Welcome
Shitty Activism is a community where users sheepishly and self-deprecatingly write about a small bit of activism they did. Unlike slacktivism, "shitty activism" takes some amount of creativity and/or effort, just to a very low-stakes end. This is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the small things passionate people do to make the world just a slightly better place.
Rules
- Posts must be about something either you did or e.g. that a friend wished to share through you. This is not a community to share shitty activism that some third party has done. We want to hear about how you made (or tried/are trying to make) the world a teeny-tiny bit better.
- Do not write about clear-cut slacktivism, like "I upvoted a post calling YouTube's new redesign a crime against humanity." Likewise, "I attended a large protest", "I ran for office", etc., is more clear-cut "normal activism". The main two things you should consider are 1) how low-stakes was the target result (even if you failed), and 2) how much relative creativity and/or effort were put into it? The higher the ratio of effort/creativity to target result, the more likely what you're doing is shitty activism. A bunch of effort (e.g. "I emailed my city councilperson for five months straight about fixing a water fountain at the park") can offset low creativity, and vice-versa for something you feel was especially unique or clever.
- Do not use this community to start a brigade, either off-site or on-site. An incitement to brigade includes two elements: a call to disruptive action and a specific direction outside of this community in which to take that action. Exceptions include:
- Calls to boycott.
- Calls to in-person protest of a government, high-profile individual, or company/organization.
- Votes provided they have a sufficiently broad target audience or provably effective controls against vote brigading.
- This is not a support forum about how to do activism. Readers can respectfully provide feedback to stories expressing how the activism might've be improved, but this isn't the place for dedicated "should I/how do I do [X]?" posts, even if what you intend to do would qualify as shitty activism.
- All Lemmy.World Terms of Service also apply.
Guidelines
- Be mindful that writing about yourself can unintentionally reveal personally identifying information. Anonymize your stories where you can.
- If your story involves committing a crime, make sure it's a harmless one like "I grew pot in a place where it's illegal" or "I jaywalked" or "I took ambergris from a beached whale on the Sutherland coast and never gave it to the King". The law isn't perfect; this just isn't the forum.
- The activism can be for whatever random cause you believe in, and quite a lot of things can be non-traditional activism. Unconventionality might even get you points around here.
- Posts here are already self-deprecating, so please be polite to the OP about the quality of their activism unless you reasonably believe it did measurable harm.
- "Shitty activism" used in this endearing way is likely fairly novel, and the lines are blurry. Please report for Rule 2 only if you think it's really obviously slacktivism or really obviously stereotypical activism.