Game for Change - Internet Activism

Here's my game: Internet Activism

"Liking Isn't Helping" - Part of a sobering ad campaign by Crisis Relief Singapore

Artist Statement

I decided to choose the social issue known as “Internet Activism,” or “Clicktivism.” I chose this social issue because I feel that there needs to be more awareness about how harmful it can be to the real activists who are actually “on the ground” fighting for a specific cause.  Rebecca Teich, in her article titled “Three Big Problems With Facebook Activism,” states that, “Most people jumping at the chance to use the hashtag #bringbackourgirls had little to no knowledge of the history and politics of the country in which they obliquely advocated foreign intervention. And they [had] no clue that many Nigerians not residing in America are opposed to US intervention due to a history of the negative effects of US foreign aid and meddling there." She goes on to state that, "the viral social issue of the hour floods Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with content that looks, on the outside, like deeply felt social activism. But for all the pathos running rampant over news feeds and blogging sites, there is little depth to speak of, and virtually no change afoot in the real world."

Jill Luke, who authored the article titled "Liking isn't helping: How Facebook is Killing Student Activism," wrote that, "...writing a tetchy status update is a very different kind of political engagement to going on a march or even the old Amnesty approach of letter-writing. Because when you get angry on Facebook, nothing actually happens...liking, posting and commenting makes you feel like you’re doing something without actually making any difference whatsoever."

In the game that I created, the player can do a number of things. One of them is to do the homework that they have looming over their head, and another option is to go cruise Facebook. If the player chooses the latter, they are immediately confronted with an opportunity to "Like" a page that will help out some social cause in a 3rd world country, or to go and do something else. Statistics are presented that discuss the growing rate of poverty in 3rd world countries, and again, the player is given the opportunity to "help," or to get distracted with something else. There are a few outcomes that can occur based on the input from the player, but this game is not intended to be an all-inclusive commentary on the affects of Internet Activism.

Chimamanda Adichie, in her TED talk "The Danger of a Single Story," talks about the dangers of boiling down a major social issue into one thing. When we narrow our focus so much, we often tend to start missing things that are going on outside our scope of narrow-vision. Many (not all) people online aren't being activists for social change: They're being clicktivists for social gain. Rebecca Teich touches on this when she states that, "…issues become labels of political alignment and lend an appearance of social awareness attached to a digitally curated self. They become a means to the end of social gain, rather than of social change."

References

Rebecca Teich Article

Jill Luke Article

Crisis Relief Singapore Image