Young people do stupid things and die. They get drunk, say “hold my beer and watch this,” then break their necks and their parents’ hearts.
No silver lining. No heroic demise. No “he died doing what he loved.” Just grief.
Nothing new about that. I’m alive and, if you’re an adult, you’re alive because we survived our mistakes. We all had friends who didn’t.
By now you have probably heard of NekNomination, the online craze in which kids post videos of themselves pounding back alcohol and “nominating” other individuals to follow suit. Sometimes there’s a silly stunt involved, too. It’s basically a web-based, booze-fuelled chain letter.
The game has gone global, leaving a few attractive young corpses in its wake. Odds are you won’t actually die if you take part, but you could get hurt or do something that will make you cringe in shame later, and there’s a good chance of being shut out of jobs or the good books of future in-laws when they look you up on YouTube.
Saanich teacher Nick van Iersel stumbled across the game on Facebook, where he was dismayed to find a 23-year-old friend had joined in.
He was happier to see the reaction of a South African man who had not only refused to be pressured into drinking, but decided instead to carry out random acts of kindness and challenge others to do the same.
That gave van Iersel an idea: SpecNominations.
Instead of drinking, staff and students at Spectrum Community School would do good works and nominate others to do the same.
Last week, the 30-year-old drove to a McDonald’s drive-through, where he bought half a dozen coffee-and-muffin combos to be handed out to those behind him. He then turned to the camera and dared several others, including students Pius Cuizon and Sage Barlow-Young, to do some random good.
Those two, joined by fellow student Jenna Lancaster, bought a mess of burgers and pizza, which they handed out to homeless people downtown.
Cuizon then stood up at the Spectrum grad assembly and challenged the whole Grade 12 class. In the crowd was Kat Gosselin, 18, who wheeled and grabbed her 17-year-old friend Raheem Khan. “I said ‘Let’s do this right now, during our spare block,’ ” she said Wednesday.
They posted a video of themselves asking homeless people what they need. The students then went shopping at Value Village and a couple of other spots, spending upwards of $180 of their own money (he works at a Shell station, she’s at Dairy Queen) to fill the requests: rain jackets, shoes, a sweater, a sleeping bag, food (though not the malt liquor that one guy requested).
“It felt so good to do it,” Gosselin said. In the video, you can hear it in her voice. It was such a good alternative to NekNomination: “This had value.”
Gosselin, who is committed to attending West Virginia’s Wheeling Jesuit University on a lacrosse scholarship, then nominated her coach there. He posted a video of himself with another player loading up at a Tim Hortons (yes, they have Timmy’s in Virginia) to pass out to nurses in a hospital pediatric ward, along with balloons for the kids.
Spectrum teachers have signed on, too; videos show them buying meals for strangers, handing out free hot chocolate at Clover Point, dropping kind notes in neighbours’ mailboxes.
Van Iersel no longer knows how far SpecNominations have spread among the student body, though he has heard they have gone to other schools, including Reynolds Secondary, Colquitz Middle School and Vic High.
“It has been pretty cool. It has kind of taken off,” said van Iersel, who himself got renominated this week by some of his Socials 11 students who had been handing out apple pies and mittens at Our Place.
So Tuesday night found van Iersel at a B.C. Transit stop, handing out free bus tickets to strangers.
Sometimes young people do stupid things and die. Sometimes they do good and thrive. Pass it on.
