‘The Hunger Games’ movie premiered this weekend, raking in a total of $155 million at the box office. The hit series turned record-breaking film follows in the footsteps of other young adult fiction phenomena like the ‘Twilight’ and ‘Harry Potter’ series.

In anticipation of the fandom around ‘The Hunger Games’ movie premiere, the Imagine Better Project recently collaborated with Oxfam to launch a ‘Hunger Is Not a Game’ campaign. The Harry Potter Alliance, a nonprofit organization that uses references and framework from Harry Potter to fight for social change, spearheaded the Imagine Better Project so multiple fan activist groups can join together and build a community that aims to change the world by ‘harnessing the energy of popular culture, modern mythology and social media.’

The ‘Hunger Is Not a Game’ campaign is attempting to raise awareness about global food justice, and more specifically, it encourages local food cultivation to lower shipping costs and waste from spoilage.

After a New York Times article was published about the campaign last week, Lionsgate issued a takedown notice of the campaign through Oxfam and claimed the campaign was ‘piggy backing off of our motion picture’ and ‘causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts.’ Two days later, Lionsgate retracted its initial request after an outpour of fan responses and outrage through social media.

Students shouldn’t sleep on social media and the power it has to ultimately shift political discourse and large-scale conversations about pressing issues. In 2012 alone, we’ve seen the power social media has in shifting public conversations, including Susan G. Komen threatening to halt its Planned Parenthood donations; Rush Limbaugh’s offensive and problematic verbal assault toward law student Sandra Fluke; the backlash against the viral Kony 2012 campaign video; and organizing around the homicide of Trayvon Martin.

Social media has proven its power in influencing major social and political victories yet again, this time by facilitating the fandom of young adult series’ ability to continue their efforts toward achieving social change.

Individuals acted collectively on the Internet in support of The Harry Potter Alliance and the Imagine Better Project to secure the priority of fan activism and to ensure others have the opportunity to get involved with the ‘Hunger Is Not a Game’ campaign.

Because the campaign has successfully earned the right to stick around, students should strongly consider jumping on the bandwagon and turning their fandom into social justice advocacy. Even though The Harry Potter Alliance does not have any local chapters in Syracuse, it’s an example of how to turn a fun and entertaining passion into social change efforts.

Fighting global food justice isn’t only an environmental or political issue. It is an intersectional problem individuals can modify on a systematic level. Inspiring others to get involved through promoting themes and ideas from ‘The Hunger Games’ is a creative way to fight injustices.

Fan activism can play an integral role in effecting social change and accomplishing political progress in large and small ways. The mass amount of ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ followers aren’t just significant in number – they are capable of pulling together to support important causes and make a difference in reality beyond fictional inspiration.

Fan based activism isn’t only critical for social and political purposes, but it can also be beneficial for studios and corporations like Lionsgate in terms of increasing fandom and box office dollars.

The most important takeaway from this lesson in the power of fan activism and social media is, as Andrew Slack, founder of The Harry Potter Alliance, informed me via email: ‘Love always wins.’

Krystie Yandoli is a senior women and gender studies and English and textual studies major. Her column appears every Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter at @KrystieLYandoli.  

Published on March 27, 2012 at 12:00 pm