Today, November 27, would have been Amanda Todd’s 16th birthday. “This is the day you were so looking forward to,” wrote her mother, Carol, in a Facebook post she copied to Twitter. “You had even bought your little black dress and realized that you could fit into my heels for your big party.”
Amanda will miss that birthday party. She committed suicide on Oct. 10, after years of harassment, stalking, and abuse by school bullies and online pedophiles.
Carol Todd’s public letter has sparked a movement to get #PrincessSnowflake—her parents’ nickname for her—trending on Twitter. It’s proving to be an uphill battle. Since Carol Todd’s first tweet, the hashtag has been retweeted 259 times and reached an audience of 183,091 followers, according to analytics site Hashtracking. That’s a lot of people, but not nearly enough to trend on the massive social network.
Carol Todd’s letter, and the Twitter push, come on the same day that Amanda’s hometown, Port Coquitlam, has launched an anti-bullying program in her honor. Called “Be Someone,” the group is named after the final slide of the video Amanda released shortly before committing suicide. “I have nobody, I need someone,” it read.
“I have a daughter the same age and I realized after seeing that slide that I am someone, and we can all Be Someone,” Gary Mauris, the foundation’s founder, told the Vancouver Sun. “It’s critical for us to ensure that every young person who’s bullied has easier access to the help they need.”
Todd’s family has also launched a memorial fund in her honor, which you can read about here. And if you want to help Amanda trend on Twitter for her 16th birthday, that Twitter hashtag, again, is #PrincessSnowflake.
Photo via YouTube