If you live in Helsinki and have NOT been hiding under a rock the past few months or so, you most likely have heard of Carrotmob finding its way here. In short: Carrotmob is basically a group of people negotiating a deal with any kind of business to pledge to allocate a certain amount of money to green initiatives from the extra sales generated by Carrotmobbers “rushing” the store. The rationale is that firms will do anything for money, so let’s use this as a positive force to make business more green. Hence the term Carrotmob; it’s more carrot than stick. Here in Helsinki Carrotmob was initiated by Roope Mokka of Demos Helsinki fame.
The first Finnish Carrotmobbing event was held successfully in a bar called Juttutupa (“Chatter Lodge”, freely translated) this weekend. The event grossed over 6000€ in extra profits for the participating bar, and half of that will go to investments to make the bar more energy friendly. All in all, the first Carrotmob was a resounding success.
What I think has been missing from all the articles on Carrotmob is the WHY, as in why this kinds of things appeal to people. In a very short time, Carrotmob Helsinki’s Facebook group has attracted nearly 5000 members, a remarkable feat. But what drives people to initiatives like this?
Every now and then you will read politicians cry out that young people are no longer interested in politics (as it’s defined) in Finland and that this is a “crisis” of epic proportions. Just today Finland’s main newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that “in 2030 under 50% of people will vote in county elections”. Not only is that an asinine prediction to make 12 years in advance (what did they do, draw a regression line from the current voting numbers? did these people also predict the rise of 1960s radicalism in the mellow 1950s?), but also so missing the point. What most politicians and other pundits fail to realize, that it’s the definition of politics that’s in crisis, not the youth.
Being politically active means more than just getting of the couch every two years to drop a piece paper into a ballot box. I think it’s astounding that the Baby Boomers, who themselves were so rebellious and active in shaping their way of doing politics (especially in universities), fail to see that younger generations want to find their own way of political activism – just like the Baby Boomers back in their time. Why should they get to be rebellious and daring in politics, where as “we” have to follow the path they laid out for us? Today’s youth engage in politics via graffiti, squatting abandoned houses, buying ethical products and donating to organizations like Amnesty International or Greenpeace, and spreading “causes” on Facebook. Members of Generation Y, the Internet generation, see the world’s problems as global, and the three major Finnish parties can’t provide credible answers in this regard. Also, special interests and consensus politics don’t really appeal to young people, who obsess over authenticity and idealism.
Of course, the powers that be are also doing a great job of alienating young people on issues they DO care about in modern politics. Tommi Uschanov had a great accord in his provocative book “What’s wrong with the Left?” (In Finnish) how a total lack of understanding and involvement in copyright and proposed internet censorship legislation (I won’t go into details here but let’s just say that it has been rather awful) left many young people feeling even more disconnected and outright disregarded in preparation of the laws. Also, keep in mind that Baby Boomers are by far the biggest generational segment in Finland and they are grossly over-represented in parliament, so it’s no wonder topics that concern young people don’t pop up too often.
All of this of course leads to a fair amount of tension and cultural fodder for counterculture. The youth have always rebelled against the establishment, but the way the establishment has failed to understand how young people are reshaping the way politics are made and disregarded the young in issues important to them has only made this tension stronger. This is where initiatives like Carrotmob strike a major nerve: they don’t have ANYTHING to do with party politics, they are authentic and accessible.
Of course, pretty much immediately after the first even was over the murmurs started that the it wasn’t “done right” (the participating restaurant used the money on new coolers, does that count as green?) or that the event got too much hype. Like I said, it’s damn hard to do politics with a group of people that are obsessed with authenticity.
I must admit, I’m not personally a fan of the idea of saving the world through consuming MORE, which in many ways this is. But I guess Carrotmob does a lot more good than harm.
When writing the book, I half expected – even hoped – that the short section on the disillusionment of today's youth would become one of the parts that would attract the most attention. In fact, up to now, some thirty or forty different people have written about my book on the net and in various print publications, but you are actually the very first one to give even the briefest consideration to the section on youth. (One newspaper reviewer mentioned youth, but only as one item in a long list of subjects the book treats, and without saying anything about what I write. That is all.)
It seems that discussing the subject of the catastrophic new copyright and censorship legislation is ideologically forbidden in Finland in a far deeper and more absolute way than even I pessimistically remarked in my book. For a paranoiac, this is naturally fulfilling, but at the same time intensely disturbing. It is heartening to know that at least somebody has actually not only read what I wrote, but agreed with it – thanks for that!
Thanks Tommi for your comment. Yes, I'm a bit surprised myself that your take on why young people are politically inactive didn't get more ink in the press. But I guess the old tried and tested “a healthy democracy is about people dropping a ballot every few years” is just too great a truth to challenge.