Enough is Enough

In today’s society, having an opinion on anything can create a backlash bigger than you ever imagined. Regardless of what you believe in, I think it is safe to say that there is a problem here in America.

School shootings with fatalities in America date back to 1764 and continue to happen as the years go on. Being only 20 years old, the first big school shooting I can remember was the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999 resulting in the death of 13 innocent lives including students and teachers.

Following that, I can remember Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary, Marysville Pilchuck High School, and most recent Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I know there have been several other school shootings in between, so why does it take more deaths of innocents…children..for people to notice there is a problem? Why do events like this happen and then weeks later people forget about it and move on with their life? The mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, don’t get to move on with their life so easily mourning the loss of their loved ones.

• 2018, 14 February – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school shootings – (17 fatalities)
• 2014, October 24- Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting – (5 fatalities)
• 2012, December 14- Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings – (28 fatalities)
• 2007, 6 April – Virginia Tech massacre – (32 fatalities)
• 1999, 20 April – Columbine High School massacre – (13 fatalities)

Whether you are for, or against gun control, both sides have their valid arguments. But the point that keeps proving itself over and over is that these guns are falling in to the hands of people they don’t belong to and costing innocent people their chance at life.

Recently at my old community college, now Highline College, just had a huge scare on campus because students and teachers thought fireworks going off were gunshots. They were on lock-down for several hours and had to wait to be evacuated safely by the police. Is this what our society has come to? Everything we hear we assume the worst? That is what our world has come to because we can’t risk not being too prepared for anything.

 

Being a student myself, I am scared every single day walking on to campus. I walk through the student union and wonder if this is the place that someone is going to pull out a gun and start shooting. I walk through the parking lot to get to my car wondering if someone is following me or not. I look around and try to find things that may seem suspicious because I physically can’t not be scared of something like that happening. I can’t help but think, is my school next? Am I next?

Students are scared to go to school, parents are terrified of sending their children to school in fear they will not make it home, and teachers are anxious of going to work to do their job.

What is the solution to this? Is there one?

 

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

As a millennial who has been using Snapchat since it came out in 2012, I can honestly say I have never seen a bigger train wreck than the update that just came out a few days ago.

With every application comes updates, layout changes, new features, etc. But with the new update from Snapchat, I feel as if they have redesigned the content completely and I feel like I’m not using Snapchat anymore.

It has been in the news for sometime now that Snapchat has been falling below it’s IPO price that went public at $17 per share and has now been juggling between $13-$14.

On February 7, 2018, something miraculous happened for Snapchat. Their stock went up to $20.57, about a 48 percent increase…that’s HUGE.

Sure Snapchats stock went up, but did this put them at jeopardy to losing a large percentage of their users? As of 2017, Snapchat had 178 million daily users which averaged about 3 billion Snapchats being sent out everyday. After reading comments from the media, it is clear that Snapchat has already begun to lose their users.

Snapchat is the most popular digital camera application to millennials and the generation-Z in today’s world, but after the recent update, I’m afraid this is going to be the downfall of that reputation. All over social media, I have seen countless complaints and even comments such as “Well, Snapchat is ruined. Guess it’s time to go back to Facebook!”

What I found most shocking was this conversation below that a Twitter user had with the Snapchat Twitter account asking how many re-tweets it would take to bring back the old Snapchat. Although the response from Snapchat didn’t say they would change the layout, they still requested to get 50,000 re-tweets… this tweet went VIRAL. It is currently at 1.4 million re-tweets. If this isn’t a message for Snapchat, I don’t know what is.

It makes sense that Snapchat made a move that would benefit them financially, but I wish that didn’t require changing the entire layout of Snapchat that everyone knew and loved. Users loved how it looked before. It was easy to navigate, personal snaps and snap stories were separated, and the discover page was easily accessible. The format now is confusing, the snaps are out of order, and it seems almost impossible to find what you are looking for.

Snapchat has obviously felt the backlash and negativity of their new update, so what will they do now? Is the money increase worth losing your loyal users and possibly risking flushing the entire company down the toilet? I guess we will have to stay tuned and see.

Adidas’ Boston Marathon Email Fail

April 15^th, 2013. A day America will never forget. Double bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured at least 264.

Over 30,000 participants in the race and thousands of bystanders cheering on their loved ones witnessed the horror and tragedy of something they never expected to happen.

Just days after the massacre, Adidas released and sold out their customized shirt that says, “Boston Stands as One” that gave all proceeds to the One Fund Boston, a charity to help the victims and those affected by the tragedy. This tactic not only brought positive attention to Adidas, but showed their sincere concern for the event. So, what went wrong just a few years later?

The day after this year’s marathon, just four years after the bombings at the 2013 marathon, Adidas released an email to Boston Marathon participants with the subject line, “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!” YIKES.

What were they thinking? No matter how many years have passed since the massacre, it will always be a sensitive topic to speak about. It’s hard for me to believe that something like that could be sent without anyone thinking “Hmmm, that’s probably not the best way to word that.”

The backlash took no time to spread like wildfire all throughout social media. Adidas spokeswoman, Maria Culp, issued a public apology the same day stating, “We are incredibly sorry. There was no thought given to the insensitive email subject line we sent Tuesday. We deeply apologize for our mistake.”

It was a smart move by Adidas to quickly send out a sincere apology, but unfortunately this is something that won’t be lived down for a long time. Moral of the story, think before you hit send!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/05/23/the-biggest-pr-crises-of-2017/2/#53c6e8fb3d8a

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/adidas-boston-stands-as-one-shirt_n_3128633.html

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-marathon/2017/04/19/adidas-apologizes-for-insensitive-boston-marathon-marketing-e-mail