Emma Gonzalez has more Twitter followers than NRA

Since creating her Twitter account in the wake of the Parkland shooting, Florida student and campaigner at the helm of the growing pro-gun control youth movement Emma Gonzalez has gained more followers on the social media site than the NRA.

Emma Gonzalez has become one of the most prominent voices weeks after the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, calling for gun control and change in attitudes after the multitude of school shootings that have occurred in the United States.

Other Florida shooting survivors like David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Sarah Chadwick also appear to be rapidly gaining followers by the thousands while they work to command the nation’s attention after 17 people were killed on February 14, 2018.

In addition to this, the student survivors have called for a boycott of all companies that are affiliated with the NRA in an attempt to cut off the gun lobby’s support and this soon led to #BoycottFedEx trending on Twitter.

FedEx, however, refused to part ways with the National Rifle Association despite more than two dozen companies already cutting ties, including the airlines Delta and United Airlines. 

So far, 20 of the 27 companies that partner with the NRA have divested.

David Hogg also asked people to cancel their Amazon Prime memberships in order to pressure Amazon into cutting NRATV from their streaming video service. 

In response to this, the NRA issued a statement on Twitter criticising companies for cutting ties and referred to this as ‘cowardice’ and that their members had nothing to do with the Parkland shooting.

The statement read: ‘The loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world’.

Emma and her peers’ tweets advocating tougher gun laws have been gaining media attention with celebrities like Jimmy Fallon praising the Parkland students for starting this revolution, but who is Emma Gonzalez?

Who is Emma Gonzalez?

Emma Gonzalez is a senior who survived the shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas school and later, founded the gun control advocacy group Never Again MSD, also known by the hashtag #NeverAgain.

She is expected to graduate from the Parkland school in the spring of 2018 and has plans to study at New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida. 

On the day of the shooting, Emma was in the auditorium when the fire alarm went off and tried to leave through the hallway but was told to remain in the auditorium for two hours until the police allowed students to exit the school.

Emma Gonzalez speeches

Emma drew national attention after she gave an 11-minute speech at a rally against gun violence on February 17, 2018 in Ft. Lauderdale in which she rebuked the ‘thoughts and prayers’ that Trump’s government had offered.

The ‘We call B.S.’ speech went viral and according to The Washington Post, became emblematic of the ‘new strain of furious advocacy’ that was seen soon after the shooting. In a interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Emma relayed that she felt that her message would do better through repetition.

‘I knew I would get my job done properly at that rally if I got people chanting something. And I thought “We call B.S.’ has four syllables, that’s good. I’ll use that. I didn’t want to say the actual curse words…the message doesn’t need to be thought of in a negative way at all.’

On February 21, Emma and other survivors spoke at the town hall hosted by CNN and criticised the NRA as well as the politicians who accept money from it as being complicit in the Florida attack. Here, Emma pressed the NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch for answers and clarify her position on guns.

Emma asked: ‘Dana Loesch, I want you to know that we will support your two children in the way that you will not. The shooter at our school obtained weapons that he used on us legally. Do you believe that it should be harder to obtain the semi-automatic and…the modifications for these weapons to make them fully automatic like bump stocks?’

Dana’s response was to present the argument that mentally ill people should not have access to weapons, but Emma interjected and repeated her question about bump stocks. After these speeches and appearances in the media, she received some backlash from a number of American politicians and journalists, but a lot of support too. 

Emma joined Twitter and gained more followers than Dana and the NRA in less than ten days. 

How many Twitter followers does Emma Gonzalez have?

Emma created her @Emma4Change Twitter account on February 18, four days after the Florida school shooting and since then, has built up a legion of over one million followers.

The NRA, which joined the social media website in 2009 has 594,000 followers. David Hogg has also built up his following to over 384,000 followers and Cameron Kasky has 252,000.

Emma Gonzalez wipes away tears during the CNN town hall meeting on February 21, 2018

Why has Twitter been a good tool for activism?

The students’ movement has ensured that the subject of school shootings remains in the media and the people of America are continuing to discuss what can be done to prevent events like this happening again.

Daniel Kreiss, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s school of journalism said to Politico that ‘periods of sustained mass media attention are more likely to result in policy changes. What I suspect is that the Parkland students’ Twitter followings will be influential if they can leverage them for journalistic, mass media attention’.

So far, Emma’s tweets that reflect activism and emotion, have been significant in gathering support for gun control and the attempted boycott of FedEx and Amazon. Twitter has also been used as a way of questioning the US President Donald Trump directly for his lack of action.

When is the #NeverAgain March for Our Lives demonstration?

Never Again MSD was formed by Cameron Kasky and his peers in the first few days after the school shooting. The group created Twitter accounts soon after and announced a nationwide protest that would take place on March 24, 2018.

In three days, #NeverAgain gained over 35,000 followers on Facebook and the students started to give as many interviews as possible in order to promote their cause. 

George and Amal Clooney were the first to donate $500,000 to the organisation to help with the cost of the March for Our Lives demonstration and later, Oprah Winfrey, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg matched their donation.