Social Media Case 6

When I think of a video going viral, I usually assume the video is going to funny. With this case the video was very simple, but it had a very powerful message. When Officer White made the decision to play ball with these kids, it made a huge statement. He could have merely told them to keep it down and been on his way, and the footage of that would not have been watched by anyone. He broke what some might consider the normal protocol and did something that showed these kids and their community that he really cared about them.

When Officer White stopped to play basketball, he probably was not thinking that the footage from his dash cam was going to go viral. He probably was not thinking that he was going to be able to make a huge change with this one game. He probably just wanted to play some basketball and show these kids that the Officers were not out to get them, but were actually watching out for them. If this had been staged, or had Officer White planned this out, I do not think it would have had the same effect. It probably would have come off as some sort of publicity stunt and would not nearly have been as genuine. I also think that Shaq would not have wanted to become involved if it had been preplanned. Because it was something that just happened, it was a spontaneous moment of a cop doing something great for a group of kids, which is why it went viral.

A lot of good came from this incident, and it was not just Shaq coming and playing a pickup game. Officer White was able to start a foundation that raises money to build relationships between the Law Enforcement and youths, you can see the foundation page here. They also were able to build a basketball court in the backyard of one of the kids who was playing ball from the video, and were visited by Harlem Globetrotter Buckets Blakes, which you can read about here.