Telling stories and making change in a pandemic

A protest, through a screen.

“Attention is like oxygen for movements. Without it they cannot catch fire.”

I jumped to my notebook to write down these words that I found about 30 pages into “Twitter and Teargas”. This is why we do what we do at My Media Creative, and I had never seen it put so beautifully.

Our theory is that activists and change-makers need to seize the attention-getting technologies of the 21st-century and run with them. The war for people’s attention has turned digital, and your rebel alliance needs to trade in it’s sticks and stones for something a bit more modern: compelling video and engaging design. Organizing protests might get you attention, but right now digital media is the fan you need for your flame.

This goes for service delivery as well. Fundraising events and canvassing will never go out of style. But when you limit your program growth to whatever resources you can scrape together from the ground, you’re selling yourself (and your beneficiaries) short. Use digital tools, and reach potential volunteers and donors where they spend most of their attention: the internet.

The global pandemic has made this shift more important.

More and more people are hungry, and food banks can’t keep up. Unemployment is skyrocketing, and we don’t have support systems which are adapted to the realities of work in the 21st century. Outreach and shelters are vital at this moment, yet their staff and volunteers can’t afford PPE.

COVID-19 has made it more clear than ever that we need robust social change — now. But that seems almost impossible in the era of social distancing

Protests run by Divest McGill. Shot by Mako Sorensen from MMC.

The groups that would usually push forward this social change have been pacified by social distancing and a rapidly deteriorating economic climate. The movement builders are afraid of protests, because we’re afraid of each other. The passionate advocates can’t look into a donor’s eyes and tell them why saving lives is important, because there is now a screen between every set of eyeballs in the world. Community-driven service provision is overstressed and underfunded — but it’s harder than ever to appeal to their community for support because communities are deteriorating on the ground level as we are stuck in our homes and whole city blocks worth of local businesses default on mortgage payments.

There’s this kinetic human energy which helps us direct our attention towards a better future, and want to make it happen. Right now that energy is locked inside, and it can only flow through our screens.

There’s a little bit of hope. A really long time ago we realized that we could capture little vials of that kinetic energy for strategic redeployment: we can tell great stories. We can tell the kind of stories that grab people’s attention, that help them empathize, and make our intentions clear. We can tell world changing stories, and send them out into the digital world.

Creating social change in a pandemic means becoming storytellers. Not marketers, not “social media strategists” — it means tapping into that kinetic human energy that’s so scarce when we’re forced to be apart. Empathy is an engine for social change, and it takes a particular set of skills to bring that empathy online.

A photo taken at Kitchen 24, a local meal-making service for vulnerable communities. They cook meals six feet apart, and in masks. They used video and social media storytelling to grow their volunteer and donation base quickly. Shot by MMC.

At My Media Creative, we have those skills. We know that with so many of these tried and true techniques for organizing becoming close to impossible — we have a responsibility to share them with our community.

We’re going to expand our creative skills training programs, and move them online. Everyone has the capacity to tell a world changing story, and they deserve to learn how to do it for free.

We’re continuing to work with changemakers and activists. The only difference is that we’ve decided that for the next little bit — we need to embody the role of a “community servant” rather than a “growing organization”. This means putting impact over revenue every time.

Our mission is to make change, tell compelling stories, and empower others with the skills and ideas which can help them do the same. Right now — our mission is vital, and we’re ready to take on the task.