Photos of store shelves in Northern Canada are showing up more frequently on social media. Sometimes the photos are of shelves that are completely empty, and other times they are overflowing with outrageously-priced items. These images are part of an effort to highlight food insecurity in Nunavut, and together they illustrate both sides of the hunger problem in Canadaâs north: the irregular availability of food, and its excessive cost. Posting and sharing these photos should mobilize Canadians living outside of the territory to show their outrage at the unacceptable levels of household food insecurity in Inuit communities (at double the rate of the national average). Likewise, the photos should motivate southerners to make financial donations to northern food programs, and to call on the government to bring about positive change. Unfortunately, this is not happening thanks to the nature of viral content that trivialize the problem, oversimplify a solution, and harm the people that the campaign was meant to help in the first place.
$28 grapes? Low dollar, drought cause Nunavut food prices to soar https://t.co/PYUThyry7f pic.twitter.com/U8w8716k9N
â CBC News (@CBCNews) January 26, 2016
Lessons from viral campaigns
Social campaigns supported by a largely uninformed public have shown to cause more harm than good. We need only look as far back as some recent viral campaigns, including the legendary Ice Bucket Challenge, Kony 2012, and the âpen-seller of Beirutâ, to understand how they trivialized the problem, oversimplified the solution, and inadvertently harmed the people that they were meant to help in the first place.
A. Trivializing the problem: The Ice Bucket Challenge.
In August 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge took off as an online do-and-dare phenomenon. After a year-long run, the campaign raised $115 million in donations for the national ALS chapter, and an additional $13 million for its regional branches. In spite of this financial avalanche, when critics questioned whether the campaign raised awareness about ALS, the results were surprising. According to Charity Navigator, the American independent charity watchdog organization, â[online] searches for ALS went up a ridiculous amount, from around 500 to 68,000 in August [2014]. And then it went right back down.â The ongoing commitment of the now very large donor base was found to be shaky since donors from the viral surge were nothing more than a âflash-in-the-panâ, and were unlikely engaged in the cause itself.
The Ice Bucket Challenge example illustrates how trivializing the problem online can damage the larger cause. In the case of Nunavut food insecurity, southerners regularly ship food to individual households up North. Unfortunately, this disaster-relief response only acts as a stopgap, and hinders the work of local organizations from identifying those most in need. These shipments can also negatively affect the future availability of food in stores due to fluctuating demand, and abuses of delivery channels. As southern families continue to identify ways to cut down on their own shipping costs to the North, free shipping programs like Amazonâs PRIME (now defunct), and Canada Postâs Shipping Tuesdays are overburdened. Southern families end up taking advantage of non-sustainable business channels meant to support small businesses that depend on shipping merchandise in to and out of Nunavut.
Ice Bucket Challenge pic.twitter.com/ZMDDhAXT0R
â Cute Baby Animals (@CuteBabyAnimals) November 1, 2016
According to Taye Newman, Executive Director of Feeding Nunavut: âmany Nunavummiut see many issues with groups shipping boxes of food to unqualified households, but no one wants to say not to help the poor or hungry.â Southerners continue to respond to social media photos and news by focusing their efforts on what they believe to be appropriate solutions to a trivial issue: hunger in Nunavut. But finding ways to save on expensive shipping costs instead of donating funds directly to Inuit-run food banks and school breakfast programs highlights a lack of awareness, and possibly a lack of commitment by well-intentioned donors to be part of the solution for longer than it takes to put a package together.
B. Viral success simplifies the problem: Kony 2012
Kony 2012 was a 30-minute viral documentary that showed the shocking atrocities committed by Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. The video broke social records at the time by reaching more than 100 million views within the first week of going live. The campaignâs ongoing popularity helped to raise $5 million from individuals, including Oprah Winfrey. But despite all of the financial and celebrity support, change was never achieved for the Ugandan people, who in the end also only benefited from a third of the money that was raised. When critics considered the success of the campaign, they came to realize that the non profit behind the film promoted “irresponsible advocacy”, and omitted “crucial details and nuances” about the complex conditions in Uganda. More importantly, the film showed that Ugandan children needed the help of white Americans, supporting a ‘white savior industrial complex’ online.
While the Ugandan condition has nothing in common with the Northern food security issue in Canada, it offers valuable insight into the dangers of running a social campaign that oversimplifies complex matters. Viral photos alone cannot explain the multiple factors that have brought about hunger and poverty in Nunavut. They give too much leeway for southern or white outsider solutions to a problem that requires and deserves an Inuit-centric solution. Photos have already enabled southern white families to offer their own solutions that end up increasing the influx of white processed food (and therefore white cultural norms) into more and more Inuit households. These shipments are a makeshift substitution for funds that could empower Inuit families to make their own food choices to purchase store-bought food or to purchase or hunt local country food. Viral photos allow southerners to feel good about donating food without requiring them to learn more about the cause, and the importance of there being a Northern solution to the food insecurity problem.
C. Viral success can cost people their dignity: the âPen-seller of Beirutâ
In August 2015, social media introduced the world to Abdul Halim al-Attar, better known as the âpen-seller of Beirutâ. A Syrian refugee in Lebanon, Abdul was photographed selling pens in the street in an effort to bring home some money for his young family. At the time of the photo, he was cradling his daughter in his arms because he lacked the money to send her to school. The result of the photo going viral? The crowdfunding goal of $5,000 was reached within 30 minutes; it exceeded $80,000 at 24 hours; and broke past $190,000 by the end of the campaign. Yet, despite all this generosity, Abdul admits that the campaign cost him more than he could imagine â it cost him his dignity. When told of the photo and campaign that raised funds for him, his initial response was shock and outrage, stating âIt was very depressingâŚI felt torn up inside when I saw this pictureâ.
Viral photos are by nature ‘photography porn’, as they tend to exploit children, individuals, and families for the greater good. Feeding Nunavut has heard from elders and families that were concerned about how photos of Inuit children were being used by southerners on social media to highlight the need for donations, and that âhow groups use photos of children can be seen as exploitation and then the respect is gone.â Although most shelf photos exclude children, they still have the power to exploit marginalized groups that come to be viewed through that lens as being helpless and incapable of taking care of themselves.
Syrian father selling pens in the streets of #Beirut with his sleeping daughter #Lebanon #Syria pic.twitter.com/KOz4mjW1rd
â Gissur Simonarson (@GissiSim) August 25, 2015
Learning from the Failures of these Viral Campaigns
Each of these blockbuster campaigns offers important lessons about the downside of viral content in the hands of an uninformed public: the cause is trivialized, the problem oversimplified, and people get exploited.
It’s time for Canadians to look past empty shelf photos online if they truly want to make a dent in the eradication of hunger in Nunavut. Southerners need to ignore the viral thrill to Like, Share, and Ship. Instead, they must consider the bigger issue behind these images and commit to supporting a long-term, Inuit centric solution to the complex food insecurity problem in many Inuit communities in Nunavut.
