Culture

Why Internet Activism Is Insincere And Ineffective

110 Comments

“Slacktivism” is the term being increasingly applied to lazy attempts to promote a cause. Recently, the millions of people who changed their Facebook profile photos so they featured a superimposed French flag exemplified this very saddening trend. Somehow the Bataclan and other tragedies in Paris could be soothed over by a few clicks performed by everyone. A perfect storm of a craving to conform, the need for Facebook likes (and reminding people they still exist), and the compulsion to feel like soldiers of peace and goodwill led many to suspend rational judgment and act like not even glorified sheep.

Forgetting that Facebook is a corporate behemoth that incessantly researches and tests its users’ habits to help generate future billions, these millions lapped up the opportunity to use the French flag as readily as they used the LGBT “rainbow” after Obergefell v. Hodges. What did they achieve, other than re-illustrating the rank impotency of Western society? Subsequent French air strikes against ISIS, the perpetrators of the Paris attacks, may have had discernible effects. Meanwhile, the grand global coalition of perhaps a hundred million French flag aficionados did nothing but further cripple Western moxie in the face of a grave existential threat.

The Atlantic, which has every reason to describe the trend as spontaneous and lovey-dovey due to the publication’s leftist agenda, was adamant that the gay marriage picture option constituted a Facebook user research experiment. Is this the same for the French massacres? Whatever the case, Facebook is helping to spread feel-good opportunities to try and change the world… by doing nothing.

Slacktivism actually reduces people’s willingness to properly contribute to a cause

This is no different from the farce of the French flag profile photo option.

A Canadian study confirmed that people who perform petty acts like superimposing the French flag on a Facebook photo are less likely to devote actual resources to any associated cause. At its heart, it is a catalyst for exacerbating pre-existing laziness, which is rife when you consider the excessively docile responses Europe is giving to the specter of increasing Islamization and unrestricted migration. When “participants” see that other people are changing their Facebook profile photos, too, the effect is only amplified.

Moreover, slacktivism is classic head-in-the-sand behavior. It does not even get within a mile of the surface of a social problem, let alone attempt to scratch it. Millions of people changing their profile pictures gives the illusion that mere clicks constitute genuine solidarity that can help avert the dangers of what are generally native would-be terrorists. It’s the 2015-16 equivalent of pointless but mythologized “flower power” during the 1960s.

How to further dumb down a globalized population

Homer may be hilarious but let’s keep him on TV and not have his clones make up 80% of the population.

One could argue that individuals have no real power. Cheap mass movements, including ephemeral Facebook profile photo fads, take away any remaining vestiges of that power. Plus, the goal of most corporations, especially those devoted to technology, is to erode free choice as much as possible.

Believing this does not depend on you accepting any organized globalist agenda. It can just as easily be a disorganized one. After all, the less varied the customer base, the more that products can be mass marketed and the desire to conform with the majority can be unleashed. A perversion of the “invisible hand” of capitalism can be the cause you blame, without having to resort to any Alex Jones Infowars-style explanation.

Are you still unconvinced that this has anything to do with sheep changing their Facebook profile photos after the Bataclan horrors? Since advertising was “discovered” in the first decades of the 1900s, company directors and their spin doctors have striven to find the best possible way to convert memorable commercials and other associations into ever bigger profits.

So-called “free” services like Facebook have changed the nature of these attempts at enforcing conditioned behavior, which now often take the form of platforms mining your personal data to sell to other parties or tracking online movements so that large corporations pay top dollar for targeted advertisements.

Lead by example, don’t be one of the sheep

Sometimes, for strategic reasons, you cannot just come out with the fact that you not only read but also support the sorts of content featured on Return of Kings. Even so, you have a wide range of discretion for refusing to participate in cognitively-draining fads and, better yet, repudiating the fads themselves. A number of people I know have publicly mocked the Facebook French flag option. That’s one avenue to take.

Implicit leadership is frequently your best bet, though. It avoids the vexed issue of people not trusting those who talk instead of acting. So cultivate your own brand. You can be still yourself and not stoke the kinds of social conflict apt to erupt in a world increasingly indulgent of SJWs or the whims of infantilized adults. Try and save your very public takedowns and fury for when they are truly needed.

How do you become this kind of leader, you ask? Well, for a start, treat all your reading of ROK as the life-changing education the system never gave you. Reread articles, act on them, and record and compare your progress. Be part of the social solution and that means being the best possible version of you in regular life and behind the scenes.

Read More: One Man In State Of Five Million Kills Nine People; Governor Removes Confederate Flag

110 thoughts on “Why Internet Activism Is Insincere And Ineffective”

  1. Whatsapp has recently changed privacy terms (sending unilaterally your data to facebook at the same time they announced it would be “free”. Let’s switch to Telegram instead! No more data to NSA! https://telegram.org/

    1. WhatsApp was bought by Facebook, so it’s basically one company now. Don’t get me wrong – I hate them passionately.

        1. I see so it should go encrypted through your data.. I think I’ll stick with encrypted emails for anything that has to stay under wraps and only send non-sensitive stuff through instant messaging..

  2. sometimes, you gotta riot in the streets
    might i suggest outside the houses of certain politicians

  3. The french flag slacktivism was the last straw for keeping facebook. I made a post about how empty the gesture was and progressive “friends” got quite upset with me.

    1. Facebook itself has no real value in your life. I can understand some using it as a tool to reach out for business purposes but for the average person it ads to real value to your life (especially men).
      It’s nothing but a “feel good” mechanism that is designed for women (I call it the modern day sewing circle).
      If you’re a man and you’re not using it for your business, then you need to get rid of it.

      1. This is true; however, you can learn very quickly how wacky some chicks are by reading their wall. This can save you potential time and resources.
        That being said, daily postings and “checking in” is extremely unhealthy.

        1. “This is true; however, you can learn very quickly how wacky some chicks are by reading their wall. This can save you potential time and resources”
          I hear what you’re saying, but I’ve come to the conclusion that all Western chicks have worms in their heads, so I do not need to read anything from some skank’s timeline.

      2. I’ve eliminated my news feed via a Chrome extension (really recommend it) – now facebook is basically reduced to private messaging for me or having to consciously go on a page/friend’s timeline if I need to- just the way I like it.

        1. Facebook is nonsense…it’s a distraction. I say live life (don’t read about it). Many people on it use it to brag about what they have…who the hell cares. Go out and live life…fuck reporting about it.

        2. Exactly, that’s also what I say when I see an interesting video on Youtube. It’s like, unless I’m really there to experience it does it matter? This also applies to gaming for me.

      3. I agree that it’s not that good for you. Have been off it for a while now. There’s more than enough feeds etc on the internet to pollute your brain with even once you quit if you’re not careful. I like the old system, a few friends phone numbers in a book who you actually ring rather than hundreds of people you met once, ex-girlfriends whose babies you probably don’t need to know about, frenemies from your high school days.. whose feeds are constantly shoved in front of your face. Yes there is messenger.com for a minimalist version with less visual pollution but there’s also email.. Don’t forget that facebook is also increasingly in league with world governments to police and control any non-blue pill thinkers.

    2. Good on you, sir. I also think a lot of libs/sheep look to call to attention the few who don’t follow suit to see if they’ll stand against the tide, or dare I say, lash out against it. It’s a certain test of allegiance for them, no different than the pink breast cancer awareness bullshit. Fuck ’em.

  4. Now that the internet is mainstream , there was a time when it wasn’t , the same social “norms” have come with it . I deleted most of my things except for this and instagram.

  5. 138 deaths is probably the daily death toll in Irak or Syria. I live in France, and I am not worried about terror at all.

  6. This kind of shit makes me cringe. Liberalism is simply about wanting to fit in. Your average moronic millennial will post some gay bullshit photo with a rainbow over their stupid face because of everyone else I doing it. The french attacks disturbed me to some degree, the sheer number of murdered by the death cult. But I didn’t go putting a french flag over my profile pic, because I’m not a stupid faggot who takes solace in meaningless shit.

    2. what else can you do? white ppl are scared little cowards, they are afraid of alpha males like arabs, blacks, latinos and even asians. all white ppl do is cry on the internet

  7. Don’t tell me about it… just do it. The narcissism and ego of people is unbelievable on either side of any argument now a days.

  8. Twitter was crashed by manosphere hacktivists protesting their pro-homosexual policies.

      1. Bro you just made my day.You truly did.Now because of you ,I’m laughing hysterically and my gf is thinking I’ve gone mad

      1. If you think about it, he took the dreaded chain e-mail and morphed it into something more sinister.

      2. Zuckerbergs the same fool that Angela Merkal was caught whinging too so she could silence the facts coming out of Germany

  11. I am very aware of my limitations. I am a public school teacher. Was once a flaming leftist. Went to school with my car covered with left wing stickers related to every leftist cause you can imagine.People chuckled a little but I had no problems with my job. Even with tenure, however, I would be afraid to put a Donald Trump sticker on my car. I am sure my job performance evaluations would plunge. I am in a very PC environment.
    Now that I am right wing, I see how much harder it is to express yourself as a non-leftist. I remember my freedom to show my ass when I was left wing and see how careful I must be now. I miss my 1st amendment rights.
    So I try to do other things. Like use my dollars to do things like by non-GMO food and at farmers market.. A few years back I had an edible campus school club. Taught kids how to garden, cook food from scratch and avoid GMO food. (Am at another school now). But I would NEVER EVER challenge feminism or immigration in a public school, say, teachers’ lounge.
    But even if we are about half the population, the right wing is now an underground movement. You can vote right wing but you will be punished for speaking out.
    However, slacktivism can be a way of letting people know they are not alone.
    Anonymous people on the net who cannot come forward are still making it possible for others who can.
    And supporting people who can. For example, I buy products from Infowars and try to use my money to support folks with my world view. Milo Yianopolis, for example, is able to speak out because of his invisible twitter followers.
    I can also give Eastern Orthodox Church which opposes gay marriage.
    But until I retire, I will not step forward. My mask stays on. But I do believe that internet activism is extremely important. It has overturned the monopoly of CNN.
    Populists have won the online troll war. That is only one of many political fiefdoms, but an important one.

    1. You will need to cover your identity in disqus so no one can like your screen name to you from your comments. SJWs will use whatever means regardless of legality to bring down anyone who opposes their views.

      1. Just like the former USSR. You must never speak bad about the motherland, comrade or the KGB will knock on your door. Too funny..but I’ve been around long enough to remember those times (and the times that the U.S. condemned them for acting in such a way).
        Now, we’ve come full circle.

    2. Never be afraid to make enemies…it shows that you stand for something.
      It’s easy for many of these people to “go along just to get along” but they never really stand for anything. I’m not saying wave a big flag, lose your job, etc…but never be afraid to give your opinion or speak (freedom of speech).
      If your being called a racist, right winger, etc…then you’re doing something right.

      1. I have found that when everybody is agreeing on a stupid PC point, if you do not want to make a stand, a good place to start is saying nothing.
        In a room full of liberals, people just assume you agree with them. And that every reasonable person must.
        People notice if you do not chime in to agree over time. It is funny because I have picked out of a crowd with simple demeanor on numerous occasions people who did not buy into the orthodoxy.
        With a couple of them, we even started to form a preppers group.(Which only met one time a couple of years back, but it was still cool). Even found a shooting range buddy that way.
        But right wingers are now experiencing what it is like to be somewhat underground socially. And having to watch their back in the professional world.
        It was interesting today. I was watching a youtube debate between Milo Yianopolis. His debate opponents at one time called for him to be jailed for his speech. Which was far more courteous than theirs, even if his points were bluntly logical.
        It is truly becoming a thought crime to disagree with a liberal

        1. I say lead by example. People ask me all of the time “why aren’t you on Facebook?”. I explain to them that it adds no value to my life and it actually burns precious time from life. They do think about it, differently, when I explain it.
          They should be living life…not reading about it (or other’s lives). Live your own life.

    3. “But even if we are about half the population, the right wing is now an underground movement. You can vote right wing but you will be punished for speaking out.”
      It is. The left cannot allow challenges as their premises are built on false constructs, hence they need to shout down or control the narrative. But on the flip side, they must be on constant watch to keep the truth buried. I have a relative who is a teacher, and a closet conservative, and she spends her time building lesson plans dropping conservative seeds in their little heads. Few of them in the teachers loungue, but they exist.

    4. I challenged feminism and immigration in a public school, got sacked, best thing that ever happened to me.
      Teaching (especially in a public school) is for loosers. Go find a real job.

    5. I also feel in the times we live in, our political beliefs only need to be aired in certain spheres. In the other sphere’s I wouldn’t voluntarily air them but also wouldn’t keep them totally hermetically sealed if someone really asked for an opinion.

  12. Do practical politics— the things you say and do every day.
    Use a consistent message, don’t accept either explicitly or implicitly the PC agenda.
    Use Mantra thinking and a consistent message in your interactions with people.
    Sometimes one mocking comment can deflate and destroy a whole SJW agenda or mind trance– at work, at home, on the street.
    Act wisely, but act. Let the spirit shine through.

  13. Mark Steyn did an excellent takedown of all the hollow support like people holding pencils after the Charlie Hebdo attack and twitter hashtags.

  14. I pulled from Facebook (including all business marketing) when they announced censorship against anti refugee sentiment. It’s become one big fascist bubble of leftism.
    At the same time, i’m happy for these leftists to keep their slacktivism. While they are pondering the injustices of the world on Facebook, the rest of us can get on with life in the real world.

    1. Facebook is becoming the former Soviet Union. I can understand some censoring but when they go to great lengths (like the mainstream media) to cover up, remove or not report the facts then it reminds be of a police state (censorship).
      It’s the reason I no longer watch “the news” on TV any longer. They sold out a long time ago and it’s only feel good shit on “the news” or certain narratives that they want to report on. It’s no longer news…it’s propaganda or narrative bullshit.

    2. I never had a Facebook account. At an early point you could discern that it was designed to appeal to those peculiarly feminine instincts of “busyness”, snooping, gossip, social group manipulation, and the incessant vain need to see who likes and dislikes you. When I observed this behavior, I simply said this is pure nonsense to myself …….so I guess, I didn’t miss that much.

  15. After the Paris attack a socialist reporter for a major Australian newspaper actually commented at how those futile acts by the “flock” actually meant something you can imagine how many realists commented about the stupidity and weakness of her comments and those peoples actions.

  16. The French government likely helped to secretly plan the attacks, just as evil elements of the American government planned 9-11, so the moronic sheep were actually superimposing the flag of a murderous and opportunistic government over their dumbass conformist faces.

  17. This reminds me of the “Ice Bucket Challenge”. That wasn’t quite as bad of slacktivism, but what did it accomplish – besides a lot of youtube and news vid clips of people getting ice water poured on them? But they felt that they ‘contributed’. Contributed WHAT? NADA.
    Most of the Hollyweird types are infamous for this – they ‘donate’ their time for a concert to raise money, but don’t give any of their OWN money. They film commercials about poor animals or starving children or villages drinking from a mud-hole – but give NOTHING themselves. They have their ‘feel-good’ moment; it’s up to everyone else to contribute money or labor or whatever to fix the problems. So we shouldn’t be surprised that, whether it be Charlie Hebdo or Ice Bucket Challenge or starving African children, people are emulating the do-nothing celebrities and being lazy and giving little.
    Symbol over substance – the main flaw of progressivism. What matters to progressives and SJWs is not your results, but your intentions. And it’ll be up to real alpha men to take leadership when all the ‘feel good’ efforts fail and a real crisis us upon us.

    1. The Ice Bucket Challenge did contribute hot women and teens getting themselves wet with ice water while wearing bikinis…and that’s about it.

    2. I disagree regarding the ice bucket challenge. I am active in the motor neurone community (my father passed away from it in 2013) and I know how much extra funding went into the ALS and MND research community (over $3 million). I also what specific research was able to be done as a result of this funding.
      https://www.mndaust.asn.au/MND-Australia-archive/Ice-Bucket-Challenge.aspx
      Granted, a LOT of people recorded themselves doing it but never contributed anything. Anyone I saw do it, I asked them how much they donated (“I only ask because did you know that any donation over $2 is a tax deduction?”).
      In regards to the rest of your post (Hollywood and Charlie Hebdo Je suis bullshit) I agree! Everything in modern times is about the feeeeeeeeeels.

  18. Wait a minute! You mean to tell me that Michelle Obama holding a sign that read “BRING BACK OUR GIRLS” didn’t cause the captors to release their hostages? I am so shocked!
    ..but not really..

    1. Interesting. If I were one of those firemen, I would quit too. A commenter said it’s not worth the risk in a volunteer environment. I tend to agree. I’d be like “F this, I’m outta here.”

      1. I expected to side with the firemen, but reading the story, I don’t side with either side really. The whole saga should be mediated by the town mayor. Its got out of hand. Showing a porno at training & making comments about jizzing on her clothing is setting up potential dramas with any woman who doesn’t fit in as one of the lads. She should have voiced he disapproval to the chief on the site and not have gone over his head sooking to the council who then put the chief’s job up for vote, which he didn’t lose so I didn’t think the rest of the firemen needed to quit.
        As a volunteer firey your job (pay) is not on the line, and really all they have to do is avoid crude sexist jokes/comments while the female is around. If they don’t want to do that then yeh they can walk out like they did, and the town council has to decide do they want to live with a 1 woman fire dept or does the old team comes back and the woman has to fit in with them. The council + townsfolk will probably be fine with the latter but would leave themselves open to being sued under federal legislation.

  20. You’re either using facebook as it was intended for the masses (the electronic equivalent of excessive alcohol consumption) as the creators intended it for themselves (a means of influencing and exploiting the unwashed lotophage masses) or you use it as a means to disconnect people from the feminatrix and maintain contact with pocket cells of masculine perspective. Use it for the latter.
    Activism whether personal or virtual like with anything else depends on how committed you are to spreading the message you believe in. The useful idiot sheeple on the left fall into two categories: the posers that bark and the imposers that bite. The posers that bark are content with “liking” this SJ cause or that one, or emblazoning their profile with the feel good flag of the moment. The imposers that bite however are much more dangerous. These are ones who will take to the streets to give their beliefs some teeth, the ones who will post about committing an organized act of sabotage “project mayhem” style and aren’t afraid to go to jail for it.
    The article writer correctly identifies the posers that bark but does not seem to mention the imposers that bite. While the focus is on them and with the intent to promote a difference in behaviors from our side, I believe a fundamental message is being lost:
    The want to create a virtual masculine “footprint” so that those we could never otherwise reach online may follow to understandings that took us years to discover. Its our equivalent determined response to the imposers of the left, in that we are no less committed to spreading our message and do so using any means of delivery necessary even if the means do not include premeditated violence. There will be plenty enough violence to give and receive when society formally collapses, when they begin their raids on the pockets of critical thinking resistance…for now we need to wait with one palm open and one palm closed. When both palms are closed it will be time.
    Its not just enough to cultivate yourself in person; the information age has made virtually every negative and positive far more significant and far reaching because of the vast interconnected means of that information. A bomb detonated in a public square or a random (or not so random) shooting will have far less social impact than our power grid being hacked into or our defense information stolen through cyberhack agendas. The scale is no different for positive actions such as those which deal with the improvement of the self, the progress of which can be shared online to provide a guide for males who have been far less fortunate or far more indoctrinated than us.
    I would follow up this article with this request: build up the unique brand of your personally represented masculinity in person WHILE doing much the same online. Don’t just try to improve yourself, improve the world that you find yourself in by showing people what it is you live to represent and what it is you will die to oppose.
    My uncharted understandings before coming here have only been enhanced since having come here…its had the corresponding effect of wanting to make myself into a better me and wanting to do the same for guys out here who need to hear the message even if they don’t understand it. Its not your job to walk them through the door, its your job as a man to show them the door exists in the first place. You’re not the best kind of man if you keep everything that made you a man to yourself. Would you do the same with your son? No? Well then, why would you do any less with the manboys of the world? Real men take the red pill, alpha men generate it through their thoughts words and deeds. These are the kind of men who lead civilizations into prosperity or deliver them from the hands of oppression. The true kings of the world. The kind of world we live in means its not enough to take the red pill, you have to be red pill enough to want to give it to others.
    This world/civilization is going to burn one day soon…its too far gone to save but some of the males are not. There will be many guys who go the way of all flesh and no matter what your input is BUT there will also be a few males who will rise up, who will stand on their feet for the first time in their lives, who will finally understand what they were told by real men even if they scoffed or ignored it when they actually heard it. The future blacksmiths forging a new world from the ashes of the old.
    Facebook or whatever other social medium you prefer can be the means, the footprint the handshake whatever…to not just saving males but more importantly, helping them to save themselves. It can be the virtual exclamation point to the defiant words you build your life around in person.
    Everyone of us we save is one less of them we have to fight.

    1. I doubt any of the regular posters on here use social media as it was intended – to show off brainless antics and waste time uploading pictures of their pet doing silly things while isolating themself indoors and brain rotting away. I’m always surprised at the rediculous garbage having the most views when you click on you tube. I ignore every bit of it and search what I’m looking for, usually a piece to make an example of or to slam the enemy with. Sometimes I search for something pleasant like an inspirational or nostalgic piece, but I rarely waste my time online floating aroung and being affected by or ingesting the absolute glut of garbage. I just wish there was a way to amplify and bullhorn messages, like if you could drown out or ‘overbroadcast’ over MSM when they go sugar coating or diverting (spotlighting) topics away from the relevant truth.

    2. Damn, Danny, you on one tonight, my friend! I owe you a handshake & a beer for this one, sir.

      1. We’ve come a long way since Clockwork Orange. The newer the smartphone, the less you can shut off invasive functions like ‘voice’ command. It pops on and sometimes other bizarre shit starts up. The sonofabitches are suspicious and worrisome. You’d think you could escape the devices somewhere remote in the world, off the grid, but shit even these guys have them (compliments of the Peace Corps):
        http://cybertrackerblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/backwards-compatible.jpg

      2. Yes of course, i should have mentioned it but i was trying to keep it from turning into another article. Thanks 🙂

  22. I will never understand the propensity of the left to exert the least amount of effort and expend the least amount of resources possible in response to any given crisis. A bunch of Muslim assholes go on a killing spree in Paris and the response is a bunch of retards making peace signs out of candles and posting them all over shitty social media sites. Or the idiots waving posters with gushy messages welcoming in Muslim rapists and murderers with open arms, because to suggest anything less than total acquiescence to the “refugee” invasion is risk being labelled the equally meaningless labels of “racist” or “bigot”.
    Personally, I find all the inaction and flaccid responses sadly amusing. The shit hits the fan and the best response these people can come up with is to jump on Twitter and Facebook to post irrelevant babblings of “solidarity” and “outrage” while their “leaders” hold press conferences to issue equally irrelevant, vapid condemnations and proposing meaningless “sanctions”. It’s the equivalent of writing a sternly worded letter to the guy who broke into your home, killed your family, and made off with your worldly belongings.
    Great article. I’ll be sharing it with friends and even a few of those Facebook crusaders I know of.

      1. should have superimposed the guillotine over my face, but that was a long time ago. Gotta stick with it at this point.

  23. I don’t get it with solidarity and supporting Muslims when they attack us or our allies.
    This is known as taqiyya to protect the minority, they will use ever sympathetic card in
    the book to not make it about Islam and even saying they were good Muslims and he
    went to mosque everyday.
    “Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream…Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.
    This is so fucking annoying when people say moderate Muslims. They play nice until
    they become the majority.

    1. Thank you. That’s an important post, and no one who values their life and the ways of the glorious free world should support Islamic savages anywhere. It’s why I hate leftists.

    3. no, they dont need to act nice, if they wanna punch you they will, because they can. white ppl do this, they are weak and HAVE to be nice to everybody, because they risk getting their ass kicked and cant defend themselves, typical beta who is paranoid and scared of everybody XD

  24. Ah, yes. As I’ve said before in the Anonymous article:”Sporting one of these [Guy Fawkes masks] is the fashion equivalent of puting a rainbow or french flag filter on your Facebook profile picture. Slacktivism at it’s finest. Claiming to stand with a certain cause just because it’s “hip”without actually having to do any actual work, which again goes to show how the left gain so many millenial supporters. Lazy little shits.”

  26. If anyone remembers the nifty clip-on US flags that mount to car windows like these:
    http://www.alltopbargains.info/webpictures4/06222015_226_3.jpg
    These flags were popular in the days following 9/11. In some areas (especially around the nation’s capitol) you’d see as many as 80%+ of cars with the flags which were made in . . guess where?
    http://www.thomasvan.com/wp-content/files/american-flag-made-in-china-SS.jpg
    It surprised me how so many of these flags were available the day right after the ‘attack’. The clip-on window flags weren’t big sellers and were never that popular and were rather hard to find previously. They were obviously stockpiled shortly before 9/11. Carny vendors suddenly had van loads of the flags available to sell roadside.
    Facebook was created on Feb 4, 2004, so three years prior in 2001, people would tend to get outside more and post their activism symbols. Notice also how before facebook there was much more public spray painted graffiti. But the 9/11 flag waving was quite memorable.
    https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/350/80/photologue/photos/Jeep%202.jpg
    http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/76676280-people-wave-american-flags-on-an-overpass-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=lGnjDs01aeQKqjld9R%2FRaW%2Fnzbu7ix5pPdBaIe%2ByAcrXymK1k4qhuhgLPXo%2BrNUVTFKYeNM1mwJRAV%2B65Qyt2g%3D%3D
    https://2wheels2lanes1camera.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/flags-on-bikes-in-car-lot.jpg

  27. Well done David. Cheap, lazy empathy in a public setting is nothing at all, but attention seeking. I always felt the same when I saw street demonstrations along with armed police details for their safety. You protest war waving a piece of cardboard on a western throroghfare in order to marinade in your own false self-rightousness. It makes you feel better about yourself, for awhile, until the next craving of attention and it’s all done at zero personal risk.
    Like the hashtag gargabe. The woman below is married to a guy who is the supposed leader of the most powerful military in the world. What ever happened to those girls in the end? Does it really matter? They got to use them as a prop for their own advertising.

  28. I don’t have Facebook myself, so I wasn’t able to see this in action, but what interested me about the French flag overlay (and the gay pride one, apparently) was that Facebook is now nudging its users to use these filters far more directly. People have used Facebook pictures for slacktivism for ages, but at least they had to go through the “effort” of deciding the message for themselves, and making or editing an appropriate picture. Now it’s just a push of a button to broadcast a message predetermined for you by Facebook.
    The social media that people use every day are increasingly directly telling them what to do, how to feel, etc. In terms of data analysis, it is useful for them to find out how many people comply to direct orders, and how long it takes them to comply. So it’s also really a massive compliance test. It is the early testing grounds for direct intervention into your personal life and worldview by boardroom execs, as opposed to the “indirect”, suggestive kind that you normally see in advertising.

    1. That’s scary…..I rarely post on FB these days. It amazes me how many supposedly smart people fall for all this BS!

  30. Internet activism could be powerful and effective when it’s done by intelligent people like Aaron and Melissa Dykes.
    For example these two videos

  32. Phewww… what do you think would it end when white nationalists intervene in these new years eve ficki ficki events ? Do you think this is just a fist fight ? Nope it will end with a heap of corpses and the media will turn it a racist massacre on innocent refugees.Nope these atrocities have to happen to draw the population into our camp.Women have to have fear.They have to face consequences.The time for kinetic action is NOT now,its time will come but not now.Cologne was a total victory for the alt right.The psycke warfare tools called mainstream media are tanking badly here,right wing populist party AfD is rising like a V2 rocket in the polls.The whole political establishment is in total dissolution.Merkel is about to be ousted in March with the election desaster in various federal states.If kinetic action occours from our side then the mass of population has to stand on our side and saying something like ” they deserved it”.There is point in time in battle, in a war to attack to shift the momentum,when the enemy is off balance.For now its mostly psychological warfare and a preparation phase for the inevitable race war.Right now the Russians in Germany are out in the street protesting.They are valuable allies in the fight.When a major terror attack happens and that is my gut feeling that some kind of this event is fast approaching then its time for kinetic action.When desperation and exhaustion is at its peak thats the culmination point of the counterattack that must be swift and brutal.And dont kid yourself.It will not be a fair fight.

  33. Such articles on this site really amaze me given that Roosh himslef descends from muslim migrants..

  35. I imagine if the internet existed in the 1960’s, Martin Luther King would just have tweeted #IHaveaDream. Then, he would have continued fapping to YouPorn or RedTube.

    1. Major Styles, you sir are on point.
      #byanymeansnecessary fapfapfapfapfapfap

    2. “#IHaveaDream. Then, he would have continued fapping to YouPorn” and it’s a very wet one…I know it’s juvenile, shame on me.

  36. Calling the other side “sheep” in 2016 is a trope that is trite and overdone. It is almost as bad as calling the other side “Nazis” or comparing political leaders to Hitler.
    The biggest danger has always been mis-informed people as opposed to un-informed people. Un-informed people tend to sit on the sidelines, they don’t vote, and they rarely participate in revolutions or activism.
    Mis-informed people run around thinking that they are the ones truly “in the know” and all others are merely weaklings who fall to the the most clumsy of manipulation tactics. They delude themselves into thinking that they are “informed” and typically believe that they are because they consume media that conforms or reinforces their own beliefs to the exclusion of all others.

  39. The Gay Marriage rainbow image on facebook did help me decide which of my friends to unfollow or basically take off my list. Good way to weed out the idiots.

  40. Food for thought : A Saudi bought into Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg is a Globalist and owns Facebook, YouTube is controlled by the guys at Google…your attempts at “Internet Activism” are on the ‘stage’ that is privately controlled by folks that can pull the plug if at any time they disagree…there is no Freedom of Speech, Right to Assemble, or the Right not to be a witness against yourself online…if you have a message you want to get out, you might need to go ‘low tech’ where you’ll have rights (and make those that would silence you have to work harder than merely flipping the ‘off’ switch.) — Newsletters, radio, public access TV, phone trees, etc.

  41. That’s why i made this ‘fire rises’ profile pic. At the time, the french were holding this Eiffel tower/peace sign image, cause waving their flag around would mean ‘were going to kill those refugee bastards,’ so i took their image, put it over my face, and sent a distinctly different message to the world.
    “Nobody cared who I was until I put the mask on.”
    —the Big Guy.

  42. Man, the more I read about the bullshit on Facespace and Twatter the more I am glad I shuttered my account a year ago. SO GLAD. It is easy to say whatever you want over a keyboard and screen. Part of the reason kids today have no respect for anyone/thing is because everyone is a tough guy on the internet, you don’t have to worry about someone beating your ass on the internet like you do in real life.

  43. ‘internet activism’ is an oxymoron. Its usually just a bunch of people on various forums and chatrooms chatting/posting stuff to each other which has absolutely zero impact on the real world. There are ‘activist-related’ forums with members who’ve been on them 5+ years and 10,000+ posts who have never set foot outside their house on a demo or protest and yet regard themselves as ‘activists’. laughable. chatting to your buddies in cosy chatroom bubbles is not activism. Its boneidle arseholes deluding themselves.

  45. This internet stuff is just a new projection of the same old human condition.Today people do it on the internet instead of wearing some stupid button or similar thing that they did for a century and half or more before the internet. It’s the same old go-along-to-get-along or just plain old sheep behavior as it always was.
    Seinfeld’s show in the 90s, before the masses had the interweb, the episode with the AIDs ribbons making light of the social pressures to do these symbolic things that really do nothing. The internet has just changed the form wearing ribbons and buttons or putting ribbons around trees or whatever to social media. The digital form is more preferable for me and probably others who dislike this sort of crap.

  46. Always been disgusted with this slothful behavior. They have the power of the internet, something no generation has ever had, and they choose to be posers.

  47. I did the whole French flag thing on FB. Normally I am disgusted by such nonsense but I was enraged by what happened and the lack of response by World leaders. I am a Marine, was in OIF and Afghanistan. I wanted to slay fucking bodies and was not allowed to. So ya I did the only thing that I reasonably could.

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