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I must admit I am torn about Global Accessibility Awareness Day #GAAD. Originally I thought this a great idea. But over the years, my views have changed a bit. I see companies wave flags on this one day, and a week later, all is forgotten and they're back to their old ways. So like many accessibility awareness things, #GAAD has become a day for marketing pushes, making a lot of noise without followups. And the few companies that do follow up on their marketing gibberish, are those that would do it anyway. They don't need a day like #GAAD, but it gives them a chance to do some more focused marketing on those days anyway. So yeah ... While I think that this is a good cause per se, the thing it has turned into I don't like as much.
@Marco It's not unusual for a company to take a day to commemorate people of a certain minority and use that as an opportunity to talk about what they're doing. As I understand, the original purpose was to bring awareness; to the extent it no longer does that, it's only because that awareness is already there. Which makes it a success! But perhaps it should take a different form in the future?
@objectinspace @Marco This is true. But I start objecting when it becomes purely performative. When a company/organization's PR doesn't match their marketing on #GAAD, it's different. We know who the good players are and we know who the bad ones are.
@ppatel @Marco Is this the fault of the day though? Accepting your premis, it doesn't seem reasonable to me to expect the bad actors to suddenly become good actors on GAAD just because it's GAAD. The day wasn't ever gonna change that. But we can still use the day to call out the actors who aren't doing enough, while we celebrate those who are doing their best. The public always gets the last word.
@objectinspace @Marco Yes and no. Even though we can't control what companies do at any given moment, the day and its inevitable press attraction does mean that it's a perfect opportunity for perfrormativity. It gets attention when, on any given ordinary day, it would not even be remarked upon.