You Won't Believe The Damage Upworthy Has Done To Our Society

                You’ve all seen them, they clutter your newsfeed: sensational, over the top, feel good links to various videos by various causes. I am certainly not the first person to have a problem with Upworthy, the fast-growing social media start-up that has gained a large amount of prominence within the last year. Still, I think it is worth discussing the issues with having a source like this grow so dominant amongst the activist community. Upworthy distracts people from giving their time and attention to worthy causes. Furthermore, it satiates people’s desire to do good, by giving them a sense of satisfaction and community involvement without requiring much effort. Finally, it (and its sister in news-feeds Buzzfeed) has already had a notable, and troubling effect on our mainstream media. Those who share Upworthy links would be better off focusing their efforts on reputable charities, or becoming informed about issues around the world.

                Kony 2012 was a remarkable event, which I consider to be a key precursor to the rise of Upworthy. In early 2012, a major social media campaign was launched, aiming to increase awareness of a warlord named Kony. It featured a flashy video, a logo which you could put as your profile picture to show support, and was aimed to culminate in an enormous multimedia display; Cover the Night against the warlord. In its early days, Kony 2012 was massively successful. Millions of people shared, talked about and vowed to participate in Cover the Night. It was unavoidable. Over time however, engagement with the idea fell. People who investigated the organization behind Kony 2012 found it wanting, those who initially supported it moved on, and a scandal created the final nail in the coffin. At the real Cover the Night, hundreds of people or less would show up where thousands had pledged to arrive. The whole movement became a joke, its name synonymous with empty, lazy, purely social media based activism.

                Kony 2012 demonstrated two things: first, that you can get millions of people to support a cause if you focus on making it viral, and second that you need to constantly create new causes to avoid people losing interest. If it were only possible to monetize this phenomenon, you could profit off of people who are passionate and seem like you were doing good. Enter Upworthy. Upworthy as a business does two things. First, they find links and videos online that they think have the potential to go viral amongst the activist community. Then, they hire test audiences to determine how they should title these videos to gain the most following. Whichever title tests the best, they’ll use. Looking on Upworthy as I write this, the top link is “Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong’o’s Speech On Beauty That Left An Entire Audience Speechless”. Sensational, editorialized and most importantly: teasing. This title makes clicking the corresponding link irresistible. I care about problems with beauty’s media portrayal, I’m interested in the Academy Awards, WHAT MADE THE AUDIENCE SPEECHLESS? And Upworthy churns out hundreds of these a day.

                So why is this bad? Well it all comes down to a concept from Economics, opportunity cost. Upworthy offers a shallow, addictive experience that you can share with your friends. The issue I have with it is this, the people who are motivated to share Upworthy links have better things they could be doing with their time. These are the Social Justice Warriors, the activists, the people who attended leadership ceremonies and joined Global Outreach clubs in high school and generally people who want to do some good. I don’t use SJW in a derogatory way, I think that this type of person is necessary to a just society. However, Upworthy takes the energy of these people, that could be applied to any cause imaginable, and directs it to whatever tests well. Further, instead of someone spending time on a cause, working to deal with its issues, it just throws these people at every cause imaginable, without time to really think about the issues at hand. It’s a quick fix, you click the link, watch the video, and then you move on with the rest of your day.

                More than just taking the time and energy of these people, it satiates their burning desire to do good. By clicking that share button, an Upworthy user feels that they have done something for women’s rights, or poverty, or whatever is in front of them .After all, they have “raised awareness”. Honestly, occasionally this raising of awareness can be valuable. Mental health issues, understanding of rape culture, it is important that we have a dialogue and understanding of these things in our society at large. The issue is that it is an echo chamber. The people that are going to watch the link you share on Upworthy are probably not people that need convincing in these issues. But after sharing, the user is done with that issue and on to the next one. By and large, they are not going to take the time that it takes to understand this issue and campaign for it on a political level in any kind of focused way. They just know that it is a problem or they have been inspired and that is enough. If you want to see an issue with lack of focus in activism, look no further than Kony 2012, or the failed Occupy movement. Change is made when people know what they want, and fight for it.

                The most sinister aspect of Upworthy isn’t the effect that it has on individuals though. It is the effect that it has had on media at large. At this point it’s valuable to bring Buzzfeed into the picture, the list based articles of which are dominant on Facebook as I write this. I don’t want to go into too much depth about Buzzfeed other than to say that it provides the same benefit, a quick fix. What must be realized about these websites is that we are living in the age of Big Data. When you click on an Upworthy link, when you share a buzzfeed article, when you consume media in this form ,you are telling advertisers that this is what you want. And media goes where the advertising goes. Several Upworthy clones have sprung up around the web. Worse, day by day you can see mainstream media taking on this approach to news. New York Times articles in list form. Small newspapers are even more heavily affected. Everyone wants to profit from this market that Upworthy has identified, leading to a more sensational, less in depth media. The great irony of this is that so many Upworthy links talk about the problems with the media in sensationalising everything. But ultimately, all Upworthy provides is a social justice tabloid.

                So what can we do? Well first, stop using Upworthy. I hope that my arguments have convinced you that it should not be a service we accept. But more importantly, put your passion for goodness to good use! Get informed from reliable sources, such as the BBC, Al Jazeera America, or any news organization that avoids sensationalizing, heavy bias and editorialized headlines. Volunteer for non-profit groups, and if you want to see political change, sign up for a party and start effecting that change. Donate to reputable charities, and think critically about where the money is going. Don’t waste your time, energy and ad dollars on Upworthy. It’s not UpWorthIt.