What Makes An Activist

     In an essay titled, "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted," Malcolm Gladwell discussed why he believes that movements such as those on twitter show advocacy rather than activism.  I enjoyed Gladwell's essay because he used strong examples and was rational and did not become too overemotional where the true message was lost.  There are many hashtags that show support for movements such as #blacklivesmatter, #iamcharlie, and #istandwithahmed that surround different social issues.  Social media can help to spread the message of the movement, creating a organized and specific group of supporters.  Gladwell discusses the differences between modern and past activism.  Throughout his essay he supports the argument that advocacy is not the same as activism and provides examples to reveal the difference.
     The use of hashtags in social media were created for the purpose of organizing and filing different words, events, and subjects.  In a sense, they are still used for their intended purpose, but they are used to bring light to different social injustices.  People can look on a particular hashtag and see current information retaliating to the topic.  Hashtags are especially useful for the purpose of spreading the message, but at the same time they are empty and can be used simply to follow a trend. Recently, the hashtag #blacklivesmatter to shine light upon the unjust treatment of black people and focuses heavily on police brutality.  People are able to organize and quickly share information which results in more support throughout the nation.  Yet people are beginning to confuse advocacy with activism and claiming to be something that they are not.  I have been able to learn about this movement through social media and I consider myself an advocate for black respect and protection, but I would not consider myself an activist on the matter.

     An advocate is someone who supports are particular cause and is there to back the movement.  An activist is someone who fully engages themselves with the matter and openly moves to fight for their cause.  Activists actually has active in the word, and to be that shows what it means to be one.  They are the people who go to protests, participate in sit-ins, and sometimes put themselves at risk for their cause.  Advocacy just means supporting the people who do this.  Twitter hashtags are meant for advocates to learn and spread as well as for activists to share their experiences.  Advocates on twitter are safe, hidden behind their screens, where as activists put themselves right into the front lines.  In my opinion, activists are the ones who truly make a difference in the end.  There is very rarely an advocate that receives the credit for the success of the cause.  Martin Luther King Jr. was an activist.  He organized peaceful protests and stood at the front lines and stood in the face of danger.  An advocate would have been someone who supported his cause, but were too scared to go out for fear of judgement or danger.  However, I do not mean that advocacy is a bad thing.  In order to have activists that make a change, there must be advocates that back them up.

     Gladwell uses the Greensboro diner sit-ins during the 1960s as an example to support his argument that there is a different between the two, which is directly linked to social media.  During these sit-ins, black college students sat at the whites only portion of the diner and refused to move.  Over several weeks the movement spread to most of the nation and students everywhere were participating in the demonstration.  This is activism.  People left their homes and did not social media to hide behind.  In order to make a difference, they had to go out and show what they believed should be right.  Today, if this were to happen again, the message could be spread to a larger mass of people, but if one were to scale those who actually showed up for the sit-in in the past to that of today, there would be far less people going out to take a stand.  The movement would be supported through a hashtag, but people now are scared and hide behind social media.
     One of my favorite musical artists, Passenger, has a line from one of his songs that was stuck in my head as I read Gladwell's opinion on the inactive participation that is shown through hashtags.  The line comes from his song, Scare Away the Dark, in which he says, "We want something real not just hashtags and twitter."  This is what I believe to be a call to activism since it is calling people to make the hashtags have a meaning and actively fix the problem, rather than typing words safe behind a screen.  I do not mean to sound as though advocacy is negative, but many people claim to be activists when in reality they are not.  Many people want the title but not the potential consequences that come with the name.  Advocacy is a powerful thing that can encourage many people to fight for what they believe, but we must recognize the difference between advocacy and activism.