I was comfortably seated eating my chocolate muffin when I first saw a seal having its skin cut by a knife just after being taken out of the water. As this horrid scene continued to be displayed on the classroom’s large screen, I began to find my chocolate muffin not so appealing anymore. I remember feeling heartbroken for this poor animal whose life ended so quickly. I wondered how those people could do this without feeling disgusted. It wasn’t until we got to the middle of the documentary that I realized that the Inuit’s fully depend upon seal hunt to survive. Hearing their side of the story made me open my mind to a whole different part of human life that I had never really payed attention to before. Or was I simply not informed?  Of course, an adorable baby seal projected on a big screen will have an emotional impact on the viewers, but what is the real message behind this image? That we should blame the Inuit? That we should criticize a culture that is not even our own? That we have the right to change their way of living? That we should break nature’s cycle of life? What does the implicit meaning imply?

One of the main purposes of an awareness campaign is to educate the general public about a certain cause or issue. I would like to focus on the ones that only give a part of the chosen situation; those who fail to present the entire case. In other words, I want to emphasize on the things that are not said. There is often a reason why we avoid saying certain things and that is because we want people to agree with us. Let’s say that you want to convince your friend to go to the mall. You are not going to tell them that the weather is very nice because they might consider changing plans to hang out outside. In my opinion, it is the same thing with some of the information that we are given by activists, especially on social media and television.

Everything that we see on a screen has been precisely thought out and analyzed to reach a particular reaction in the audience. Our generation is an easy target because we are constantly looking at visual media as well as interacting virtually. We are bombard with information throughout the day, and it can be quite difficult to process. Sometimes, I feel like there are more instructions than information; “Give 1$ to help the cause!” “Come to the march on Friday!” “Share this if you agree!” “Enter the giveaway to support the movement!” 

 In some cases, I think that awareness campaigns as well as social media activism can govern our perception instead of simply educating the viewers. I am interested in writing this feature story to share what I learn during the research process and to discover different sides of stories just like I did by watching the documentary on seal-hunting.