Some Good Stuff from Social Media...Really.

     Much of the media we purposefully or even accidentally ingest comes in innovative packaging and is different in many ways from the old media consumption model.  We have improved the technology and changed when, where and how we open our media portals. We may be “vaping” instead of “smoking” our information, but we should not fool ourselves that our media consumption is harmless. There will always be a concern with bias and a focus on the outlandish and the negative. 

   The Don Henley lyrics from 1982 that “it’s interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry” is as true about many news sources today as it was decades ago. But everything is not doom and gloom. Maybe the rapid news cycle and our ability to quickly spread a story can bring out the best in us too.

           

photo- CNN.com

  This week, fans from the University of Georgia, with a little amplification assistance from ESPN Sports Network, showed us how social media connections allow us to share the best of our humanity.  
   The Georgia Bulldogs football team played against Arkansas State University Red Wolves on Saturday. Coach Blake Anderson of Arkansas State lost his wife Wendy to breast cancer a month ago. Georgia fans welcomed the Red Wolves with a sea of Bulldog fans wearing pink shirts and holding supportive posters to celebrate the competitor’s wife and bring attention to breast cancer.  
     The fans shared the social media hashtag #WearPinkForWendy to spread the word leading up to the game and the Georgia fans did not disappoint. Coach Anderson of Arkansas State said, “I’ll be honest with you, I teared up, and it took a little while to kind of compose myself.”

           

  Another story to give us a much-needed boost in our faith in humanity started as a bullying event in a fourth-grade classroom in Florida. Students in that elementary classroom were encouraged to represent their favorite college by wearing their gear to class.  
   One student did not have an orange t-shirt for his beloved University of Tennessee Volunteers, so he drew a “U. of T.” design on a piece of paper and affixed it to his shirt with safety pins. He was bullied by classmates for his makeshift college gear. His teacher took to social media and told the sad story without naming the young boy. 
   The response from across the nation was overwhelming. The teacher hoped to get a few words of encouragement to share with the young student. She did. In addition, the boy’s design is now on t-shirts as official gear for the University of Tennessee. 
   The profits are being shared with the non-profit, “Stomp Out Bullying” and the fourth grader has been offered a full -ride scholarship to the University in 2028.

            The axiom that “bad news travels around the world before good news even has its shoes on” doesn’t have to always be true. Lies, damn lies, statistics and more will be used for dubious ends in our networked world.
    Truths, selflessness and integrity can also trend if we look to examples like the fans of the University of Georgia. We can also find hope in the thousands of kids and adults who responded to a single classroom bullying story and flipped the script to celebrate the innocence and creativity of children.