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The Green Meme: is Switching your Twitter Icon Activism?

Background: Does turning your twitter avatar green make you into an activist?  Does it constitute an effective protest against the suppression of rights of civilians in Iran?  On June 17th, 2009 many Twitter users began turning their avatars green. This was their way of showing solidarity with those Iranians protesting the questionable election results which returned the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.  Some Twitter users uploaded solid green squares in place of their avatars; another 230,000 used the website (http://helpiranelection.com/) created by @arikfr to tweet their support and either turn their icons a shade of green or to add a green ribbon to their picture. This trend spread like wildfire and soon most of my followers were riding this wave.

Tools: Twitter, external web site

How These Tools are Used: After seeing pictures of protestors in Iran wearing green, many Twitter users began to manually change their Twitter pictures. This individual process was then streamlined by the self proclaimed “creative geek” Arik (@arikfr ) in creating his website. He had seen what people were doing, liked it and so “decided to simplify the process to allow it to reach [a] wider audience.” This worked, as my twitter stream was soon filled with the simple message “Show support for #iranelection add green overlay to your Twitter avatar with 1-click – http://helpiranelection.com/”. From twitter juggernauts like @garyvee to smaller scale users; the green icon fad had permeated twitter.

Analysis: Recently there has been much discussion around the phenomenon of average people participating, or attempting to participate in online activism. Mary Joyce, cofounder of this web site, was recently quoted in the Washington Post article stating that the ease of creating or joining a cause online sadly resulted in only “a maximum of 5 percent [who] are going to take action”. This problem is mirrored on Twitter as members can feel as though they’ve done their moral duty by expressing their anger at the situation by turning their icons green. To many, they feel like that is enough, they are spreading the word and showing solidarity. But how many of them donated even $1 to help organizations in Iran? Now THAT would have helped. Other skeptics of this movement, such as Martin Bryant, made their frustration with these activities clear as well.

The real question stems from the implications of digital activism. Digital activism is a progressive way of tackling the injustices in the world, but is the internet making it too easy for the average person to feel like he/she has sufficiently participated and so relieving them from any feeling that they should do more? Were people using the green meme to try and convey what humane and politically active people they were whether or not there was any truth to it? The last thing we need as a culture is another easy way out of hard work. I would have preferred to see a system where to turn your icon green a $20 donation was required. While it is not a lot, it would have resulted in only the truly concerned tweeters participating.

During the protests in Iran Twitter was very useful as a communication device with the western world. The concept of the “citizen journalist” was extremely important as all information coming out of Iran came from the people. The New York Times writer Noam Cohen noted that “Twitter is a tool and thus difficult to censor”. Retweeted updates and pictures from Iran became my main news source on the situation and I know that I wasn’t alone. There were many inaccuracies, but social tools gave the American people the coverage that wasn’t available anywhere else.

In the past month, Twitter has proven that it is far more than a narcissistic platform. As seen when the hashtag #CNNfail was used to criticize CNN for their coverage of the election in Iran. The trending topic gained so much support that it provoked a written and spoken apology from the network. When the New York Times profiled Twitter as a company they acknowledged its ability to “disseminate information in the face of a press crackdown” during the Iranian election.

I contacted some Twitter users who still had green avatars to pose the question: “Why did you change your avatar green?”

Daniel @dwplanit

“A few reasons: I am strongly for populist democratic uprisings; it was easy; there isn’t much more I can do to support democracy in Iran…Another effect the avatar changes might have is simply encouraging Iranians to continue to fight for democracy. And that could be a positive side effect.”

Alejandro @successfool

“Because I want to use my twitter id/following to attract attention to the cause.”

Jimmy @loyaleagle

“I figured it would show solidarity among tweeps and might even help in some small way (though now I’m a little sick of it).”

Tee @TeeMonster

“When I found out about the “elected” government shutting down Social Media outlets, I was outraged. I turned the avatar green to show my support for the opposition and also as a statement for freedom of information. If Iran wants to be taken seriously as a nation, they need to realize that information cannot be blocked. Not in this age.”

Gina @gminks

“To me it was more about getting the word out, drawing attention. I don’t really think that is activism. But then again, I knew there was nothing I could do to change things in Iran.”

Arik @arikfr

“The idea of the campaign was to make it easy for people to show support and to raise awareness to the issue. To date over 230,000 people used the application to add green overlay/ribbon to their avatar, which means that most of Twitter users (if not all of them) have noticed it.”

Impact: I have mixed feelings about how quickly the fad of green avatars spread. It can be interpreted as honorable how fast Twitter became a seemingly outraged activist community or disheartening that our culture is happy to click a link to change their picture but nothing more. How can we modify what is expected of would-be online activists to engage them in making a concrete difference?