It’s the real life version of updating your Facebook profile picture. It’s about being seen to care and being part of a group. I think it also probably helps people feel like they are doing something when they feel powerless and don’t know what to do, but that doesn’t make it effective.

Part of the problem is that a lot of people feel disenfranchised from government, so they don’t believe actions like writing to their local MP will do anything.

Combined with that we have been putting more and more power in the hands of private companies and telling people to exercise political power by choosing what products to buy and from who. So instead of being able to lobby governments to introduce stronger standards on the media’s depiction of women (as an example) we have media outlets “self-regulating” and are told if we want things to change to just stop watching things we don’t like.

We have a great system of government where every person gets to have some input into who makes the decisions and rules over us, and as a society we have done everything we can to negate that by taking as much power as we can away from government (which in its own flawed way is goverment by the people) and instead giving power to corporations. All supported by a pretence that “consumer power” and being able to pick which brand we buy (out of a selection that are mostly made by the same company anyway) is somehow giving individuals more power.