Occupy provides ground-level #Sandy relief using social media
Nearly thirteen months ago, a mass protest formed in the financial district of New York City. The protest eventually morphed into a full-on movement, spreading to cities far beyond the Big Apple. Young professionals, students, homeless people, families, and idealists alike joined together to publically illuminate America’s economic disparity and challenge the conventions and institutions that perpetuated this national inequality. The movement came to be known as Occupy. Though many people argue Occupy has since lost much of its momentum, the crusade’s recent efforts to provide relief to the Manhattan victims of Hurricane Sandy proved Occupy to still be a relevant and powerful grassroots campaign. As usual for Occupy, social media played a large part in their achievements.
Within days of the original devastation in New York, Occupy had started the Occupy Sandy Relief NYC Facebook page, as well as the #SandyAid hashtag. These tools allowed Occupy to quickly spread information about ground-level relief. Through these outlets, Occupy called for volunteers to assist with aiding victims in the city, coordinated and relayed information about start-up food and clothing drives, and communicated up-to-date information about the hurricane to the wider twittersphere. The Facebook and hashtag also lead to users back to the interoccupy website, where one could make a financial donation to Occupy’s efforts.
While it is true that both the Red Cross and FEMA executed large, coordinated responses to Hurricane Sandy—including a text-donation campaign and a telethon benefit—Occupy’s nonhierarchical and principally social media-based endeavors gave many people all of the country a direct way to participate in helping the victims. I believe Occupy’s lack of a formal, bureaucratic structure gave the movement with an advantage in providing immediate, firsthand relief. Their charitable undertakings were simply people helping people. Without social media, Occupy’s relief action would have been considerably less significant.
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