Going Viral Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive
Around this time 10 years ago we released what is still one of my favourite projects at Word On The Curb, the legendary video, 'What I Wasn't Taught In School'.
The video came about when Hayel and I sat down in our office (at the time it was Pret or any coffee shop with above-average Wi-Fi) and shared experiences of how terrible Black History Month engagement was.
I shared how I was once told that colonialism brought democracy to the world. Hayel shared how his head teacher once lauded David Beckham as a Black British icon during a Black History Month assembly. We shared how the figures (minus David Beckham) during Black History Month were always from across the pond.
With lived experiences and insights from friends, we got to work, researching and scripting–with a passion to reclaim and control the narrative of what we were taught in school.
With a bank balance and total budget of £300, we managed to secure a classroom for free (courtesy of SOAS), a cast made up of friends and willing followers of our content, the superstar Samuel King to deliver the piece, and a 241 pizza order from Domino’s.
The result?
- A short film which explored how a disgruntled student challenges their teacher on the teaching of Black History, by sharing figures and narratives that were conveniently left out of curriculums.
- Global virality: We received over 100 million global views all the way from Suriname to South Africa. But being young and naive, we didn't ident the video and it got ripped from our YouTube and put up across Facebook and Uncle/Auntie Whatsapp groups. I once got a WhatsApp video forwarded from an Uncle in Nigeria telling me to watch what turned out to be my video.
- Action: off the back of the video, a petition was created to change the curriculum to better embed Black History. It got enough signatures to go to the government–we all know what happens after that.
- Legacy: every year since its release, we get messages from friends, family and our community expressing how the content was used in 'my kids assembly' or 'shown in my workplace'.
Whilst the video was created in the early phases of our business journey, our ways of working remain the same (just scaled up). We sought human insight and turned the truths into creative content with our ‘Edutainment’ framework.
If you haven't seen the full video yet, search 'What I Wasn't Taught In School' on YouTube.
It’s a real full circle moment that this year’s Black History Month theme is #ReclaimingNarratives. Here’s to more narratives being reclaimed.
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