I didn’t really bother too much with social media because I didn’t understand how to use it until Mark Horvath showed me how it could be used to gain readers. Now I see it as a tool that can be used to bring much-needed attention to the plight of homeless individuals and families. By exposing societal stereotypes and breaking the myths about how so many landed on the streets, the masses will receive an education in a blatant reality that is raw and uncensored. WE are not lab rats to be used in social services experiments nor are we fodder for exploitation.

Thanks to social media, YOU will see us. YOU will hear us and YOU will come to know US. Eventually, YOU must be moved to action because the alternative will cost us all more than we can imagine. This generation is one connected by a virtual reality that has not existed prior to the advent of the internet. Your kids or grandkids are more “connected” than you realize and who knows what the next generation in technology and media will bring to the human experience.  

WE decide what will go down in the annals of history. Do WE really want the future to look back on us as an era marked by failed support systems created to fail in the first place because those entrusted to represent the people have sold their souls to represent corporate greed?

There is a war out here, one whose soldiers have become unwilling pawns in a militaristic game played by corporations ever-present in the affairs of influencing policies to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. To the soldiers on the front lines fighting every day against indifference, I salute you. To the abandoned mothers living out of cars fighting to make a better life for your kids, I salute you. To the fathers willing to sacrifice precious time with their families to work two jobs just to keep a roof over their heads, I salute you. To our youth fighting to find their way out of a hell created by those who failed to protect and nurture you, I salute you. To everyone who has been marginalized, ignored and deemed as an insignificant portion of society, keep fighting.

For many, social media is the transmitter of a truth too many want to pretend does not exist.

Social media, what does it mean to you?