Very tragic yet very cool story broke today that shows the real power of social media.
Karen Klein is a bus monitor in New York. She appears to be in her sixties and earns $15,000 a year at her job. She seems to have had a tough life with her son having committed suicide at some point in the past. So you get the picture... an average, upstanding citizen trying to get by in the world.
Anyway, the story (read more at the link provided) here is that a group of kids on the bus decided it would be fun to verbally abuse her. Obviously these kids have EQs and IQs that scrape the bottom of the barrel, not just for what they did, but for video taping it as well.
Enter social media.
The video went viral on Reddit and then someone decided to raise money to send Karen on a vacation via crowdsource funding over at Indiegogo (site is currently not loading for me, probably due to massive traffic generated by this story).
The original intent was to raise $5k, but so far they've raised over $130k. That's darn near equivalent to 10 years of work for Karen.
This is a fantastic example of how social media will (and is) changing the world we live in. It's also an example of how social media can be (and probably will be) a powerful channel for the cumulative good in society to marshal their resources to fight against the injustices in the world.
The dark side of social media
There is a dark side to this story though (aside from the kids' behaviour).
A lot of users who want to know who the kids are have turned to 4Chan, an image sharing site that also has semi-forum like properties (ie. enabling discussion).
It's not hard to see the dark side with this. Should these kids be identified and their identities made public, they could be in genuine and serious physical jeopardy, not to mention social repercussions (both now and in the future).
Which brings up an interesting discussion point - how do ordinary people who have done bad things and become infamous for such things protect themselves after the fact?
Do they leverage social media to make a public apology?
Do they stay out of the media and hope people forget in time?
Do they leverage more traditional media to try and control the damage?
Unlike a celebrity or political figure who doesn't live among the people, but rather tend to live in secure, gated communities, when average people get this kind of notoriety they can't hide from the world around them... and that is dangerous.
In addition, you can't judge people by a single act, no matter how bad that act may be (generally speaking of course). For all we know these kids come from broken or abuse homes and were raised to be this way, although it's just as likely they come from great homes and are simply brats. Point is, we don't know.
That not knowing the full context of something you see on YouTube for instance is dangerous because it leads to conclusions that may not be the same conclusions you'd make if you knew all the facts.
In the end
In the end though, it's great to see social media / networking being used to make right a wrong. And while I would never endorse what these kids did for any reason, part of me wonders if they may have done Karen a huge favour. For 10-20 minutes of bullying, she's going to walk away with over $130,000. Not a bad pay day! Technically, if she were to use the money to simply replace her annual salary, these kids just saved her having to work another nine or ten years!
In (my) perfect world, these kids would also get fined and have to pay her, I don't know, a thousand bucks each. Make the parents of the kids pay the thousand bucks and the kids can pay back their parents.
So all's well that end's well I guess. Karen will get her vacation / compensation and the kids will probably grow up to be bankers working for Jamie Dimon where they can bullying the entire country instead of just one person.
Karen Klein is a bus monitor in New York. She appears to be in her sixties and earns $15,000 a year at her job. She seems to have had a tough life with her son having committed suicide at some point in the past. So you get the picture... an average, upstanding citizen trying to get by in the world.
Anyway, the story (read more at the link provided) here is that a group of kids on the bus decided it would be fun to verbally abuse her. Obviously these kids have EQs and IQs that scrape the bottom of the barrel, not just for what they did, but for video taping it as well.
Enter social media.
The video went viral on Reddit and then someone decided to raise money to send Karen on a vacation via crowdsource funding over at Indiegogo (site is currently not loading for me, probably due to massive traffic generated by this story).
The original intent was to raise $5k, but so far they've raised over $130k. That's darn near equivalent to 10 years of work for Karen.
This is a fantastic example of how social media will (and is) changing the world we live in. It's also an example of how social media can be (and probably will be) a powerful channel for the cumulative good in society to marshal their resources to fight against the injustices in the world.
The dark side of social media
There is a dark side to this story though (aside from the kids' behaviour).
A lot of users who want to know who the kids are have turned to 4Chan, an image sharing site that also has semi-forum like properties (ie. enabling discussion).
It's not hard to see the dark side with this. Should these kids be identified and their identities made public, they could be in genuine and serious physical jeopardy, not to mention social repercussions (both now and in the future).
Which brings up an interesting discussion point - how do ordinary people who have done bad things and become infamous for such things protect themselves after the fact?
Do they leverage social media to make a public apology?
Do they stay out of the media and hope people forget in time?
Do they leverage more traditional media to try and control the damage?
Unlike a celebrity or political figure who doesn't live among the people, but rather tend to live in secure, gated communities, when average people get this kind of notoriety they can't hide from the world around them... and that is dangerous.
In addition, you can't judge people by a single act, no matter how bad that act may be (generally speaking of course). For all we know these kids come from broken or abuse homes and were raised to be this way, although it's just as likely they come from great homes and are simply brats. Point is, we don't know.
That not knowing the full context of something you see on YouTube for instance is dangerous because it leads to conclusions that may not be the same conclusions you'd make if you knew all the facts.
In the end
In the end though, it's great to see social media / networking being used to make right a wrong. And while I would never endorse what these kids did for any reason, part of me wonders if they may have done Karen a huge favour. For 10-20 minutes of bullying, she's going to walk away with over $130,000. Not a bad pay day! Technically, if she were to use the money to simply replace her annual salary, these kids just saved her having to work another nine or ten years!
In (my) perfect world, these kids would also get fined and have to pay her, I don't know, a thousand bucks each. Make the parents of the kids pay the thousand bucks and the kids can pay back their parents.
So all's well that end's well I guess. Karen will get her vacation / compensation and the kids will probably grow up to be bankers working for Jamie Dimon where they can bullying the entire country instead of just one person.
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