Social media has made us a part of popular culture. We can interact with influential public figures at the click of a button. News networks ask for our opinions with a Twitter reel. Independent musicians, bloggers and entrepreneurs can proliferate their ideas with Facebook pages and Kickstarter campaigns.

Because of this, we can easily apply this universal interconnectedness to a political purpose. We have once before.

The March 2012 “Stop Kony” campaign, an indictment of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, was inspired by a viral YouTube video and wildfire Twitter hashtag. On March 21, 34 senators signed a resolution condemning Kony’s campaign of terror.

“When you get over 100 million Americans looking at something, you will get our attention,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told Politico on March 22, 2012.

As a generation, it was the closest we ever came to worthwhile activism on social media.

We have a similar opportunity right now, and are ignorantly passing without a whimper.

On July 25, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly defeated a bill — 217-205 — that would have prevented the National Security Agency from collecting telephone records of innocent Americans.

A vigorous social media campaign could have made up the 12-vote difference. It could have led to further amendments that could check the NSA’s power. It may still do so in the future. But first, we must harness our organizing power as the social media generation.

Unlike our ancestors, we don’t have to interrupt our bustling schedules to peaceably assemble in a park or quad. We are already peaceably assembled on Facebook and Twitter.

This expedites the process in unprecedented fashion. It took two days for more than 100 million people to rally against Kony. It took two weeks for 100 million people to realize Occupy Wall Street even existed.

We have established and grown addicted to social media’s ostensible role as simply a fun community where we define our identities and stay connected — to each other and to popular culture. This is why “Stop Kony” was an isolated event. We are steadfastly unwilling to evolve social media’s role into what it will inevitably become: an omnipotent political organizing tool.

This unwillingness exacerbates our label as a generation of “slacktivists.” We are willing to holler about immoral issues behind the comfortable veil of a computer screen, especially when the issues, like Kony, are too far removed to affect our everyday lives.

This reputation is partially unfair. Social media is not a veil. It’s louder than any megaphone. It has allowed all citizens to achieve the type of public clout once strictly reserved for public figures.

But we have also confirmed this reputation by not using this clout.

With the NSA revelation, we are transforming “slacktivism” from a label to our legacy. There would have been no better response than to use the communities the government is spying on to rise against such an unjustified inflation of federal power.

Instead, we have responded with alarming apathy.

There have been no hashtag trends, YouTube videos or vehement debates that could have scared the government into submission, proving we have not learned from the unexpected success of “Stop Kony.”

We have grown up with the Internet, but we are still unwilling to make the Internet grow up.

Once we do, political movements may never be the same.

Jarrad Saffren is a senior television, radio and film and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached via email at jdsaffre@syr.edu. @UncleSamsFilter.

Published on August 8, 2013 at 3:51 pm