Lack-tivism
Verb: The act of watching someone attempt to do something while you do nothing and sitting smugly by and say “you’re doing it wrong; I am so much smarter and important than you to see that”.
The first day I started my job here I took over a failing project. I met with the team and remembered the exact words I said;
“Sorry to be a late critic of how we are doing things. My dad always said there is no person more irritating than the one who stands by with their thumb up their behind, while you are working yours off, telling you you’re not doing that right. I hope you’ll bear with me, maybe I can provide some guidance on how to get things moving again.”
Recently I remembered; Dad was right. It was amazing how much smarter he has gotten since I grew up…
I found some people posting that they were going to strike and some of their ideas aligned with my concerns and I supported them in part, particularly where it applied to SUP’s censoring and poor communication. No one else got many comments, I did.
I wondered why and then it struck me, I was supposed to be one of the people who “knew best” what was right for LiveJournal. I was supposed to be more “reasonable” and less passionate. I wasn’t supposed to support the “whelps” in their “inane” attempt to change something in their world, even if in part I did agree with them. They are ‘slackers”, ‘whiners” and ne’er-do-wells. They want “everything for nothing.”
Its “stupid”, it won’t “change” anything, SUP won’t feel any “pain”.
Kudos to angrybiscuit at least he had the sacs to say, this may be stupid and not work, this might be a better way to try next time if you want to make a bigger dent.
The average age of the largest group of people posting on LJ is 19. Not 30+, but 19.
Maybe to them this is a little more than a email writing issue and something like a 6 month massively organized content strike was a little like putting a thumbtack in the bulletin board with a sledgehammer.
Maybe they just wanted to send a message they can partially organize.
Activists aren’t born, they become. They learn, then they become.
If not us, then who are the young supposed to learn how to manipulate their world from? They do it because all they ever see is naysayers that are like “that won’t work because of….” , “don’t you realize if you do that then…..” we steal their hope by saying “lie back and take it”, “it isn’t even a real problem” or “that’s just the way things are, some things will never change”
The rallying cry of Southern Jim Crow advocates. Until protesters said the naysayers were wrong.
If all they know is email activism and small protests, it is because so many of us spent the last 8 years doing nothing but standing in fear of the Bush administration and the government as they stripped clean any traces of what it used to be like to engage in protest, civil disobedience and resistance.
You really expect them to listen to our nonsense on this small issue if they perceive us as having collectively pissed away their futures on the larger ones?
I saw someone post on the gasoline strike. Economically it could never work. SO true, we all know this.
Sometimes great storms announce themselves on gentle breezes. Perhaps it could have been a first, albeit immature, step. Perhaps if we let people exercise their right to protest without jumping down their fucking throats, they might feel emboldened to take some more constructive steps later. They might learn more effective ways as they build on their steps.
Oh sorry, that’s “stupid”, that could never work, this is too insignificant of an issue, it’s a tempest in a teapot.
Oh politics is stupid, lets be faggy and talk about leather daddies and hairy men and BLAH BLAH DRONISH BLAH.
Fuck sometimes I think we deserve precisely what we get.
They’ve learned from us that paralysis, inaction and fear are the way to conform in this country, in this community, in this blog, in this life. They’ve learned directly from us here that blogging is the way to voice our angst. They never learned that some of us used to do more when we found others that shared our views.
We think we are smarter than they are, bullying people with our erudite pompous views of how the world should look from behind the safe and oh so secure world of our keyboards and computer screens.
In my life I have regularly written letters to my congressmen, I vote, I have worked on political campaigns, I have made calls and organized letter writing campaigns, I have been to rallies and I have worked to stop laws from being passed in my state.
I am getting older now. While our obligation to speak out against what we perceive as an injustice doesn’t die with age, our ability to walk door to door and stand outside for hours in the rain for political rallies does.
It was something we were supposed to bequeath to the young and guide them how to use it.
I remember in my youth being so angry at the people who sat around and screamed “America: Love it or Leave it”
The answer was never for those who were disenchanted to leave. The answer was for them to work to change things, to disregard the Love it or Leave it crowd of naysayers and try to change the world.
I look back on this in hindsight and realize now the “love it or leave its” were afraid of the status quo changing. They liked things JUST the way they were and that’s the way the government and powers that be had always done things. It was always fucked up and we all know you’ll never leave.
They knew what was best for America and the Vietnam War was part of that paradigm. How dare the young and uninformed try to change things with their stupid inane attempts. Those slackers eventually found their voice and changed a nation.
They knew what was best for America and the denial of civil rights to blacks was part of that paradigm. How dare the uppity and whiny blacks try to change things with their stupid inane attempts? Those whiners found their voices too and changed a nation.
I’m sure their first attempts were pretty pathetic, I’m sure they did a lot of fruitless things before they found their way. I’m sure they had their share of lacktivists to deal with as well.
Ah but hell, this is different. It’s just a stupid company censoring some of its members. It’s just a company that disregards the rights of the people that comprise its membership, it’s just a company that doesn’t think we “matter” enough to communicate changes with. It’s just a company that says, “Don’t rock the boat” or you’ll disappear from the community.
They are just a bunch of entitled whiny kids, it’s not like that stuff happens in America or the world outside of LJ-World.
We know you won’t leave. You always come back, no matter what the powers that be do.
“Companies regularly fuck us over, didn’t you know that pup? You’ll learn to lean back and take it, trust me; I’ve done it all my life.”
“You can’t fight city hall.”
There couldn’t POSSIBLY be anything in something so small and stupid in all of this that could possibly apply to the real world in comparison. It’s just not possible that there are lessons to be learned in something with this small and insignificant a scale.
Could there?
Of course not, “we” know better…..
“LiveJournal: Love it or Leave it”
The first day I started my job here I took over a failing project. I met with the team and remembered the exact words I said;
“Sorry to be a late critic of how we are doing things. My dad always said there is no person more irritating than the one who stands by with their thumb up their behind, while you are working yours off, telling you you’re not doing that right. I hope you’ll bear with me, maybe I can provide some guidance on how to get things moving again.”
Recently I remembered; Dad was right. It was amazing how much smarter he has gotten since I grew up…
I found some people posting that they were going to strike and some of their ideas aligned with my concerns and I supported them in part, particularly where it applied to SUP’s censoring and poor communication. No one else got many comments, I did.
I wondered why and then it struck me, I was supposed to be one of the people who “knew best” what was right for LiveJournal. I was supposed to be more “reasonable” and less passionate. I wasn’t supposed to support the “whelps” in their “inane” attempt to change something in their world, even if in part I did agree with them. They are ‘slackers”, ‘whiners” and ne’er-do-wells. They want “everything for nothing.”
Its “stupid”, it won’t “change” anything, SUP won’t feel any “pain”.
Kudos to angrybiscuit at least he had the sacs to say, this may be stupid and not work, this might be a better way to try next time if you want to make a bigger dent.
The average age of the largest group of people posting on LJ is 19. Not 30+, but 19.
Maybe to them this is a little more than a email writing issue and something like a 6 month massively organized content strike was a little like putting a thumbtack in the bulletin board with a sledgehammer.
Maybe they just wanted to send a message they can partially organize.
Activists aren’t born, they become. They learn, then they become.
If not us, then who are the young supposed to learn how to manipulate their world from? They do it because all they ever see is naysayers that are like “that won’t work because of….” , “don’t you realize if you do that then…..” we steal their hope by saying “lie back and take it”, “it isn’t even a real problem” or “that’s just the way things are, some things will never change”
The rallying cry of Southern Jim Crow advocates. Until protesters said the naysayers were wrong.
If all they know is email activism and small protests, it is because so many of us spent the last 8 years doing nothing but standing in fear of the Bush administration and the government as they stripped clean any traces of what it used to be like to engage in protest, civil disobedience and resistance.
You really expect them to listen to our nonsense on this small issue if they perceive us as having collectively pissed away their futures on the larger ones?
I saw someone post on the gasoline strike. Economically it could never work. SO true, we all know this.
Sometimes great storms announce themselves on gentle breezes. Perhaps it could have been a first, albeit immature, step. Perhaps if we let people exercise their right to protest without jumping down their fucking throats, they might feel emboldened to take some more constructive steps later. They might learn more effective ways as they build on their steps.
Oh sorry, that’s “stupid”, that could never work, this is too insignificant of an issue, it’s a tempest in a teapot.
Oh politics is stupid, lets be faggy and talk about leather daddies and hairy men and BLAH BLAH DRONISH BLAH.
Fuck sometimes I think we deserve precisely what we get.
They’ve learned from us that paralysis, inaction and fear are the way to conform in this country, in this community, in this blog, in this life. They’ve learned directly from us here that blogging is the way to voice our angst. They never learned that some of us used to do more when we found others that shared our views.
We think we are smarter than they are, bullying people with our erudite pompous views of how the world should look from behind the safe and oh so secure world of our keyboards and computer screens.
In my life I have regularly written letters to my congressmen, I vote, I have worked on political campaigns, I have made calls and organized letter writing campaigns, I have been to rallies and I have worked to stop laws from being passed in my state.
I am getting older now. While our obligation to speak out against what we perceive as an injustice doesn’t die with age, our ability to walk door to door and stand outside for hours in the rain for political rallies does.
It was something we were supposed to bequeath to the young and guide them how to use it.
I remember in my youth being so angry at the people who sat around and screamed “America: Love it or Leave it”
The answer was never for those who were disenchanted to leave. The answer was for them to work to change things, to disregard the Love it or Leave it crowd of naysayers and try to change the world.
I look back on this in hindsight and realize now the “love it or leave its” were afraid of the status quo changing. They liked things JUST the way they were and that’s the way the government and powers that be had always done things. It was always fucked up and we all know you’ll never leave.
They knew what was best for America and the Vietnam War was part of that paradigm. How dare the young and uninformed try to change things with their stupid inane attempts. Those slackers eventually found their voice and changed a nation.
They knew what was best for America and the denial of civil rights to blacks was part of that paradigm. How dare the uppity and whiny blacks try to change things with their stupid inane attempts? Those whiners found their voices too and changed a nation.
I’m sure their first attempts were pretty pathetic, I’m sure they did a lot of fruitless things before they found their way. I’m sure they had their share of lacktivists to deal with as well.
Ah but hell, this is different. It’s just a stupid company censoring some of its members. It’s just a company that disregards the rights of the people that comprise its membership, it’s just a company that doesn’t think we “matter” enough to communicate changes with. It’s just a company that says, “Don’t rock the boat” or you’ll disappear from the community.
They are just a bunch of entitled whiny kids, it’s not like that stuff happens in America or the world outside of LJ-World.
We know you won’t leave. You always come back, no matter what the powers that be do.
“Companies regularly fuck us over, didn’t you know that pup? You’ll learn to lean back and take it, trust me; I’ve done it all my life.”
“You can’t fight city hall.”
There couldn’t POSSIBLY be anything in something so small and stupid in all of this that could possibly apply to the real world in comparison. It’s just not possible that there are lessons to be learned in something with this small and insignificant a scale.
Could there?
Of course not, “we” know better…..
“LiveJournal: Love it or Leave it”