Most criticisms of hashtag activism argue that simply tweeting a hashtag or sharing a video won’t help whatever cause these social media services are trying to advocate. These arguments aren’t wrong, per se; they just focus on a small part of a larger process. Hashtag activism, or any use of social media to spread awareness about an issue, is just one step towards an overall solution.
True, simply tweeting #BringBackOurGirls or sharing the KONY2012 video will not instantly rescue the Nigerian schoolgirls or stop Joseph Kony. But that’s not to point of these hashtags; they are intended to raise awareness, not solve problems themselves. While it does not in itself solve any problems, hashtag activism brings issues to more people to increase the likelihood of action.
In today’s world where many people, and teenagers in particular, are ignorant of world events, using social media to spread awareness is extremely effective. There are many people who first learned of the Nigerian kidnappings through the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag, or of Ugandan war lord Joseph Kony through the KONY2012 video. And while simply spreading these things through the Internet will not help the issue itself, the raised awareness will in most cases result in raised activity. Not everyone who tweets #BringBackOurGirls will write a letter to their political representative and urge them to take action to save the kidnapped schoolgirls, but many more people are given the opportunity to take action if they hear about the kidnappings in the first place.
To many, the actions of Boko Haram are only notable because of the discussion on hashtag activism it spurred. In a world where people across the globe are calling out against such terrorist organizations, hashtag activism is superfluous and unnecessary. But our world is one where most Americans only knew about the kidnapping of hundreds I’d African schoolchildren because it was a footnote in a controversy created by the news circuit to fill airtime. And that is a weirdness that desperately needs hashtag activism.