Chicago teens dream up anti-violence social media campaigns

About 50 Chicago teens spent the summer being shocked by statistics about guns and violence, realizing many of their assumptions were wrong, and coming up with a social media campaign to try to spread what they had learned.

Some of the teens say they were surprised that stats show few of their peers actually have guns — many assumed more young people were “packing” than actually are. They also believed that having a gun makes them safer, which statistics show it doesn’t.

The program is a partnership between the city of Chicago’s summer jobs programs, community organizations and Project Unloaded, a national nonprofit that aims to chip away at myths about guns.

On Friday, teens from each site — Al Raby School for Community and Environment, Breakthrough Urban Ministries and The Ark of St. Sabina — pitched their campaigns to ad executives, the city’s deputy mayor of public safety and others. The campaign deemed the best will be featured on Project Unloaded’s social media channels.

WBEZ visited the teens in the East Garfield Park program. They decided to center their social media campaign around the idea that if you carry a gun, you are a “goofy.”

Kingston Tate, a sophomore at Lindblom College Prep, said his group wanted to get across that many teens are “tricked” or “played” because they get a gun under false assumptions.

Lauren Brown, a Kenwood Academy freshman, explained that they chose the word ‘goofy’ because “teenagers use the word ‘goofy’” to basically say somebody’s a follower, or you’re gullible, easily influenced,” she said.

“So we use it for our campaign to show that if you own a gun, you’re ‘goofy’ — you’re easily influenced by what you see.”

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.