Movements online and how they affect responses to disasters

These last few weeks have been numbingly tragic for the United States of America. First, Hurricane Harvey devastated the coast of Texas; then, someone shot at hundreds of people at a concert in Las Vegas; Hurricanes Irma and Maria consecutively wiped out the electrical grid and countless homes in Puerto Rico; now, the Tubbs wildfire in Santa Rosa and other fires in California have destroyed livelihoods, left 40 dead and many missing.

In my UGBA 192AC class, one of the aspects of social movements we focus on is how movements use various techniques to garner support--grassroots organization, social media calls-to-action, hashtags, so on. However, it is a strange realization to find that while I analyze these techniques, I and the people around me are ignoring and avoiding being swayed by social media techniques on a day-to-day basis, even in the cases of national disasters.

The tragedies in recent weeks have garnered much of their popular support thanks to new media. I first heard about these tragedies on my Facebook news feed; my friends shared ways to support the victims online; sponsored ads touted non-profits trying to raise emergency funds for families of those affected; celebrities such as Lin-Manuel Miranda (creator of Hamilton: An American Musical) and Stephen Colbert created songs or campaigns to raise money. However, much media is still dedicated to the “trivialities” of day-to-day life. Snapchat’s stories still cover Kylie Jenner’s “officially unconfirmed” pregnancy; my little sister keeps posting a daily countdown to her birthday; clubs and people at UC Berkeley continue to share their events online. One particularly insensitive event was called something along the lines of “Blow the smoke from the wildfires towards Stanfurd,” poking fun towards UC Berkeley and Stanford’s “campus rivalry.” Santa Rosa is just about an hour’s drive north of UC Berkeley.

There is a degree of irreverence and numbness towards efforts to support these national disasters that I’ve also seen in reaction to social movements online. I can’t help but wonder if the sheer number of social movements online have inundated people to calls-to-action and calls for help, even in times of immediate need.

The difference between a sociopolitical movement and a true disaster has become imperceptible, but disasters shouldn’t have to be politically, socially, or culturally controversial.