Chain letters and Uptakes

Nish's article, like my blog title, is a potpourri of information and genre terms. She takes the time to explain the relationship between what we post and how people interpret said posts and describes how they can be worded to evoke a specific response. Analysis of this relationship can be useful in online activism. I was especially amused by the discussion of posts that begin with statements like "I was careful to pick people" or "I chose you because" as a way to obligate the recipient to positively interact with the post. These statements are so often used that they are now synonymous with the "This is a chain letter" start to the chain letter campaigns from earlier decades (yes, I am that old). Yet they still seem to be effective. On any given day, I might see such a post in my Facebook feed and note the number of friends who repost and tag others. I am typically ignored in these tags as I have never participated in such interactive posting, no matter the cause (I will note that I last participated in chain letter campaigns during my elementary school days, when I did not know better than to believe a boy I liked would like me back because I sent the letter to ten people). Although there are many who participate in these online challenges, I wonder at its overall effectiveness in activism.

I was also interested in the term uptake. Which reminded me of Reddit (another social media site) and its upvote policy function which allows people to vote to move comments or posts to the top for greater visibility. Although different, they seem to be similar in that uptakes and upvotes are positive responses to a post and counter-uptakes are like downvotes and serve as negative critiques.