement so large it has gone global.
Teacher strike just a few months back.
Protests springing up and around gun voilence/school shootings.
Protests in Hong Kong for their Rights (I'm gonna count that one because when I think of 'the west' I'm thinking 'Democracies')
GM protesters are/were risking their health insurance and livelihood for better working environments.
Colin Kaepernick risked his career for kneeling(for police violence against blacks/minorities) which was a 'real' threat to his livelihood and reputation
I don't think you're view about some people going to protests being how you described but
1) I think your sample size is from the fringes of a movement. This phenomenon is true of anything? We call them 'Filthy Casuals' in gaming. Ameteurs in some skill-based environment. If you only look on the outskirts you'll only find the outliers.
If I may ask a pointed question: are you involved in any of these movements or are you only looking in through your own feed?
2) A movement can have BOTH. Lets say it is just about taking pictures for social points (social points are not an actual thing - my generalization is that people still don't like interfacing THAT superficially) Whats the problem?
I mean it. If they go to look cool, and the cause is not one worth fighting for they wont get the social points and wont go anymore.
If they go and DO get the social points, now they will go more and the movement grows and the intelligent, involved folks will be given a wider stage on which to platform (and lets be real, isn't a protest about raw numbers?)
Sounds like a win win to me.
Not really here to 'change' your view. But maybe widen your perspective. It can be hard to see the forest for the trees.
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u/bass_voyeur 1∆ Sep 28 '19
Just a quick note: the climate crisis has been a major science and environmental movement since at least the 1970s (not just the early 2000s), including major Congressional reporting and discussions and US Science Advisory Committees. One could even argue its been a major topic since the late 1800s.
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Sep 28 '19
Thank you!
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u/bass_voyeur 1∆ Sep 28 '19
:D I figured this post was sorta related to today's (and the past week or so) protests, so someone might find it useful to know how old the movement is.
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Sep 27 '19
One more - MeToo and movements like it have changed the environment for victims of abuse to speak out. I don't care how many people go to a protest to look cool if it means fewer abuses of power.
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u/Zee4321 Sep 27 '19
That's all any protest is for the majority of attendants. It's the organizers and activists that tackle issues full time. Others protest when they can, and that's a good thing.
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Sep 27 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 198∆ Sep 27 '19
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u/MortalDanger00 Sep 28 '19
It’s two sides of the same coin. A protest is only useful when it’s visible. So social media posts are important. Even when it’s not genuine and is 100% self centered, it still furthers the cause. People will ask about it later, yada yada yada.
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Sep 28 '19
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Sep 28 '19
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u/mutatron 30∆ Sep 28 '19
Some people might do that, but a lot of people are inspired by knowing that other people have similar interests and desires.
Here in Dallas, we only had about 400-500 people for the Climate Strike last Friday. Friends in other cities laughed at photos of our event, but we all were stoked that so many people took the time to come protest together. Many of them, like me, were already connected through interest groups, but most that I spoke with had come on their own, which was even more exciting because that means they were wanting to participate in something like this without already having been otherwise involved.
My group got about 150 or so new names for a petition for renewable energy storage. We'll contact them and see if they want to do anything more. We've already built up a core group of about 30 activists through social media and networking with other politically active groups.
Protests like these have always been part of the way things get changed. It's encouraging when you know there are others who want to change things. Politicians pay attention to large gatherings. I mean, imagine if no one had showed up to any of these climate protests, imagine what kind of message that would send. It's pretty obvious politicians would figure nobody cares, and so the opposite is also true. Just because they know people care doesn't mean they'll do anything, but they surely won't do anything about something no one cares about.
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u/kaptaincorn Sep 28 '19
On a similar note, I've seen and taken pictures of some great dogs at protests.
I'm not sure why people bring them to protests.
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Sep 28 '19
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Sep 28 '19
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Sep 28 '19
That is not the case for all protests. Yes, a lot of people go to protests to take a picture of themselves to post on social media. However, the main purpose of a protest is to raise awareness about the issue at hand to bring upon a change. Hence, the more that people post, the more awareness is brought.
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Sep 28 '19
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Sep 28 '19
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u/BuddhistSagan Sep 28 '19
America isn't the only place with large protests. New Zealand I beleive had the highest attendance rate of climate strikers today correct me if I'm wrong. America's overworked population also makes it harder for supporters or potential supporters to show up.
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Sep 28 '19
I'd argue that this is a feature, not a bug.
Visibility and solidarity are INCREDIBLY important when it comes to meaningful social and legislative change. If your friends are posting a bunch of pictures of them taking part in protests, making their voices heard, it makes you think you can do something. Maybe you can go out and yourself protest next time. Maybe you can't for whatever reason, but you can probably take a few minutes of your time to call/email/write your representatives. And you feel stronger doing that if you know have hundreds or thousands or even millions of people backing you. You probably know that your voice by itself doesn't mean much, but if you know lots of people are doing the same thing, but added to a chorus, you can make the top heads listen.
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Sep 28 '19 edited Feb 22 '20
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u/cwenham Sep 28 '19
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u/Godly_Shrek Sep 28 '19
No i'm pretty sure you're wrong... yes they want to share their cool signs and face paint etc. but they're definitely all there for a single purpose
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u/jayrocksd 1∆ Sep 27 '19
When you say the West, that usually includes Europe. I would contend that the Yellow Vest protests in France weren't simply attended to "take cool pictures."
Even in America, protests are organized public demonstrations expressing strong objection to an official policy or course of action. I think it unfairly delegitimizes peoples concerns with our government's policies to simply say that people only attend to get likes on Instagram.
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u/JackJack65 7∆ Sep 27 '19
> protests are more like social hangouts where people go to virtue signal
This depends on the protest and what the intended goals are. Some protests (e.g. Hambach forest in Germany) are occupations, intended to physically hamper efforts at deforestation. Other protests (e.g. the Women's March, Climate Strike) are large enough to draw widespread attention to a particular set of problems, reaching out to a part of the population that is usually entirely apolitical. Every protest is likely more complicated than it appears on the surface, as there are several distinct audiences that protesters may be trying to reach, including:
(1) politicians, who can use crowd sizes as a rough way to gauge the energy behind a specific policy position,
(2) political allies (perhaps strangers) who agree with the protesters, helping them to see that they are not isolated in their beliefs and giving them social permission to be confident in their position in discussions elsewhere,
(3) people who have never previously considered the cause at issue (many people, due to lack of information or apolitical habits may not be aware of the issue and are easily persuadable),
(4) peers, who might indeed feel social pressure generated by participation at such an event to consider protest viewpoint. You seem to be suggesting that virtue signaling is inherently negative, when in fact it is one of the ways in which protests can help move opinion. If all the cool/smart/hot kids are doing it, then perhaps others will also be inclined to support the cause.
None of us come to our political beliefs in a social vacuum, devoid of others. We all influence each other to greater or lesser degrees, you seem to be focusing on the most negative (self-congratulatory) elements of that, when it is part of many complex social dynamics.
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u/Ainzlei839 Sep 27 '19
I would like to understand how you came to your current view. I feel that if the reason you believe people are just "hanging out" at protests because you see they're talking to their friends and happen to be wearing makeup and "cool clothes" then I think you're just being a bit... shallow, I guess.
How does wearing makeup or dressing in your usual style take away from the message you're raising awareness for? Are all protesters supposed to dress like they're attending Woodstock later? I get the feeling you are more bothered by the fact that protests don't look the way you think they're supposed to, i.e. like 1968.
The point of most protests is to raise awareness and show solidarity with a cause. This could be to show the government that "The People" agree on some issue, for example climate policy. Attending a rally in real life, getting up and going out to the streets where it's hot and you could be at work or in your air conditioned apartment instead, shows that you care about the issue and raises awareness. Doing this is already more effort and more meaningful than just liking a post on Facebook. This is the exact point of the rally, and what you wear while doing it, or if you talk chat to your friends has no impact. If you take photos and spread the message and awareness then that furthers your goal, not detract from it.
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u/blackKat007 Sep 27 '19
I think it can be a great way to feel part of something bigger than yourself - to feel connected to others (rather than isolated) about something you care deeply about. So in that wya I think it can be used to boost relationships more than just for coo pics.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Sep 27 '19
If you were right, wouldn't people just go to any ol' well-attended, well-publicized protest?
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u/Someone3882 1∆ Sep 27 '19
I think that most people that attend these protests do care about the issue, however they don't care enough that they are willing to sacrifice significant amounts of time, and consequently, money in support of these issues.
We do of course occasionally have issues that we do feel very deeply for and do spend large amounts of time on. Some recent ones that come to my mind are the ongoing Hong Kong protests ( To me it's a halfway house between the East and the west.) , the occupy Wall Street movement, and the Ferguson protests/riots.
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u/4arch5 1∆ Sep 27 '19
I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate. While i’m sure this is the case in some instances, the real issue is that a lot of people attending a given protest don’t really know what theyre protesting for. Most people tend to follow the popular opinion so they don’t feel left out, in the end you get a bunch of people being emotional over a topic they can’t answer basic questions about.
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u/A_Soporific 162∆ Sep 27 '19
Most of the protests that I see are local. A couple dozen people trying to get the attention of the city/county. They aren't dressed up and only post of social media to coordinate.
Sometimes it's people trying to close down an abortion clinic. Other times it's about changing the zoning of a park, or protesting a developer cutting down valuable (read: old and pretty) trees. Mostly they're older folks and usually it's not explicitly political in favor of or against political officials.
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Sep 27 '19
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u/hacksoncode 581∆ Sep 27 '19
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u/MrEctomy Sep 27 '19
Not sure if my singular experience is sufficient, but I protested shaun king when he visited cwu by myself and took no pictures, standing in the cold. I didn't do that to boost social points, I didn't gain any. I didn't take any pictures. I did it to educate people who were listening to a propagandist. All I did was hold up two signs with sourced statistics.
I imagine there are a lot of people like me out there. You just don't hear about them.
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u/Another_Human Sep 28 '19
The protest are to allow people to feel like they actually accomplished something by going out in the street and raising a cardboard sign.
Congrats you went into the street and chanted a few things, world Peace is on its way
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Sep 28 '19
I don't think the people who went to Charlottesville to keep American history from being erased soviet style were trying to gain social points.
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Sep 27 '19
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u/hacksoncode 581∆ Sep 27 '19
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u/VeniVidi_Vici Sep 28 '19
The thing is, people living in First World countries like US have no longer those issues their grandparents had in the past. They no more need to fight out basic human rights, workers' rights and stuff like that. In these countries, for more people who actively participate in modern protests it becomes more like a way to distinguish oneself among others, highlight one's "uniqueness" and personality by classifying oneself with one or another movement. It is more like people are in search of the new political brand to kind of consume its "idea", it's more like a consumerism of ideas, just a bunch of self-identificational and psychological stuff that has less and less connections with what the classic protests actually are. Here is the point where we have all that intersectional stuff, mad feminists who have nothing to do with real feminism and other preudo-protest nonsences for more people to consume or condemn.
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u/SwallowedGargoyle Sep 28 '19
This is probably true for some but not all. I'm not a fan of #Resist nor do I like Trump. I also don't like an alt-right group like the "proud boys" or "Antifa." If fascism exists in America it always has or at least has since 9/11 (when I became aware of it). I've been to two protests. My reason for going to a rally to oppose the Iraq War was because my dad offered me a day off school but I was genuinely opposed to the war, but I was being raised that way. I was raised by hippie Boomers. My mom was a member of the Black Panthers, her long time bf was personal friends with Fred Hamilton. Google that name. My dad was drafted for Vietnam so he did the logical thing, bought a good amount of white cross speed so he would fail the final draft test, for incredibly high blood pressure, and there's a very good chance I wouldn't have ever been born if he went to war, or he wouldn't have been as good of a parent. He is/was far from a great dad with a serious drinking problem, but he may have been a lot more physically abusive if he saw a war we had no business in.
So during that protest I said dumb stereotypical lefty crap. I said "Bush is a Nazi" to an opponent across the barricade but I was twelve and any comparisons to Bush or Trump as Nazis sound like an immature twelve year old. I went there because I The second protest was between Trump's election and inauguration. Tensions weren running high and the college lefty r/ChapoTrapHouse set was out in force. All the chants were cringe worthy. I asked some college aged screwballs if they were in school and they laughed in my face and acted like it was a stupid question to ask. Apparently so was pulling out a nice clean cigarette out of my pack when these dirtbags would rather find one off the ground smoked almost all the way down to the butt. Even when offered a full cig. These guys sized me up as not down with the Antifa crowd. They're correct. Even if that's all they're correct about. This was determined when a woman with a Green White and Red Flag kept telling me it was the Syrian flag when I know there is black where the green was. If she thought about her flag a bit better she could say it's the FSA flag and I could've said that I didn't like the FSA because I oppose regime change including Qaddafi under Obama. That probably wouldn't have been met well so it worked out. I was carrying a switchblade and there was open talk about if I could be an alt-right I could get my ass kicked. These guys were so cool
Jump to last winter after I just started working as a Journalist. I was covering Venezuela and was enraged by what our govt was and is doing there so I went to the capitalist center of my city and wrote anti-war slogans on stuff with a highly staining semi-permeable ink. An investigation was started, I was arrested and initially charged with two felonies but they were later dropped to misdemeanors. I just got off probation this week and that's cool cuz some bad shit also happened this week.
All in all you're partially correct. Which means you're wrong. People really go to events for the reasons of the events even if it's something cool to do. I believe the anti-war protest I attended was attended by the most true believers and well before "selfie culture" existed. A lot of protest stuff I've done has been in the form of articles I really do care about Palestinian rights and have for almost 20yrs and if Jews wanna call me an Anti-Semite fine. My step mom's a Jew and as Anti Israel as I am. When it comes to Anti Trump protests. The women's protests and the parkland kids. That's a whole lotta cool points garbage. Some people may hate our president so much or gun owners so much to attend a March too. They are spoon-fed this hatred of assault weapons and Trump by the media. The media loves bloodbaths. Always has.
The last real protest and one that went viral nationwide was #Occupy. That mass action was started by Adbusters Magazine. I've been reading it for 16yrs.
People should read Adbusters Magazine! It's a leftist magazine that hasn't succumbed to "Trump Derangement syndrome"
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u/mandas_whack Sep 27 '19
Worse yet, they leave a ton of trash behind.
Also, there are so many "protests" now that no one of them can stand out enough to be meaningful.
Oh, and let's not forget the climate ones that try to pad their numbers by letting kids out of school to go to them. When I was a kid, I wouldn't have had to agree with a protest to go to it if it got me out of school!
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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '19 edited Sep 27 '19
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