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Cracked video from August.
What do you all think of this?

I can't believe this gained a vast majority of upvotes. It's too much of a blanket statement this doesn't apply to every cause online, and it seems more like a statement on how people think about causes in general. It's complaining about people not having a depth of knowledge on something they care about being obnoxious and causing problems for the people that do have a depth of knowledge on something they care about. This applies to all causes ever. This video has a nice statement but I feel they should've reworded it to be less click-baitey and more accurate. It isn't, impossible to advance a cause this video simply points out some issues. Furthermore, this does not apply to causes online this applies to causes I could just talk about through word-of-mouth and run into the same issues. If the video wants to beat a dead horse every person born beats which is 'obnoxious ignorant people are a problem', they've succeeded but no shit, it's hard to find anyone who would disagree.

Fuck off, Cracked.

I think Cracked is terrible.

Can someone summarize it quickly for those of us not able to watch atm?

& is that Kelly Osbourne?
I feel about Kelly Osbourne exactly the way I feel about Pink.

Yeah, that's Kelly Osbourne.

Kelly Osbourne putting her foot in her mouth.

I'm not able to watch it right now either, and generally Cracked produces poorly thought out content, but here's my opinion on the subject as an irl activist:

Using the internet to push a cause is actually a great tool to help, but it cannot be just the only thing you do. Being a "keyboard activist" doesn't really do a lot because unless you are particularly well know to begin with, your educational message won't get very far. Ultimately, being able to go out in real life and change things is more important.

There's also the problem with misinformation. You'd be surprised by what kind of stupid posts that I'll see regarding certain issues that come across me and oftentimes there are no sources, but people will still eat them up. People are pretty naive and tend to not cross examine information they come across. A lot of these posts are deliberately made extremely emotional to try to elicit that kind of response.

In addition, there's the problem with what interests the internet audience. With the exception of one post, which didn't even get a circulation of over 500 notes (abysmal by visibility standards), I've barely even been able to make a dent in overwriting poor misconceptions about the blind. It's very frustrating, especially when posts are running around trying to be progressive when they're flat out wrong, promoting.

Probably one of the worst posts I saw was a post about how Daredevil is "still disabled" despite his superpowers. What does this say to people – what, that we should look at someone who can literally beat the fuck out of you as a poor disabled person because they're blind? That's exactly the LAST thing blind people want, especially since there are real blind people who could easily beat the shit out of someone without needing super powers. This is a great example of how it can go wrong. Inexperience pushes these kind of views and actually makes the situation worse.

However, it IS a useful tool for activism when you're able to get enough traction and help seperate yourself from the other bullshit that's running around. It is most certainly NOT impossible to use the internet to push forward activism. In fact, many activism movements, such as anti antivaxx and transgender activism has been helped tremendously by online activism.

Ultimately, the best way to utilize online activism is to make sure that you have a large enough audience to recognize you, and to very carefully lay out what you are trying to advocate for. It can be a useful tool but shouldn't be the only thing you do. Oftentimes keyboard activists fail simply because they have almost no presence and most times people don't even read what they say, so actually doing something outside of this scope is more useful. However, that is more difficult and has more barriers to entry.

All in all, if you want to be an activist, make sure it's really something you truly believe in and are willing to dedicate a ton of time to. Even your whole life really. It doesn't mean you have to be the leader of some activist organization or something – I am focusing my skills to become an accessibility developer who wishes to promote technology to improve the lives of the blind – but you do really have to devote a lot of time to it.

I actually like this vid lol. It points out all the beef I have with online controversies and people trying to advance causes on the internet.

I mean, look at the vid, and while watching it pretty much every big movement of these days on the internet will pop into your mind: Gamergate, SJW, anti-SJW, anti-feminism, third-wave feminism, meninism, the list goes on.

That video pretty much explains why not a single outsider to the debate can take these online debates serious anymore, because everyone who actually knows their shit is pushed back by a legion of screaming idiots who have jack shit of a clue what they're talking about. Everyone is burning down their own camps, and nothing ever gets done.

It's kinda the obvious what they're stating, but it's an obvious that just can't be said enough.

That said, keyboard activism isn't a bad thing. The internet is a widespread and powerful tool to share your opinion online and have people support your cause. But if you're going to support a cause, try to understand the cause instead of being an idiot who only puts his own camp in a bad spotlight.

Fuck off, Cracked.

I think Cracked is terrible.

Welcome to serious debate, where we actually expect people to stick to the topic. If you have nothing meaningful to say, rub your epenis elsewhere because we don't care. I don't even know how your posts were necessary, because you're implying your opinion on Cracked is going to affect mine. The topic of the thread is the contents of that video, not Cracked the website.

Read the Serious Debate Guidelines if you have questions. There's the door, return when you can stick to the topic.

Can someone summarize it quickly for those of us not able to watch atm?

Kelly Osbourne is just an example used in the vid, the rest is mostly explaining obvious things about how online causes are suffering from 90% screaming idiots who will never help the cause and are making it all the more difficult for the remaining 10% to get stuff done.

Well it's certainly not impossible. But there are certain rules you need to follow. At the moment, I can only think of the first.

Rule 1: Don't use Twitter, for fuck's sake!

If you're going to do it, you need to be able to make rational, well-thought out arguments, with a certain level of complexity that the given topic demands. Being limited to only 140 characters at a time doesn't even come close to cutting it. In fact, from what I've seen, it encourages sliding into the swamp of buzzwords and generalizations that gets responded with so much scorn and mockery.

The fact that people honestly think that "tweet activism" is a legitimate thing is a little screwed up. It's not really helpful when all you're doing is retweeting useless hashtags that means nothing to people who don't understand it.

Honestly, if you want to do activism on the internet, social media should be used to link people to a main activism hub. You should build your own website or something like that. Hell, use tumblr for an actual blogging platform lol.

For example, I have a mental health blog for a condition I have and while it mainly serves as a diary and a way to track my condition, I have several posts dedicated towards commentary. These posts are concise and labeled with headers to introduce people to the main concept in those sections – written far more like an article you'd find in NatGeo than something found in most "activist" sites. It keeps a fairly neutral tone while trying to explain my opinion on specific issues relevant to the condition. It does NOT punish people for not knowing or understanding the condition or merely disagreeing with me.

Another issue with the whole twitter thing is that because there's literally no room to explain your activism, you're punishing people essentially for ignorance – the worst thing you can even do in activism.

Rule 2:Think twice or more before posting something
If you read something that enrages you take deep breath an think before posting

Rule 3: Learn how to argue logically.
Seriously, knowing things like the difference between correlation and causation, what sufficient and necessary conditions are, and being aware of at least the basic logical fallacies are a must if you want to ensure you are arguing logically.

Simply because the internet is constantly changing. New content constantly pops up and it can distract members of the movement. Of course if the movement constantly gets new fuel to add to the fire it can keep going for extremely long periods of time.

Rule 4: Allow the opposition to voice their opinions

Going around slandering, shutting down, or outright censoring any disagreeing viewpoints is the quickest way to have people right you, and your cause off. Believe it or not, forwarding a cause requires civil discussion, shouting your beliefs while ignoring oppositional standpoints accomplishes nothing.