Political Activism... Does that mean I have to be active?

So here's my biggest pondering as of late; today's society, thanks to the wonders that are smartphones, tablets, and social media, has a lack of desire by all young people to go outside (unless it's "out" to a bar or a club). We are couch potatoes now more than ever - especially with the allure of Netflix, Facebook and Candy Crush constantly calling our names... We don't even stand a chance.

So in a society where young people are more concerned with what's "trending" than with what's "news" how are we to not only keep up to date with, but even interested in, politics? We hardly give them a second thought, unless a politician does something overtly stupid; as in the recent case of Presidential candidate Rick Santorum (ironically enough a devout Catholic) and what he said to Pope Francis...

Yup.
He didn't even know that the reigning authority of his own church - the world leader of the largest Christian church on the planet - had a background in science, despite it being public knowledge.
And this is the guy who wants to run our nation....

I can't make this shit up, folks.

  
Or perhaps it crosses our news feed if a politician shows their support or detest of a celebrity who's currently trending among young people for something scandalous (such as Mike Huckabee with the Josh Duggar scandal or Lindsey Graham's supportive words for Caitlyn Jenner). But even then, do we have any idea about these political figures outside of these news stories? I myself admit that I have heard political figures either back or attack a celebrity's actions (sometimes stupid, sometimes not), and it's changed my view of that politician and whether or not I would ever vote for them -- and I did so without even knowing anything about that politician's core beliefs, but rather focused solely on what they said or did about the celebrity's scandal.

I know I can't be the only one that's done this. Nowadays. "activism" is anything but, at least for most of our generation. The only way in which I have to be active about my feelings towards a politician for how they've reacted to a scandal is simply not vote for them, or go about posting hateful or slanderous things about them on the internet - perhaps even in some extreme cases, beginning an online petition to get them removed from office (I've never gotten as extreme as either of the last two things, but I've seen it all too many times). All of these things enable us to speak our mind or fight for change from the comfort of our own couch. It shouldn't even be called activism anymore, really, when the only "active" part is our fingers getting the exercise of furiously posting their newfound disapproval for the politician in question. To this day (apart from the one time I did withdraw my support from a politician I hadn't really supported in the first place) I don't really engage in political activism, although perhaps I should. Activism is something that is meant to be done for the greater good, not simply to cause harm, or discredit someone over the internet. In fact, the above meme of Rick Santorum and my beloved Francis is the first inkling of political favoritism (or rather, de-favoritism) that I've shown in a really long time, perhaps even since that first incident I had, of refusing to vote for the man I already had no intention of voting for.

And you know the most ironic thing of all? I keep referring to him as "that politician" or "that man" because I cannot for the life of me remember who it was, or what it was they did that made me dislike them so strongly. And that's the culture that we live in today; we have become invested in a media circus -- we get our tickets to see the show, but instead of paying with money, we pay with our interest. We live in a world full of scandals where we milk each one for all that they're worth, and once we've done all we can with it - once that act of the show has ended - we move onto the next act of the show. And the next one, and the next one, and the next one...


... and the show goes on;
  - Robyn