My Generation

by Lolsy's Library

I was just thinking over the last couple of days, I don’t think that many from my generation 40 and below, have ever really had to protest before. I think of the protests that we’ve had over the years, I wonder if part of the reason why they don’t seem so effective is because we just don’t know how to.

Then again, I also think we live in a different state of the world. The last “great” protest I’m thinking of, are those against the Vietnam War, but then again, a lot of them protested against the soldiers, just doing their jobs and not necessarily the war themselves.

Before that was maybe Martin Luther King Jr and that Civil Rights March. Which is probably the most “famous” of them all. However, I am sure for different people, there are “great” protests that I am not even aware of.

I can’t help but think, we protest these days, because stupid people and “deaf” politicians, just are not listening to the Science, the Health or Medical professionals. We’re not protesting, because of the Government being wrong. We protest because they wont listen. Protests are done to make people feel uncomfortable, which some do. At the vigil for Sarah Everard, there were quiet a few signs that said “TERFs’ not welcomed here”. The TERFs were not happy, lol.

There must be a in-between that my generation is just missing out on?

Like, if the stupid politicians, and the bigots have social media to echo themselves. They’re not going to listen to a protest. Even though most, if not all, the time. The “lefties” and the “liberal bleeding hearts” always out-number the bigots.

We are the generation that need to come up with a new way to protest. Show the numbers, march, but show them on social media too. Start “hitting” those bigots mid way through their echo. Sometimes protesting on social media does actually work. As an example, a lot of businesses these days will listen to the people saying they wont buy from their business, as their advertisements come up on, say, Fox News. There a few twitter accounts, dedicated to letting the general public know which advertisers are advertising where.

I have no idea where you’d start with that though!lol


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21 thoughts on “My Generation”

  1. Finding new ways to “protest” to help make change, is a good idea. I think the people in Myanmar are showing the way by adapting “Flash Performances” to protest the theft of their democracy. I believe a good number of people from your generation have participated in protests under the headings of MeToo and Black Lives Matter, as well as ending the forever “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not as many as against the war in Viet Nam and the 1950s/1960s Civil Rights movement but still a good number that has made a difference.

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  3. I think the days of sit-ins, marches, etc. are behind us. I am in the same age bracket as you, and I don’t use any social media. But all I ever see are people with their noses in their tech. While I’m working, my coworkers are all sending tik-tok videos on a group chat and I don’t pay attention (I actually silenced the thread because it was maddening). You would do a sit in, one TV channel would pay attention and within a week every TV station in the country was airing it. Now, you’re a million strong marching for something, every TV station in the country is there, and no one even knows unless they’re old enough to watch the 10 pm news. It comes up for some people on their feeds, but those are based on algorithms that say you will care about that, or people you follow or whatever they’re based on. I hate to admit that criminals have anything right, but they basically send one video and the world knows about it within the hour. They use social media properly. I don’t know how they do it, I don’t understand social media. But for a march to actually count, you have to count not how many heads appear, but also how many eyes can see it. That’s how one person – Jane Fonda – managed to infuriate an entire country. She posed for ONE picture and said some dumb uneducated things during Vietnam war, and no one from that generation, that I know has ever forgiven her. More eyes saw her picture than those that were there when she took it. MLK marches were on TV – we can still get the footage. My father saw it on TV and he was no where near local. It’s about the number of eyes. The news won’t cover it unless there’s a hashtag involved because that means people won’t tune out – they’re already somewhat familiar. Popularizing every single cause like that is time consuming and not every cause is that flashy, but no less important. Figure out how to get it, get it good as quickly and simply as possible via social media. Once people know about it, the news will cover it that night. A march the next day would be super powerful. But you have to get the people’s attention and getting them to look up and away from their echo chambers long enough is the key. I just wish I knew how to do it.

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      1. Right. I might have a better idea if I had any clue how ANY social media works, but I don’t. However, grass roots campaigns sometimes work. So, the best I got (and it aint much), is to use WP to start.

        Almost everyone on here has social media outside of here. start a hashtag concept on here. Gain support through your blog. Have them spread it to their other social media platforms with the hashtag. You can get conservatives and liberals if it’s done right. You’ll reach the wider audience that way – also international through here. Within those other people’s followers, there will be a minor spreading, which could potentially lead to another minor spreading. It’s a principle (can’t rememver the name) where one person spreads their information to five people and each of their five spread it to five) Could take a while, but it could work. It could spread just as easily as fake news if it’s “sexy” enough.

        That may be the way in…

        I don’t know how to do it, but it’s an idea.

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      3. Neither can I. I tried a cursory search on google which didn’t give me the actual name of the phenomenon, so I wish you luck in finding it! I have it in a text book from when I was in school a hundred years ago… but when knows where those have gotten to? LOL

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      11. It does, then back then forwards. That is life. No matter what you’re talking about. Everything always gets better, everything always sucks. You pick what you want to be upset about and the rest is just there because if you want to change everything you will be disappointed because you will find nothing changes. Focus on certain things so you are aware of the change that is happening. You can’t watch a hundred people to see internal growth in all of them. You’ll miss it all. You need to focus on a few people: you, your husband and kids. You will see the growth there. If you’re going to support every cause you’ll be too removed to see all the changes. If you focus, you will see great strides in what you are actively focused on. Don’t give up on the others, March, dance naked, whatever you do to support for all of them, but only focus on a few. If you see strides in the right direction and you feel another cause could benefit (ot you can benefit by focusing, feel free to switch your focus, but never forget the other one, and if they need help, never fail to try to help. But it’s not the focused ones. If you take in too much, you will never see any positive changes until something massive happens that you will be surprised about. If you’re focusing, you can see you’re headed to that direction, or you will help dream up a new plan to get there.

        I hope at least some of this makes any sense.

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