Find Kaepernick on social media:
Social Media
The media of a movement
As soon as news surfaced about Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during an NFL preseason game, many people had reactions and were in need of an outlet for these thoughts. So the public turned to Twitter in the following days to express outrage or to support Kaepernick in his protest. This social media craze brought attention to Kaepernick as he gained 98,730 Twitter followers in the two weeks following the beginning of his protest (Rovell, “Kaepernick's Daily following up 35,394 Percent”). However, all the attention directed towards Kaepernick distracted from the purpose of his protest. Kaepernick desired to start a conversation about the oppression of blacks in America, through social media sites like Twitter and Instagram Kaepernick attempted to spark conversation with several posts about racial injustice and police brutality. While initially social media was a vehicle for change as a part of Kaepernick’s protest,
sites like Twitter and Instagram worked against him as the conversation shifted to whether Kaepernick should’ve taken a knee during the national anthem or not. This was to be expected, “as social media platforms such as Twitter are valuable for dissemination and spread of information but don’t facilitate in-depth conversations” (Spiro and Monroy-Hernandez, 9). It’s easier for the casual twitter activist to comment on Kaepernick’s actions rather than his motives. Acknowledging what Kaepernick kneeled for as valid requires conversation about the issue of racial oppression and action towards a solution. Social media sites like Twitter didn’t allow in-depth conversations like these to take place, they only spread information about Kaepernick kneeling.
​
Social media creates a platform for “collective action, allowing individuals to personalize their participation and interaction with the protest” (Spiro and Monroy-Hernandez, 14). While this interaction is personalized it’s not substantial, Twitter is brief and shallow, an improper platform for the conversation Kaepernick attempted to start via his protest. Twitter also has a high rate of news turnover, in a matter of days a story goes from trending to a non-story. Yes, there was a substantial spike in tweets surrounding Kaepernick in the days following his original protest. However, this was to be expected, as “activity tends to occur in bursts matching exogenous events in the offline environment.” (Spiro and Monroy-Hernandez, 10). Not only does Twitter as a genre prevent in-depth conversation from taking place, it also limited a sustained conversation over the motives behind Kaepernick’s protest due to its brief nature.
Images courtesy of Rovell, Darren. "Kaepernick's Daily following up 35,394 Percent." ESPN.com. ESPN, 9 Sept. 2016. http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17505052/colin-kaepernick-san-francisco-49ers-sees-social-media-following-spike-35394-percent
One of the most important contributions of social media to the Colin Kaepernick controversy as a whole was the hashtag #VeteransForKaepernick. Military personnel fought back against the negativity thrown Kaepernick’s way by “defining Kaepernick’s protest as patriotic” (Martin and McHendry, 95). While this praise seems positive for Kaepernick, this hashtag actually distracts the public from the conversation he’s trying to start. While Kaepernick wants to discuss black oppression, “the veterans who wrote in support of him want the public to view a refusal to sit during the anthem as an act of exercising freedom of speech” (Martin and McHendry, 96). The #VeteransForKaepernick movement turned Kaepernick’s protest into a debate of first amendment rights and whether he used the proper manner of protest while the motives behind his protest were pushed to the backburner.
​
This goes back to the way Twitter allows the public to personalize their participation in the protest, in this case the public personalized the conversation surrounding Kaepernick’s protest. Social media took away Kaepernick’s ability to start a difficult and challenging discussion about where America stands today on the issue of black oppression. Instead the public opted for the far easier of debate of whether Kaepernick exercised his first amendment rights properly, a much easier conversation that requires little call to action.