Last year, Beck Middle School eighth grader Allison Donahue made an anti-bullying video called “Anonymous.” The video takes a look at the dark consequences of cyber-bullying and asks the viewer to take a stand against it.
While Donahue, now a freshman at Cherry Hill High School East, was confident in the message the video portrayed, she never imagined the impact it would have outside her school community.
About one year after making the video, Donahue has been the recipient of two awards and will have her video shown on WHYY on Nov. 7.
The video has become critically-acclaimed and award-winning because of the strong message it involves. The video depicts a middle school girl who is being cyber-bullied using a website called ask.fm. The website allows users to ask questions anonymously to other users.
In the video, the bullied girl is seen reading insulting and threatening comments on her phone. In the end, the girl commits suicide.
The video then shows the images of nine real-life teens who took their own lives after being bullied on ask.fm. At the end, viewers are asked to take a look at cyber-bullying in their own lives, with the words, “You can change how the story ends,” displayed on the screen.
The video takes on a dark reality about the dangers of bullying. Donahue acknowledges this, but also said she wanted her video to be real.
“I just thought it was a message and a theme that wasn’t portrayed enough,” she said.
Red Ribbon Week is a promotion advising students to avoid substance abuse, violence, bullying and other harmful acts. Out of all of the topics Donahue could have touched on, she felt cyber-bullying was one students her age could relate to the most.
“I thought it was an issue that was so much affecting my generation,” she said. “It was affecting it on a much larger scale.”
Peer leadership groups at Beck sponsored the video project. After being chosen as the first-place winner, Donahue’s video was used in some of the peer leadership presentations.
Donahue said the video had a real impact on the Beck community. She felt many students were able to take themes portrayed in the video and apply it to what they saw in their own lives.
“A lot of people came up to me and told me how much the video changed their perspectives,” she said.
The video’s impact has been felt beyond the classroom. Donahue won first place in the middle school division for WHYY’s Youth Media Awards. Her video was also the winner of the “Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation Award” from the Scattergood Foundation, an organization looking to make improvements in the behavioral health field.
Donahue said “Anonymous” wasn’t only meant for her peers. She believes many adults don’t fully understand the impact of bullying, and she wanted to grab their attention as well.
“I thought a lot of adults didn’t know the extent that bullying went to,” she said.
The awards have been an example of the impact “Anonymous” has had on so many. Donahue never imagined the video would win awards or garner the amount of attention it has.
“The people that have contacted me, they talked about how much the video was inspiring and unique,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it at all that it could have won these awards.”
As part of being the first-place winner in the Youth Media Awards, “Anonymous” will air alongside winners from the high school division on WHYY’s “Anthology” on Friday, Nov. 7 at 5 p.m.
Prospective viewers don’t have to wait for Nov. 7 to view “Anonymous,” though. The video can be seen on Donahue’s Youtube page at www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFGQ-uEwb18.
