How To Troll Online Slacktivists
The Facebook cartoon profile picture fad did more to raise awareness of how prevalent slacktivism is than it did to prevent child abuse. It seems like if a meme makes people feel good about themselves, without actually having to do anything of substance, it will spread.
Why anyone would think that an empty gesture like changing your profile picture could do anything meaningful about a serious issue like child abuse is mind boggling, but thankfully there is no shortage of trolls on the Internet to make fun of this. Here are 5 of the best trolling attempts on this absurd fad:
1. Little Bros
2. 1337 Javascript Hax
javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0
3. Ahh! Pedophiles!
4. Obligatory Family Guy Reference
5. Childhood Ruining
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Nanashi Desu
Some peeps also used Pedobear as their DP.
David David
I guess sometime we have to breed troll and learn how to troll well too
sairakhan
i like this post, i will try this, thanks for sharing
http://forshop.us
Friend Besto
kouyamiaura
applauds
The best article I've read here since KYM 2.0 started.
xNovaXx
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/06/viral-facebook-campaign-work-pedophile-masterminds/?test=latestnews
Know Your Meme is mentioned in that article. Seems that the "pedophiles made it up!" comment is starting to catch on in the media.
Brad
lol, nice article don! I've also noticed how some people take up social campaigns and causes as more of a fashion statement than an actual pledge for action. Or like mentioned in the article, the underlyng cause might as well be a pretext for the propagation of meme.
On a separate note, there's an interesting parallel between online slacktivism in democracies vs. internet campaigns in societies where formally organized campaigns are persecuted. For instance, recent online protests in Iran (like Free Majid Tavakoli) were also driven by power of images and symbolic displays, though the motive behind it was to avoid government persecution, rather than out of laziness.
Zelda Goth
Wow…must…try..
Trick Lobo
James' post makes me wish that we could up karma comments on articles.
Nzm 1536
hacktivism > slacktivism