Occasionally a really good news story about social networking comes along. Today NeoWin is reporting the story of a 7 year-old Chicago girl who, as an avid Star Wars fan, took a Star Wars drinks bottle to school but was bullied after classmates told her Star Wars wasn’t for girls.
Little Katie said about the bullying “The first grade boys are teasing me at lunch because I have a Star Wars water bottle. They say it’s only for boys. Every day they make fun of me for drinking out of it. I want them to stop, so I’ll just bring a pink water bottle.”
ChigacoNow first reported the story last week as part of an anti-bullying awareness week but since then the story has gone viral with over 1,700 comments and over 11,000 Facebook likes. Users of Twitter then picked up the story using the hashtag #MayTheForceBeWithKatie and now the story has spread internationally.
A new Facebook event “Support Star Wars and Geek Pride for Katie” is urging attendees, of which there are currently almost 1,200, to “wear a Star Wars tee shirt or any other piece of paraphernalia to show that you support Katie” (at gHacks we’re happy to oblige with this photo of some very fetching lady Stormtroopers, click the image for the photo credit.)
While this story is light-hearted, it also makes an important statement about the web today and the power it can wield. While thousands of people supporting Katie online will probably have little or no actual effect on the children bullying her in the playground, it’s a wonderful example of the public rallying around a story to raise awareness of a serious issue. Bullying can have very unpleasant consequences at any age.
Katie is now carrying her Star Wars drinks bottle to school with pride though I can only wonder what would have happened should she open her lunch box to find one of these.
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