These kids have taken leadership.
A movement was born, emerging out of despair, concern, and a need to do something, have their voices heard, and not let the deaths of 17 of their own be in vain.
Before a week had passed they had organized a demonstration and lobbying trip to Florida state capital Tallahassee, a seven and a half hour bus ride to and from Parkland. They knocked on every State Senator’s door. This was done methodically, with teams sent to different senators. They arranged a one-hour nationwide school walkout as a show of solidarity, and a national march on Washington (named the “March for Our Lives,” scheduled for March 24th) plus same-day support marches in others cities, a month out. The shooting was on a Wednesday. By Friday they’d put up a Facebook page as their online base, their communications outpost. By Sunday the movement had a name (and a hashtag), #NeverAgain. It had a specific, stated policy goal: stricter policy background checks on buyers, raising the minimum age to buy firearms, and the elimination of assault rifle sales to the general public.
The Parkland kids were all over the cable news channels and the main TV news networks. They showed poise, composure, maturity, and elegance and a video online or on-air presence far beyond what one might have expected from kids, especially a kid who had only days before been in such an extremely dangerous and nerve-wracking, emotionally jarring situation. What makes these kids so at ease so capable, so deft at organizing and using their digital tools? The answer is easy: they’ve grown up posting, hosting and sharing video, for consumption. They’ve never known life without a computer (most likely a laptop), a cellphone or for the past 10+ years, a smart phone, or a tablet. They are Digital Natives. Being in front of a camera puts them under no duress. This is a regular event for them. Selfies and group shots and capturing moments and events are simply a part of life. Videos of everything from special events to the mundane are commonplace. A generation of video-ready, digital ready and camera-comfortable kids are coming of age.
They represent the cultural change, a leap, perhaps, since Columbine. Most, if not all the students at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland were not yet born when the Columbine tragedy occurred in 1999. In the day of Columbine parents learned of the incident via phone or radio news bulletins. There was no such thing as every kid texting their parents or siblings. Now the Internet and smartphones carry the messages, notifications and news of the moment.
Today nearly every kid communicates via text. Texts with their parents, their friends, their siblings, extended family, in some cases with their teachers, too. Videos, pictures and images (gifs and jpegs) are easily shared via Instagram or Snapchat, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. Twitter, too, is a social media tool. And hashtags on Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, as well as Flickr, are unifying and identifying for themes, memes and movements. Case in point: #NeverAgain and #MarchForOurLives
Their lives are changed forever. The massacre is permanently burned into their brain, a memory that will not fade. Even more so is their zeal, their determination to use this deadly rampage as a catalyst for good, for positive change. Their attitude: We can’t be stopped We can make a change. And they are being heard, gaining traction, and joined by other teenagers at schools across the country. The word is spreading digitally. On Facebook, on Twitter, on all the Social Media platforms, plus mainstream electronic media. Schools around the country have already had demonstrations of support.
In the battle against assault weapons, the teens are taking on the NRA, a powerful organization, extremely well funded, with political heft. But the NRA has never met a challenge like this. Voters of the future, the next generation, not people who are arguing the 2nd Amendment. But people opposed to assault weapons and who want the minimum firearm purchase age raised, better background checks, and the end of the gun show loophole. Kids who do not necessarily have a political party affiliation.
This time the NRA faces teens wielding Digital Armor. All the NRA money and firepower has never before been up against this sort of challenge.
What began in Parkland has gone viral. But viral may be too chic and au courant a term. Perhaps an older adage is more appropriate.
The earliest use of the phrase Think Global, Act Local was in the context of environmental challenges in the 20th century. Buckminster Fuller, the architect, theorist and futurist, brought the phrase back to the public eye when his writings were featured in 1968 in the Whole Earth Catalog. This was just before the embryonic dawn of the Internet. In the early days of the World Wide Web, which connected the Internet in ways still growing and expanding today, the phrase took on even new, expanded meaning. 'Think Global, Act Local' became more realistic. The web delivered globally integrated the dispersion of data, news, video, blogs, anything prose or visual, in an instant. Distance was no longer a barrier. Nor was time or time zone.
Global reach may now occur as a consequence of any local post. A High School post in Florida can take hold and spread to schools across the country. That which is referred to as viral can be digital wildfire. A generation of Digital Natives using what to them is native Digital Armor sets off a Digital Movement, spreading like Digital Wildfire.
Welcome to the new Digital Reality.
Dean Landsman is a NYC-based Digital Strategist who writes a monthly column for PR for People “The Connector.”