When something like the Internet brings together millions of people across the world, there’s a lot of power there to be harnessed. With solid organization and a large group of dedicated people, pretty much anything is possible.
The easiest example is the multitude of TV shows that have been saved through online fan campaigns. Typically the campaign involves mailing items to the studio offices. When Arrested Development was in danger of cancellation, fans sent banana crates (a reference to the banana stand featured on the show) and letters to Fox. The show got a third season, was cancelled, and later brought back for a fourth season. When post-apocalyptic drama Jericho was in trouble, fans sent 20 tons of nuts to CBS (referencing a character saying “nuts.”) With Reaper, fans sent socks (a reference to main character Sock) netting it a second season, but unfortunately not a third. The list goes on. A campaign couldn’t save Firefly, but helped a movie get greenlit. A strong online following got Daria released on DVD. Massive fan support on Kickstarter got funding for a Veronica Mars movie years after it was cancelled.
Online campaigns also commonly go in a more social justice direction. Both Occupy and Idle No More were grassroots campaigns with a strong online presence. Both spread to many different cities and while Occupy arguably didn’t accomplish a whole lot, Idle No More did bring Aboriginal issues to the forefront.
As well, recently, a woman named Jill Piebak started a petition online to gain support to get the tax on menstrual products removed. She got almost 75,000 supporters and at the end of May, the tax was removed.
Unfortunately, online activism doesn’t always lead to good results. Reddit infamously began an investigation into the identities of the Boston bombers and did not even come close to uncovering them. Someone saw a photo of who was later identified as Dzokhar Tsarnaev, said it was Sunil Tripathi, a missing university student, and from there the witch hunt began. As is Reddit’s wont, angry messages started appearing on Tripathi’s Facebook page. A journalist even tweeted information supposedly from a police scanner: Tripathi was indeed a suspect in the bombings. The only problem was he wasn’t, and in fact, he had committed suicide prior to the bombings. In a similar vein, a Redditor posted a map that was supposedly a clue pointing toward the location of Tamra Keepness’s body, who went missing in 2004.
The ease of connecting on the Internet can also lead to harmful movements, like the sexist Gamergate and Men’s Rights Movement – Gamergate was supposedly about ethics in journalism but mostly attacked any female who tried to participate in the gaming community, while the Men’s Rights Movement alleges to support uniquely male problems, like discouragement of showing emotion and disadvantages in family law, but again, mostly just attack women.
People online are incapable of having some sort of middle ground. For as many success stories of TV shows coming back due to fan love, there’s a mistaken Bostom bomber or a campaign to systematically harass someone (usually a woman who speaks up about video games). I can’t feel heartwarmed by online success stories anymore because I know there’s going to be another problematic campaign around the corner.
