Systemic Racism Explained (Behind the Scenes of Our Latest Viral Video)
About a year ago I made this animated video that briefly explains what Systemic Racism is and how it still affects equal access to opportunity today. With all the social unrest happening in the country around discrimination, police violence, and systemic racism, this video blew up online last week.
Tons of celebrities shared it and as of right now, we’re estimating about 65 million views across all social media platforms. Some of the celebrities who shared it are Lebron James, Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg, Viola Davis, Kristen Bell, Demi Lovato, Alyssa Milano, Green Day, Kevin Bacon, and many others.
The Importance of Storytelling
I’ve been making animated explainer videos for a few years now. I’ve covered topics like Why Japan Has No Mass Shootings to How Russian Misinformation Campaigns Operate. The one thing I’ve learned about conveying important information via an animated format, is that people have extremely short attention spans, and the best way to engage them is with compelling stories.
We’re more likely to retain information if it’s shared in a story format. As the main writer and producer for these videos, my biggest challenge is finding a way to condense complex information into a digestible narrative. And preferably a narrative that’s under 5 minutes.
In this Systemic Racism Explained video, for example, there’s just so much more I could have gotten into. I had drafts digging further into wealth disparities, health consequences of systemic racism, why minority neighborhoods are often to the east of downtown districts (basically, it’s because downtowns were usually industrial districts, and all the air pollution would blow towards the east, meaning that the land east of downtown was often less valuable and therefore “given” to minorities. This led to lower life expectancy, higher rates of illness, etc). See? There’s just so much I could have covered, but it wouldn’t have been as effective as sticking to a short and concise narrative.
One of my favorite quotes is, “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” In other words, simplifying things is hard. And if you’re trying to create similar content, you should know that simplifying complex information is probably the #1 hardest part of creating content like this.
To get a closer peek at the process behind making the video and how we address some of the most common questions, check out this interview I did with our very own Julianna Forlano:
The country might be ready to talk seriously about race
The most encouraging sign about the response to this video is that it seems like a whole new audience is now receptive to a real (and hard) conversation around race in the United States. I had one young viewer send me a message that said “I was hesitant to watch your video because I thought it was just going to be bashing White people. But then I thought ‘I should be open minded and see what this is about.’ Then I watched it and I completely agree that this is a problem. Now I’ve shared it with my friends.”
A silver lining to the murder of George Floyd is that it may helping to open some people’s eyes to the injustices that have gone unaddressed in society for far too long. I feel grateful to have created something that is positively adding to the conversation, and I hope this is the tipping point we need to start doing the hard work ahead of us.
