Does Social Media Activism work? Social Media for Awareness Raising #metoo

Will the Harvey Weinstein issue raise awareness or bury us in memes? Social media and in particular Facebook & Twitter raising awareness of issues that womens’ nonprofits have being trying to direct attention to FOREVER. The New Yorker (traditional media) might’ve started it, but social media is pushing everything along.  

I friggin’ detest those Facebook “copy and paste if you care” memes. Who gives a rat’s if you copied and pasted it? But I do selectively, occasionally participate. Such as the #MeToo campaign. Rather than copy and pasting the standard message:

Me too. If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote “Me too” as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.
Please copy/paste. #metoo

I chose to tell one of my stories on Facebook.

Which I’m not going to repeat here. Suffice to say, I added a small story to a much larger, hugely large story. Systemic, endemic harassment.

But Why? Why participate in the #metoo social storytelling and not the myriad copy/paste cons on Facebook? I guess because sometimes it’s the everyday stories that tell the bigger story. Not the Angeline Jolies and Gwyneth Paltrows of the world. But my friends, my friends who are IT experts and sociology lecturers and stay at home mumpreneurs. They have their story too.

What is intriguing is the number of people who genuinely didn’t know the scale of abuse. Men, women all unaware. Well now they know. Hello social media. Newspapers with their diminishing impact underscored by community discourse.

But maybe I’ll just go back to my panda videos and Instagram puppies now. You?