Awkward Situations For Girls Blog

The UK riots [Guardian datablog]

Last week the Guardian’s datablog (link above) listed me as the 79th most influential person on Twitter during the UK riots, which made me a bit proud, but then immediately made me wonder: who the hell cares about things like ‘influence’ in the real world?

As a social media manager, I spend a lot of time talking about ‘influence’, ‘engagement’ and ‘reach’. But outside a marketing campaign and in a time of national crisis, I’m not actually sure those words hold any meaning. 

During the riots, I did a really small thing where I asked Londoners on Twitter to donate clothes, bedding, toys and kitchenware for the rioted homeless. At the Crisis Centre in Tottenham, hosted temporarily in a leisure centre which smelt unnervingly of trampolines and trainers, the staff let me see where the press weren’t allowed.

I watched a Spanish family in their pyjamas walk around the aisles of folded clothes, choosing donated items to replace everything they’d lost. They had nothing left but their pyjamas: they were one of 60 families made homeless when just one block of flats burned down.

I guess seeing their loss, spying the counselling booths and hearing quiet crying, made me not want to blog about my very minor experience. It would only have sounded sanctimonious, and after all, who really cares what I think? I was just in the right place at the wrong time, with a car and a Twitter.

The best thing that can be said about Twitter during the riots was the rapid onset of community, as users organised widespread fundraising and clean-ups, and the generosity with which people donated. I asked Londoners for their things, and they provided. And so I thought I’d rival the Guardian’s datablog with one of my own, made of stats about the people who helped me.

LONDON RIOTS IN NUMBERS

24 collection points 
4 cups of tea
68 bin bags of donations
2 DVD boxsets of 24
13 duvets
1 BBC rolling riot news mention
2,000 tweets of support
1 barbeque (thanks Lolly) 
1 celebrity copycat (cheers Kate Nash)
7 teddy bears
1 electric guitar
5 car journeys
1 super-helpful helper (cheers JC Andrews)
4 car unpackers 
18 homeless women helped through deliveries of toiletries and cosmetics

And now, in the spirit of besting the Guardian’s datablog, I shall turn that mind-dump of donation stats into a sumptuous visual feast. 

Isn’t data more fun when it’s actually about real, tangible people?

Being influential on social media isn’t a laugh about being ranked higher than Justin Bieber on that Guardian list. ‘Reach’ is the amount of people who answer when you ask for help.