slacktivism
n. Activism that seeks projects and causes that require the least amount of effort.
Other Forms
Etymology
Examples
2002
[The] message said sixth graders at a Los Angeles school were investigating "where, and how fast, e-mail can travel in a period of six weeks." It asked the recipients to send a message to a mailbox at yahoo.com with their city, state and country, and then forward the students' message to everyone on the recipients' mailing lists. . . . Among many teachers who set out on such projects, "the level of naivete is breathtaking," said Barbara Mikkelson, who, with her husband, David, a computer programmer, runs www.snopes2.com, a Web site that chronicles Internet frauds, urban legends and cybermishaps. A page on their site called "School Daze" reports on how the Los Angeles science project and others ended up shutting down and posting pleas for people to stop e-mailing them.

Mrs. Mikkelson says teachers setting up Internet projects underestimate the pleasure people get out of doing something that feels like a public service yet requires no more than a few keystrokes.

"It's all fed by slacktivism," she said, "the desire people have to do something good without getting out of their chair."
—Barnaby J. Feder, “They Weren't Careful What They Hoped For,” The New York Times, May 29, 2002
2001
In 1995, two students at the University of Northern Colorado circulated by e-mail a petition to rally people to protest government cutbacks in PBS, National Public Radio and the arts. In order to ensure it reached as many people as possible, it included the words, "Forward this to everyone you know." . . . Those who wage the seemingly futile war to rid the Internet of such e-mails have given a name to the practice of keeping such e-mails alive: They call it "slacker activism," or "slacktivism" (the term preferred by slacker typists). It's not that these e-mails don't intend to do good, the experts say. It's that they go about it in a way that can too easily become utterly meaningless.
—Month Phan, “On the Net, "Slacktivism',” Newsday, February 27, 2001
1995 (earliest)

SPEAKERS scheduled to hold seminars in the program as of April 28, 1995:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SPEAKER TOPIC SESSIONS
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Os Guiness Tribespeople, Idiots or Citizens? 4 lectures
James W. Sire Why Should We Believe Anything at All? 6 lectures
John Perkins He is my Brother, Racial Reconciliation 5 lectures
Norman Geisler Christian Ethics in an Unethical World 4 lectures
Elliot Miller Is the New Age Movement Still Relevant? 6 lectures
J. Yamamoto Buddism in North America 6 lectures
Cheryl Forbes A Christian Approach to the Imaginative Life 4 lectures
Lyle Dorsett The Live and Writings of C.S. Lewis & Wife 4 lectures
Doug Rosenau A Celibration of Sex for Christian Couples 6 lectures
Passantino's Psychology and the Church 6 lectures
Glenn Kaiser Music, Musicians, and Ministry 6 lectures
J. Karlsen Healing the Homosexual, and Sexually Broken 6 lectures
Kathy Allen Restoring Personal Wholeness 6 lectures
Dwight Ozard & Fred Clark Slacktivism 5 lectures
—JustMeBP, “Latest Cornerstone Schedule,” rec.music.christian, June 03, 1995
Notes
This shortened form of the phrase slacker activism had a brief appearance in a Usenet posting in 1995 (see the earliest citation), and then didn't appear again until 2000 in a discussion concerning people whose idea of activism is clicking the "Forward" button in their e-mail software. Media references to slacktivism didn't appear until 2001.

Many thanks to subscriber Travis Smith for telling me about this term.
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