![]() Twitter’s capacity to add icons to hashtags has the potential to be more than a cute novelty. The image retains its impact independent of whatever toxic remark you want to make. ![]() Short of vandalizing the image itself, how do you subvert its power? It’s not impossible, for sure – few things are impossible if you’re sufficiently soulless – but it’s harder, maybe. But it’s less simple to deploy a profound image in a sarcastic way. Stepping sarcastically into an earnest, important hashtag like #LoveWins or #BlackLivesMatter is laughably simple if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t mind mocking or ignoring others’ pain or soul-searching. If you’re sufficiently soulless, many things are easy. But I suspect nothing written on these subjects in the last two years will prove to be as absolutely indelible as the photograph of Edward Crawford throwing tear gas back at the cops, or the one of Bree Newsome removing the Confederate flag. Several thousand more of those words came in the form of opinion pieces and essays, some of them by my colleagues here at the Guardian. Activists and advocates have generated billions of words about police violence, white supremacy, and ingrained systemic racism – 18m tweets mentioning Ferguson were sent in August of 2014 alone. “A picture is worth a thousand words” is the hoariest of clichés, but that’s partly because it’s true we’ve seen some especially striking examples in the last few years. Imagine telling the Westboro Baptist Church that they could protest funerals, but they had to do it wearing nothing but rainbow Speedos. Being required to flaunt the imagery of your enemy if you want to attack them might just make the attack lose its appeal. A rainbow heart emoji is technically just some pixels on a screen, but it’s also much more: an emblem a statement. ![]() As the recent belated furor over the Confederate battle flag makes clear, symbols have profound importance well beyond their apparent value. Were anti-gay bigots less likely to hijack the #LoveWins hashtag because it meant they’d have a rainbow heart in every tweet? It seems plausible. But while I saw right-wingers snipe about “that hashtag” this weekend, they seemed more likely to complain obliquely, rather than jumping in to poison a joyful conversation. Normally, any trending hashtag gets inundated with people intentionally trying to subvert its goals – sometimes benevolently or mischievously, sometimes for evil. But the rainbow stamp may have had an additional effect.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |