Slacktivism - Use

Use

The term appears to have been coined by Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark in 1995 at the Cornerstone Festival. The term was meant to shorten the phrase slacker activism, which refers to bottom up activities by young people to affect society on a small, personal scale (such as planting a tree, as opposed to participating in a protest). The term originally had a positive connotation.

Radio host and political commentator Dan Carlin was using the term on his show in the 1990s and may have coined the present day meaning.

Monty Phan, staff writer for Newsday, was an early user of the term in his 2001 article titled, "On the Net, "Slacktivism' / Do-Gooders Flood In-Boxes" (Phan 2001).

An early example of using the term "slacktivism" appeared in Barnaby Feder's article in The New York Times called "They Weren't Careful What They Hoped For." Feder quoted anti-scam crusader Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes.com, who described activities such as those listed above. "It's all fed by slacktivism ... the desire people have to do something good without getting out of their chair" (Feder 2002).

Another example of the term "Slacktivism" appeared in Evgeny Morozov’s book, "Net Delusion: How Not To Liberate the World". In his book, Morozov relates slacktivism to the Colding-Jorgensen experiment: In 2009, a Danish psychologist named Colding Jorgensen created a fictitious Facebook group, as part of his research. On the page, he announced that the Copenhagen city authorities would be demolishing the historical Storck fountain site. 125 Facebook members joined the Jorgensen’s page within the first day, and the number of fans began to grow at a staggering rate, eventually reaching 27,500. Morozov argues the Colding-Jorgensen experiment reveals a key component of slacktivism: “When communication costs are low, groups can easily spring into action.” Clay Shirky also similarly characterized slacktivism as “ridiculously easy group forming.”