Katy Perry scored a no. 1 hit with the song “Teenage Dream” again in 2010, however this week the song is getting used as a somber reminder. Victims of faculty shootings cowl the hit in a new PSA from the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise. As an alternative of dancing, going to the seaside, and having teenage romances, they remind everybody that their lives had been perpetually modified by a bullet.
Hannah Dysinger was shot within the ribcage by the bullet that killed her finest pal within the Marshall County High School shooting. Chase Yarborough was shot six occasions within the Santa Fe High School shooting, and nonetheless has 4 bullets in his physique. Alex Dworet was shot within the neck within the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, whereas his brother Nick was killed.
Created by company BBDO New York and director Henry-Alex Rubin, the PSA continues Sandy Hook Promise’s long-running message of realizing the indicators to acknowledge problematic habits, psychological well being points, and extra that might lead a teenager to commit violence. The group factors to the record-breaking gun violence over the past year as a warning for the present back-to-school season.
That is the newest in an extended line of emotional, and generally jarring, PSAs from Sandy Hook Promise. In 2019, it was a darkish tackle the normally cheery back-to-school gear business. To mark the five-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary College tragedy, the group’s advert targeted on how tomorrow’s news will be reshaped by right this moment’s actions and challenged the concept that gun violence is unavoidable. Maybe the standard-bearer for each Sandy Hook Promise and this problem is the group’s award-winning 2016 PSA “Evan,” which managed to illustrate the entire concept and problem of recognizing the indicators by telling a misleading highschool love story.
Crafting a shocking message that’s going to emotionally resonate with a broad viewers, notably round a divisive problem, is a tricky annual project. As gun violence continues to proliferate, regardless of years and years of tragedy, Sandy Hook’s PSA this 12 months seems to run out of persistence. It says sufficient with the intelligent story-telling, and forces us to confront victims straight, look them within the eyes, and one way or the other clarify why there’ll nonetheless want to be one other PSA subsequent 12 months.
