By Anthony Aleman
Lebanon High School, a high school located in central Tennessee, is currently under heavy fire after a recent student suicide. A friend of the victim, sophomore Emily Gipson, who is a sophomore at Lebanon High, recently made a video where she vents her frustration about how schools deal with bullying, mental illness, unimaginitivity, and suicide, which in under a week received over 500,000 views. The video can be found here.
One of the main points of her video is that she creates a character known as “dash anonymous” or -Anonymous. I believe she is referencing 4chan, however, that is unimportant to the overall message. -Anonymous is the person who has no face, a person she wants no one to be, and she claims this entity made a joke “she should have just killed herself just like that girl at Lebanon”.
The creator of the video, Emily Gipson, received a two day suspension. However, the office of Lebanon High School claims that it was for being in a classroom after hours and is not related to the video. They have yet to make a statement about the video(s) themselves.
About three days later she made a sequel titled “Have I Made a Difference Yet?”, which is a reference the last line in the first video in which Emily Gipson ended says “have I made a difference yet?”, the main point of the second video contains a question of has she made a difference yet. Her response is quite inspiring as Emily continues her philosophy of hatred
towards sameness and refusal of change. The second video can be found here. I recommend that you watch both videos.
The second video also contains her shock of how quickly popular she’s become followed by another inspiring message of the people who try to make a difference tend to be punished and never get a spotlight.
To quote my favorite line from this video, “let this earth be your canvas, and let your voice be the paint, make it gold- make it green- make it blue- make it silver- make it red, have my colors made a difference yet?”.
Emily Gipson has a powerful message and many adore her, even if you don’t agree with everything she says. At least take notice of the issues she’s addressing and dare to make a difference.