Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

- John Mayer “Waiting on the World to Change”

John Mayer is talking to/about a new generation of social activism.  It used to be that making a social statement required a high degree of personal investment, but this generation has found a voice and means that matches their perspective: low involvement, loud voice.

The social media world delivered a world where you can reach a very large audience for your personal message, with very little personal cost.  Dennis Demori explored the new dynamic that has emerged, in his post “Is ‘Movember’ Real Activism?” questioning if this new generation’s actions can even be called activism:

“My father tends to think that a hard day’s work = manual labor. Using your hands, working outside, getting dirty, etc. This is old-school thinking. It’s focusing on the input instead of the output and at the end of the day, what’s truly meaningful is whether or not your actions are generating satisfactory results.”

A few months ago, maybe you saw some of your female friends on Facebook when they answered “Where they like it.”  Some like it on the bed, some on the kitchen table, some on the couch – they of course were referring to where they like to place their purse.

Got your attention? Good. They wanted to bring attention to breast cancer.  Right now you probably noticed that a few of your friends have changed their profile pictures to cartoon characters.  Is this a Mattel toy industry ploy in time for Christmas?  No, actually it is to bring attention to childhood violence.

The question, we can suppose, is not really if we can accurately judge this activism or not, because it appears that the participants actually believe it to be.

What’s interesting about this phenomenon is that no “one” is leading these movements.  There is no official announcement.  There is no Madonna wrapped in an American flag in her underwear asking you to get out and vote (to the younger readers, yes this happened).  This is all “just” happening.

How did we get here?  In the 80’s and 90’s, celebrities wore little red ribbons to bring awareness to the growing AIDS epidemic.  You didn’t have to march, burn something, attend something, or even do anything to participate in the AIDS movement; you could simply wear a red ribbon and make a statement to the world.  Then, ribbons and their colors emerged for whatever cause you were so inclined to participate in, from purple to pink, urban violence to breast cancer. How many of you wore a yellow rubber bracelet for cancer awareness?  And again, there was soon a bracelet for a variety of causes.  Wear a bracelet and tell the world what you believe in–that’s it.  (Well, in this case you may be able to count your “contribution” as buying the bracelet).

So “what’s on your mind?” You’re only a status update, wall post, or profile picture away from making a statement to “the world.”

Which brings us to our question: How will brands enter this new form of activism?

Again, if history is any indicator, we’re just waiting for a bit of ingenuity and marketing to collide.  Those red ribbons were at first marketed by celebrities with a cause (and Debbie Gibson was a very progressive artist by displaying her red ribbon).  Now, you can find a pink ribbon on everything from Yoplait lids to a new Ford.  The yellow bracelets gave us the Livestrong brand and a Nike where we all thought of a brand that cared, and stopped asking those pesky questions about the worker conditions that gave us our running shoes.

Today, brands are on Facebook –arguably the new millennium’s White and Yellow Pages.  But, who will be the first to transcend a “Like” into a movement?  When will we all change our status to a cause, movement, or statement, that just so happens to be associated with a brand?