#WomensMarch: Social Media Held A Protest and Millions Showed Up

The word spread on Facebook, apparently orchestrated hours after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. People who wanted to protest the election for a number of reasons set up events pages and it caught on like wildfire.

But there’s a difference between signing up and showing up. This time, people definitely showed up.

The Women’s March became perhaps the largest demonstration in American history and a global phenomenon. What started on social media definitely didn’t stay there. For those of us who attended, social media was a catalyst to the demonstration, but also a way for us to share our solidarity with protesters all over the world.

Somewhere between 3.3 million and 4.6 million women, men and children attended the marches across the United States and in locations from Antarctica to Paris. The march I attended in Denver was one of the largest, with officials there estimating a crowd of 100,000 to 200,000 people.

There were a lot of reasons people marched, from simple opposition to Trump to specific (usually progressive) causes. I personally marched to demonstrate that I believe in:

• A woman’s right to choose
• Supporting and representing immigrants
• Equal rights for people who are LGBTQ
• The environment — it must come before private enterprise
• Making it clear to the new administration that I am paying attention and I am willing to use my voice and other forms of peaceful activism in order to be heard

Social media played more than a role for organizers to motivate attendees, however. Millions of photos spread across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram before, during and after the events. There were Snapchat geotags. For those of us who were there, it was a way to share our experiences and also join friends and strangers in our own cities, and far away.

For those who didn’t attend but were still interested in the events, social media enabled them to see in real time what the experience was really like. It was also a way of spreading the truth: This is what it looked like, from the perspective of those of us who were there.

In addition to social media being used for the events’ logistics, there were traditional ways people showed up to marches. Organized nonprofits like local ACLU chapters and women’s health organizations rallied their networks by telephone and email, hired buses and set up carpools.

But the sheer volume of people who showed up, and the large number of march sites around the world, prove that social media has arrived as the disruptive force in large-scale protests or demonstrations. Inaugurations and ticker-tape parades will still go on as scheduled, but the future of large-scale, even world-wide events will get their start and spark from social media.

Originally published at room214.com.

About the author: Erica Griffiths a digital producer at Room 214 in Boulder, Colo. She is an Emmy-nominated content producer from Chicago who loves making good work with good people.