(light music) (audience applauding) - March 22nd, 2012, I got a text message.

It was a screenshot of a Facebook post that was a simple call to action.

Today, first lunch, walk out.

Justice for Trayvon.

And within the hour, over 300 students had walked out of my high school in protest of Trayvon Martin's wrongful murder, in the month at that point that it passed without arresting his murderer.

It was terrifying and heartbreaking, but it was invigorating.

Trayvon was a former student at my high school.

And though many of us had personal experiences with gun violence, never like this, never death and injustice on this largest stage before.

And we never had to come together around a cause so quickly either.

We were devastated, but walking out of school made us triumphant and put us in control of the stories being told about our emotions and about our peer.

You might hear the story and be very proud of the high school students walking out and taking a stand for what they believed in, but I want you to consider the organizing backbone in all of this: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

So what if we could use social media to end gun violence once and for all?

My high school walkout only worked because these platforms were how we stayed connected in small moments.

So when a big moment came for us to respond to injustice and process our grief, it was only natural that we'd returned to the spaces that we knew.

This experience with injustice, gun violence, and social media-coordinated activism has gone on to shape the past decade of my life, inspiring not only my work in community organizing, but also inspiring my research in studying health disparities in social systems, and my own social media platforms dedicated to building community online and educating about social justice.

Social media has the power to be this generation's catalyst for affecting positive change.

And I see it every day.

I lead a firearm risk education and social media marketing training program.

And I'd love to tell you about one of my past students, Mary.

That's not her real name, but Mary is a real teen who joined our program like lots of teens, with their own personal relationship to violence and a bit skeptical about whether we could truly use social media to educate about guns.

And like most of us, even me right now, a bit fearful of public speaking, and a little uncomfortable with potentially being seen by millions of strangers online.

However, throughout the weeks of our program, I watched Mary blossom into a confident creative who understood the ways that media, music, movies, TV was influencing how she perceived gun ownership.

Mary was extremely brave as she pushed past all of that fear to create exciting and engaging content that her peers around the city went on to see and ask her about.

And with her coaching about the risks of gun ownership, she was able to have honest conversations rooted in facts, not fear.

Right now we have an opportunity to build a generation of young people who are informed about the risk of gun ownership and ultimately choose not to own them, which in the long term will impact the rate of firearm-related injury and deaths that this country experiences.

But when was the last time we were able to do this, use media to influence a generation's behavior before?

One of the biggest and few public health successes in recent history that combined media with an attempt to educate about harmful behaviors was the work to end teen cigarette smoking.

And to demonstrate that impact, raise your hand if you or the teens in your life smoke traditional cigarettes.

Maybe three out of the entire room.

This is what we can do with guns.

(audience applauding) What these researchers understood was that most people started smoking when they were teenagers.

And in order to curb teen smoking and the harmful long-term effects, they needed to speak to teenagers and put them in the driver's seat of their decision-making without preaching or telling them what to and not to do.

And they found the value of using media, TV ads and billboards to educate about how harmful cigarette smoking was.

And as teens see these ads, less and less of them think cigarette smoking is healthy or cool.

And with this shift in the way that cigarettes are being perceived, less and less teens, less and less people smoke cigarettes.

And lung cancer rates dropped over 20% across three decades according to a study by the National Cancer Institute.

Right now, America has a gun violence problem.

The reason we have a gun violence problem is because we have a gun problem, especially among young people.

Today, more than ever, there's been a perception shift where teens are disregarding data and choosing to own guns.

But we know that when there are more guns in our communities, they're less safe.

We see more gun violence, including suicide, homicide, accidents, and mass shootings.

We all want to be safe.

But just like teen cigarette smoking of the past, we can curb this behavior by using the tools available to us.

These tools for younger generations are TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.

And I know what you're thinking: Influencers out in the wild making dancing videos about gun violence?

Well, that's exactly what I'm suggesting.

(all laughing) And the work that we've been doing.

See, these platforms are where young people naturally gather online to connect with each other and learn new things.

And our work meets them here with engaging lighthearted information about how guns make us less safe.

And we recruit some of their favorite influencers around the internet to help us spread that message.

For example: - Hey amigis, I need to talk about something a little bit more serious today.

Growing up in Chicago, I know all too well that guns change the story.

So why is it that we believe that owning guns actually makes us safer?

Because here are the facts.

People who carry guns are four times more likely to be shot than people who don't.

And this next fact really hit me.

In the case of domestic violence, an abusive partner's access to a firearm increases the risk of homicide by 500%.

It just makes me so grateful, that when I was a young girl living in a home experiencing domestic violence, that a gun didn't end mine or my mom's story.

And let's be real.

It affects us.

BIPOC and Latinx communities are disproportionately affected by gun violence, and I really, really hope that, for our sakes, we can change the narrative around guns.

Because the truth is simple: guns change the story.

When a gun is around, everything is riskier.

Follow Project Unloaded if you want to learn more about this issue, and let's continue our stories together.

(audience applauding) - Our goal online isn't to chastise or to scare young people, but rather to activate their own curiosity and empower them with the information they need to choose for themselves not to own or use guns.

We are building a feedback loop of teens who see our content online, go on to participate in our training program in their communities, with the goal of influencing more teens online.

See, many teens don't understand the power that they carry in their pockets with them every single day.

But when you inspire young people to use their tools to create and have conversations, they do.

And ultimately that's a very good thing, because remember, conversations influence perceptions, perceptions influence individual behaviors, individual behaviors influence larger cultural norms.

We don't have to go far to know that that's true, because much of the disinformation that's influencing the way young people are perceiving guns and ownership, they are seeing on the same platforms that we're using to create change.

Yet there are thousands of young people doing this work to change perceptions every day, one post at a time.

And just because this work happens online, activating digital third spaces as opposed to traditional third spaces and traditional media of times past, doesn't mean that it's any less important or any less impactful.

I believe that social media is not a trivial, mindless, brain-rot arena.

I mean, come on, (laughs) it is.

But (audience laughing) I think that it can be so much more when you strategically activate communities online.

So far we've reached 6 million teens, that's one in four American teens, with content online that spreads a message that we're safer without guns.

About 500 teens across three cities have gone on to participate in our training programs.

And their reactions to all of this are promising.

According to our survey data, when teens are exposed to our content online or they go on to participate in our programming, about 20% of them move away from interest in gun ownership.

When you empower teens, a larger culture responds.

And ultimately it's culture that moves people.

Changing laws, especially as it relates to gun violence is important.

But when you build a culture that's rooted in creativity, education, play, all the while dispelling fear, that culture sustains.

My generation wants to be a part of a sustainable solution to end gun violence.

So I'm asking you all today to see us, see our intention, see our tools as the innovations that they are.

Support us.

Or like you might've heard an influencer in the wild say, "Like, comment, share, and subscribe for more."

(all laughing) And join us in using social media to change gun culture and end gun violence.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) (thoughtful music)