October seems to be the month for a massive drive for awareness campaigns. All raise important issues, but some campaigns tend to really get under our skin and in the public eye.
Amid the various awareness drives for breast cancer; bone marrow stem cell donation and leukaemia; eye care; mental health; and spina bifida – to name just a few – a call-to-action tweet shared by actress Alyssa Milano has made an impact among social media users around the world.
On 15 October, Milano tweeted, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” A picture embedded in the tweet further read: “Me too. ‘Suggested by a friend: “If all women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem’.”
If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet. pic.twitter.com/k2oeCiUf9n
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 15, 2017
It is now referred to as the #MeToo campaign.
Milano’s original tweet has been commented on more than 68 000 times, re-tweeted more than 25 000 times and ‘liked’ more than 53 000 times.
According to a report on Sky News, Milano’s call for people to speak out has seen more than a million tweets sharing the tag and there has been more than 13 million Facebook posts, comments and reactions. These numbers grow daily.
Put simply, the campaign has gone viral.
Along with generating many discussion points, the campaign has surely served to ‘give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem’ as the original tweet intended.
The campaign’s power lies in the use of social media to call on people to participate and, by bravely answering this call, citizens from across the globe are unified as a community taking a stand together.
As Ellen DeGeneres says in a video posted on her Facebook page, “It’s not like this is a new thing, it has been going on forever.” She describes it best when she says, “Thanks to being connected to social media, we can see it for what it is and that we are not alone, and hopefully conversations that we are having now will free all of us.”
I’d love to hear how social media has assisted you in feeling that you are not alone. Email me at daniellap@caxton.co.za
