BLM Activists Devised a Brilliant Way to Raise Money From YouTube’s AdSense

Clicktivism is having a renaissance

In the early 2010s, in the wake of the Moldovan parliamentary election protests and Occupy Wall Street, digital observers coined the term “clicktivism” in an effort to delegitimize cyberactivism. Malcolm Gladwell even went so far as to assert that clicktivism (or slacktivism as it is more pejoratively known) lacks “discipline and strategy” and those who champion it “have forgotten what activism is.” A decade later, a new way of organizing is being pioneered on YouTube, a decidedly clicktivist initiative dubbed Views for a Vision that is legitimizing and monetizing passive protesting.

The concept is simple — creators upload videos to YouTube and then donate any AdSense revenue they generate to causes supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

YouTube creator Zoe Amira uploaded the first of these videos on May 30. The almost hour-long video is titled “How to financially help BLM with NO MONEY/leaving your house” and highlights Black visual artists and musicians.

“This video project was created to offer people a way to donate and financially contribute to #blacklivesmatter without having any actual money or going out to protest themselves,” she wrote in the video’s description.