“Hashtag Feminism”: Activism or Slacktivism?

Reference with an example of one

successful case study, and one unsuccessful case study which demonstrates your
proposed argument(s).
Hello everyone, the topic i’m discussing today is

1. 什么是 Slacktivism?
that it fails to make a meaningful contribution to an overall cause because a low-stakes show
of support, whether online or offline, is superficial, ineffective, draws off energy that might
be used more constructively, and serves as a substitute for more substantive forms of activism
rather than supplementing them, and might, in fact, be counter-productive

但 it can lead to engagement and help generate support for lesser-known causes

2. 所以对于 feminism 而言 Slacktivism 一定是坏的吗？

my rebuttal: when we are criticizing slacktivism, we are talking about the low-effort the mass
pays and the little influence it contributes by retweeting, hash tagging and liking 所以当人们
对立 binary Activism 和 Slacktivism 的时候，其实是在质疑 slacktivism 的效力，当他们
认为 hashtag activism, or in this case, hashtag feminism 是 slacktivism 的时候，其实是在质
疑 hashtag feminism 的效力不够。[activism can be not working at all, while slacktivism can
also be efficient]

不 一 定 是 坏 的 ， 相 反 它 可 以 被 activism 用 作 一 种 策 略 . But it IS this digital micro-

engagement that keep the awareness of the cause in order to encourage change, because when
calls to action are low-effort, social/political/environmental causes can more easily entice a
large volume of engagement. The efficiency large-volumes of micro-engagement as a strategy
for activism can be simply proved offline – girl scouts have been asking us to buy cookies for
decades, and petitioners have ringing doorbells for centuries. The ease of “sharing” on social
media has, is only making this strategy more efficient.
In the case of #MeToo, however, the use of a hashtag was far from a “token gesture”. Sexual
assault survivors put themselves at risk of trolling, gaslighting and victim-blaming by sharing
their stories publicly. Furthermore, from an emotional point of view, public admissions of
trauma or displays of vulnerability are certainly not “cheap”.
It seems ridiculous, therefore, to brand the growth of online activism as a rise in slacktivism.
High-volume low-effort is not a new strategy for activism, and it is not rendered inferior
when transplanted into the online realm. Whilst it goes without saying that there are plenty of
social causes which cannot progress on shares/likes alone (e.g. for charities, raising money
and recruiting volunteers is tantamount), recruiting large numbers of people to show solidarity
via micro-engagement is a tried and tested method of activism.

（#metoo 例子-visibility）让 lesser known

3. 我对于 hashtag feminism 的 argument 是：hashtag feminism 是 activism，或

者 说 feminist movement 有 效 的 第 一 步 ， 因 为 1. Hashtag feminism gives voice to the
voiceless and making visible oppressive, everyday experiences normalized into invisibility. 社
会层面上它获取了曝光率使得 visibility，

2.个体层面上，受害者，minorities 得以在社交网络上形成“intimate publics,” defined as

the “affect of feeling political together” (224) that people may experience as they rally around
a hashtag. it draws 分散的个体 together to share experiences
By doing this, women are able to define themselves from a variety of feminist perspectives
Hashtag feminism allows particular groups of women to rally around a hashtag and form
intimate publics with other women who share their experiences, cultural history, and social
locations. they aOur analysis suggests that the hashtag has great potential for women’s
empowerment because

Hashtags such as #LatinasAreNot, #NotYourAsianSidekick, #BlackGirlsMagic, and

#WhyAllWomen in particular foster specific instances of agency through allowing women to
define and articulate their own feminisms. Hashtagging offers an easy and inexpensive means
for women, particularly those who lack voice in traditional media, to draw attention to issues
they deem as important, unshackling them from the persistent regulatory norms (Butler 1993)
that would quell their speech. With a hashtag, women can speak out at will, and, in so doing,
define and redefine feminism in the contemporary world by legitimizing what they see and
hear and feel.
#Aufschrei
We agree that Hashtag enables women to define their own protests and identities in network,
allowing them to give voice to their social movements at low-cost. Yet, hashtags are only
a tool, much like blogging or gathering in rallies or handing out leaflets. What brings women
power is not the hashtag, which is merely an affordance of the media platform; it is the voice
and the agency in which women offer that voice.

however，无论是 activism 还是 slacktivism 获得了 visibility，后续 turn into action 才是重

要的：To complete the circle of awareness raised by the hashtag, women must connect their
activism to real-world protests.

如果没有人们后续的活动，2result
1. 线上喊得很响 ，然而线下力量不够 （ 线 上 活 动 ， 线 下 被 镇 压 案 例 ）
hashtag 来又去，但没有结果，造成一种 I have to admit I’m starting to experience a kind
of “favouriting” fatigue — meaning that the digital causes of the day or week are all starting
to blend together. Another week, another hashtag, and with it, a question about what is
actually being accomplished. 那么线上活动就会功亏一篑，逐渐失去热度被淡忘

2. 真 正 重 要 的 帖 子 被 忽 视 ， 信 息 浓 度 被 冲 淡 ， 商 业 化 及 滥 用
hashtag ， 造 成 gradually lose focus and dilute the meaning to just an
echo of the original cause.
从某种程度上揭露了人类的天性（而这也显示出人么对“ slacktivism”的一种批判：
“ My hunch is that people often affiliate with causes online for selfish and narcissistic
purposes,” he said. “Sometimes, it may be as simple as trying to impress their online friends,
and once you have fashioned that identity, there is very little reason to actually do anything
else“ ） 【 techno fetish-slacktivism foster an illusion of solidarity with others, resulting in
people feeling that small actions online, such as posting a hashtag, have greater meaning than
they do.助长团结的假象-人们觉得发布一个 hashtag 或者转发，活动具有比实际更大的
意义（就有更强的 i play a role 的感受，但其实 nobody）】因此人们在 slack 的过程中
很有可能成为群众水军冲淡 The amount and brevity of tweets somewhat shadowed the
severity of the allegations, eventually reducing the significance of the hashtag’s meaning in
the tweets (“The #MeToo campaign and why it fails” 2017). Over time, slacktivists became
more populated and the hashtag became nothing but just an entangled tweet, dying out
gradually. Although today the #metoo is still used amongst social media platforms, it is no
longer trending, viewed as a phase in the past by the public.
case #NoMakeupSelfies https://time.com/40506/nomakeupselfie-brings-out-the-worst-of-the-
internet-for-a-good-cause/

3.
hashtag 词太短了，导致第三方很容易在不知全貌的情况下随意下
定论开始指责
digital space, manipulation, -个人，media

Twitter 鼓励言论自由，所以对该运动有很多意见，包括有偏见的 "支持"，也有认为运

动已经失控的人，有些人声称人们正在利用标签作为发表意见的借口
myself became skeptical when a quick Google search brought up beauty sites advising girls
on “how to take the perfect no makeup selfie” detailing what angles, lighting and filters
women should use in order to look their best—all of which really seems to defeat the purpose
of the excercise.
A girl at Oxford decided to use the campaign idea for what she argued was a better (and more
relevant to selfies) cause. She posted on Facebook:
And then there’s the fact that thousands of people who participated in the original
#NoMakeupSelfie campaign have been donating to the wrong charity. The BBC reported that
many accidentally sent money to Unicef instead of Cancer Research UK by texting
“DONATE” rather than “BEAT.” Others accidentally asked about adopting a polar bear from
the World Wildlife Fund when their phone autocorrected “BEAT” to “BEAR.” Call it a social
media mess.
Somehow the original cause has been lost in the hype. “90 per cent of the ‘no make up selfie’
posts on my news feed didn’t even mention the word cancer.” We should applaud those who
used this campaign as an excuse to donate, but we shouldn’t need an excuse.

NO MOVEMENTS CAN BE OVERLY SUCCESSFUL OR UNSUCCESSFUL JUST LIKE

NO MOVEMENT CAN BE ON THE EXTREME OF THE SPECTRUM OF
ACTIVISM/SLACKTIVISM
“Voice is an important—even the most important—goal and strategy for rectifying
subordination” (Wackwitz and Rakow 2006) but voice without action is dead.
I am actually thinking about whether a permanent

综上如果不付诸实际行动 neither 现实 nor 网络社会会有彻底的变化与改革，which 网络

是湮没了而现实是根本没什么波澜，只有像 auf 运动一样才能一定程度上固化改变与成
果
Hashtag feminism is only the first step of feminist campaign in digital society, while hashtag
is a really influential tool to expose the problems to the mass and rally for solidarity, no
difference will be made without further action offline.
The hierarchy extends itself from the real world to digital society, that makes women being
empowered by internet meanwhile oppressed. Hashtag Feminism/Digital feminist activism
can only form an intimate public online that raises awareness for a short while, but without
further action the visibility, the light people shed on this topic is gradually diminishing. I
think as what Dr. Cassidy says yesterday it’s still a complicated question without solution, but
I believe the next step would be focusing on “Me Too, Now what” Apart from focusing on
how popular the hashtag or the issue is, but on the structural oppression behind and how can
to solve these problems rather than simply pointing them out.