So I’ve been getting Facebook invites to stomp out bullying. If I will wear blue on October 3, the invites tell me, I can help stamp out bullying.
Now I fully support raising awareness for all kinds of issues, but I strongly suspect that eliminating bullying in the universe will involve considerably more than my wearing blue on October 3. That’s been my general experience up until now, anyway.
Fortunately, few people online have been attempting to bully or shame me into wearing blue on October 3 yet, but judging from the manipulative language used in some “cut-and-paste” statuses, this would be par for the course for a number of Facebook “activists.”
I speak, of course, of the cut-and-paste proliferation of “awareness statuses.” Or perhaps they should be called “action statuses,” as they demand immediate action from everyone reading and threaten shame to the reader if their desired action is not immediately taken. Following are some (slightly changed to protect the guilty) examples of what I’m talking about:
Would you post this status for one hour? If you don’t, then the whole world will know that you don’t care if all women everywhere DIE of ovarian cancer!!!
Will you post this status today? I will know who my true friends are by who posts this as their status today. You may think no one will even notice if you don’t re-post this, but I will…I will be watching to see who my true friends are.
Together we can knock out cancer! If you will take just a minute to post this as your status today, you will def help someone else in their battle against cancer. I’ll know who truly cares about this by who re-posts this for 24 hours. If you can’t take even a moment out of your life to re-post this in honor of someone who is fighting for their very life…
And on and on.
Last I checked, cutting-edge research on diseases that afflict and kill humans was being done in labs and hospitals, not by people sitting around on their couch in their pajamas who are re-posting the latest “action status.” Unlike the pajama-pants posters, these researchers, doctors, and scientists aren’t threatening that if I don’t re-post their latest diatribe as my Facebook status update, I will become part of the millions who fully support the eventual extermination of all men through prostate cancer.
None of these “awareness posters” seem to have picked up on the irony that while they’re decrying bullying in schools, they’re attempting to bully their friends and acquaintances into copying their actions and lining up into conformity, with shame and public exposure the threatened punishment if they don’t.
They may think that because it’s for a good cause, the end justifies the means.
But it doesn’t.
A word to the wis(er) among the “take-action-now!!!” cut-and-paste folks: here are a few tips that will make me (and many others, I’m sure) far more likely to care about your cause:
1) Try limiting yourself to one cause per day. 2) Try posting actual information (statistics, rate of cure, people most at risk) about the disease or social ill so we can become more educated about the issue. 3) Don’t demand I immediately do anything about it, and really don’t threaten me with punishment if I don’t do something about it. 4) Tell me where I can find more info if I want to learn more (provide a link, an article, or a recommended resource).
I think you’ll find most people do care a great deal about their fellow human beings. But manipulating or shaming them into taking some form of action as a public show to prove their concern not only won’t help your cause in the long run, it will make them resent you and the very cause you are trying to help.
Oh, and P.S.? I will know that everyone reading this post fully supports all forms of bullying if they don’t immediately email, post, link, and print out hard copies of this blog post for everyone they know.
(Wink)
Happy status updating!