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Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons between the ages of 15-24.[1] Youth activism has led to a shift in political participation and activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of “Alter-Activism” resulting in an emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists.[2] The young activists have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change, abortion rights and gun violence.[3] Different from past protest or advocacy, technology has become the backbone to many of these modern youth movements.[4]

Social Media has become the vehicle for young activists to spread their dissent across their country and even globally. Applications like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even Snapchat create the large web of social networking that has allowed the youth around the world to create a new era of activism.

Twitter has become one of the most important tools to engage with and mobilize around issues of social justice and civil rights.[5]  Twitter has many different features on the application that have been used by young activists to spread their dissent. Like many other apps, Twitter has a live-streaming feature that was particularly important in movements like the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement.[6]  Live-streaming was not the only powerful tool on Twitter—hashtags have changed the landscape of online youth activism. For many modern movements it was the hashtag that catapulted many groups into the mainstream media. For example in the span of 5 years, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been shared over 30 million times just on Twitter.[7] By capitalizing on the power and popularity of a hashtag, these young activists have been able to have an even larger conversation about police brutality and inherent racism in American systems. #BlackLivesMatter was not the only major movement to take Twitter by storm in recent years. In October 2017, the #Metoo movement took Twitter by storm and in just the first week it is estimated that these personal stories reach 6 to 37 million Twitter users.[8] The anonymity of Twitter allowed women to share their personal stories of abuse with less fear and these personal stories helped amplify the movement.[9]

While Twitter has provided a platform for hashtag movements to take place, applications like Facebook and Twitter have been criticized for only instilling weak ties between activists creating a lack of offline activism.[10] The result of these weak ties has been the formation of slacktivism—a new ineffective form of activism.[11] A popular example of slacktivism is the social media campaign Kony 2012. While this campaign did gain strong social media traction with millions of views on their video, they failed to gain the same offline traction. A year later when they released Kony 2013, they did get the same traction.[12] This is just one example of the slacktivism that can result from these applications.

Video blogging has become an essential part of how people communicate online especially on applications like Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat and even TikTok. This power of sharing videos and images can specifically be seen on Instagram. Instagram has allowed activists to do things like stream their protest live to viewers across the world.[13] Live streaming is not the only powerful part of Instagram. Instagram has become an application for participants to gain social capital and even make a living off of their online activity. This creation of the “influencer” has allowed a rise in representation of minority communities as well as created an online community for them.[14]

Twitter provides a platform for fast communication, Instagram provides a platform for influencers and striking imagery and finally Youtube provides a platform for video documentation. The importance of Youtube is it has allowed activists to exit the dangerous echo chamber that can be created online. By breaking free from this echo chamber, young Youtube activist and organization have been able to have a larger conversation about their issues.[15]  Youtube has given a platform for “vloggers” to not only document their life, but also have personal (and political) conversations with a large audience all from home.[16]

While the United States has had a culture of Youth Activism for much of it’s nation’s history. Since the introduction of the World Wide Web to American Society in the nineties, youth activism has shifted to take on a new form. Prior to social media, internet organizing took place through emails, and independent web sites that supplemented offline activism to increase the flow of information[1] Since the widespread proliferation of social media in the 2000’s and 2010’s, youth have significantly altered their form of civic engagement through online means. Social media has become the space for youth to engage in collective activism and gain political efficacy that leads to offline social organizing[2]. Major American social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow people from all over the world to stay more digitally connected than previous mediums of communication.

Youth and student protest use these relatively free accessible social media platforms to build broad base coalitions and support online to fuel their cause. Youth have engaged in much of the civil discourse that are popular in contemporary American society including climate change and gun control. In the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting in Parkland, Florida in February of 2018,  several survivors of the shooting came together online, using primarily Twitter, to advocate for stricter gun control legislation. Although this activism started online, it led to broad base coalitions among youth and adults alike, resulting in the March for Our Lives in March 2018. Although a national and widely publicized event, youth from all over the nation have engaged in smaller offline movements such as lobbying public officials to take action on gun control legislation at the local level[3].

More recently, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has received global attention for school striking in order to fight for more progressive climate change policies. This has lead to worldwide student protests such as Fridays for Future. Online activism and collaboration have been essential in coordinating physical protests for young people.