Sandy Hook Promise dramatizes suicide ‘powder keg’ in new PSAs

NEWTOWN — A home-grown nonprofit known for its provocative public service announcements about youth violence on Thursday released three PSAs with the emotional charge of ticking bombs about the “powder keg of turmoil threatening the lives and well-being of kids right now.”

“We may think kids are resilient, but the truth is — the kids are not alright,” said Nicole Hockley, cofounder and managing director of Sandy Hook Promise, and the mother a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. “More youth are struggling with mental health issues and heightened depression and anxiety as a result of the pandemic.”

The trio of PSAs, meant to reflect “the anxiety, isolation, pressure, boredom, and incessant information overload that teenagers are experiencing” and help the nation “learn the signs of a child in emotional distress and get help before it’s too late,” follows the passage on Wednesday in the House of Representatives of a youth suicide prevention bill drafted by Sandy Hook Promise.

A Senate version of the bill, which would make youth suicide prevention programs mandatory for schools and states receiving federal mental health money, was introduced on Monday.

For those who are familiar with Sandy Hook Promise’s previous PSAs, which have juxtaposed a school shooting with a back-toschool commercial, and which have satirized cultural complacency about school shootings, it comes as no surprise that the new PSAs pull no punches.

Each video ends with a black screen and the message: “The kids are not alright.”

The first video, a 30-second PSA called “How to Overload a Circuit,” is perhaps the most explosive. It begins with an eerily impersonal robotic voiceover announcing “How to overload a circuit,” as frenetic images flash on the screen about internet culture, and kids asking Google “how to stop the pain.” The incessant robotic message “plug-in, plug-in” leads to a disturbing crescendo of chaotic audio as the video ends with the word, “Blow.”

The second PSA, called “How to Make a Homemade Bomb” is a 60second video that checks off seven steps to disaster as newcast voiceovers speak of students feeling isolated and cyberbullyied. Images and audio alternate with screen clips of kids shouting out their stress, a 911 dispatcher speaking of a kid who “talked about it last night but nobody took it serious” and and social media posts such as, “I finally have a gun.”

The seven steps are:

Stop attending school

Spend 20 hours a day in your bedroom

Interact only on social media Live in constant fear for health Put future on hold Suppress feelings Detonate

The third PSA is a 50-second video called “How to Perform a Disappearing Act.” It features clips of signs saying “SATs canceled” and social media posts such as “A lost year. I don’t know what’s next,” and “I swear I’m gonna do it at noon tomorrow.”

The steps flash on the screen Detach from friends

Detach from family

Miss prom

Miss graduation

Miss the future

Don’t leave the house

Don’t leave your room

Don’t leave your head Disappear

The videos are meant to dramatize the fact that missed milestones, detaching from relationships, isolating in bedrooms and “being constantly plugged in online” are results of the 14-month coronavirus pandemic that is “leading to heightened anxiety and depression, among other new or worsening mental health struggles.”

“This emotional situation can give rise to various forms of youth violence — not just shootings, but also suicide and self-harm,” Sandy Hook Promise said in a news release.

The PSAs refer viewers to Sandy Hook Promise’s signature Know the Signs programs that teach youth and adults how to recognize red flag behavior and intervene.