Today… many people who use LiveJournal who felt strongly about policy and practices, decided to voice their discontent ironically by not voicing. That is to say, forming a ‘strike’ to walk out on their journals and neither post nor comment.
Actions like this annoy the hell out of me. But I will not state how I feel about the situation. Now, I’m talking about the choice of action… or in this case inaction.
I will explain. Many times I have seen, “Wear Denim today to protest mutilating kittens.”
My problem with this becomes two-fold.
One…. What if all I ever wear is denim. Does this basically mean if I support mutilating kittens and don’t have a wardrobe that doesn’t have denim in it somewhere; I have to go buy new clothes?
And B.. or two… What if I didn’t get the memo? What if I show up in my Gap Tan slacks… because it was Laundry day and I utterly forgot or worse didn’t get the memo? Oh for the love of pete… I can guarantee you… I’ll get plenty a hairy eyeball because I obviously would rather make a statement about how kittens should be mutilated.
Personally, while I do have good runs of postings over a month… I also have dry periods. I have days where I’m too busy to post. I have days I’m too busy to post and I still post 2-7 times.
So… for most of last night and most of today I didn’t post. Do I support the Strike? Was I away from a computer? (I realize friends and coworkers may assume the latter is impossible; but I assure you it is in fact possible)
You want to make a statement. Change the format of your LJ to BLACK or maybe even Safety Flag Orange. Put bold text in your post that says, “I don’t support X, and changed my journal today because of it.”
Personally, popping LJ today, all it looks like is ‘a light day’… Very little to indicate the strike.
Now, if I have 60% of my friends list with posts that have a big bold line of protest at the end of the posts… maybe with specific links to words, translations, etc… Maybe I’d take notice and help.
So… did I strike today? You really don’t know. The issue is… Words make change… simple actions that can be lost in the shuffle of everyday life are useless for anything greater than a little ego stroking.
And honestly… stroking oneself doesn’t really accomplish anything for anyone but you.
