NEW YORK — A lively discussion broke out backstage during Climate Week NYC between a TikTok comedian, a buzzed-about actress, a Latin cuisine entrepreneur and a cooking content creator.
Convened by World Food Program USA to educate the panel’s audiences — over 1.8 million Instagram followers combined — about hunger, the four weighed best practices for authentically breaking down weighty topics on social media.
“I want to force myself to be more active on TikTok,” said “ Avatar: The Way of Water ” star Bailey Bass. Users “have a thought, and they are talking on their phone, and they post it. It feels very palpable.”
“But how do you know this is true?” asked Manolo Gonzalez Vergara, who co-founded the culinary brand Toma with his mother and actress Sofia Vergara. “This is just a person talking.”
“But it’s someone you can relate with, so there’s a level of trust,” added Drea Okeke, a Nigerian-American engineer turned social media star with over 6 million TikTok followers.
The exchange underscored the questions faced by the humanitarian establishment as they try to reach younger, more environmentally conscious generations who — they routinely acknowledged throughout the many events unfolding this week alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York — are tasked with digging the world out of the hole left by years of climate inaction.
Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates acknowledged as much at a Thursday Q&A promoting his new Netflix show. “We have left some real challenges for this next generation,” acknowledged Gates, who runs one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations.
Young people with large online followings can be good “placeholders” for older institutions seeking relevance with new generations, said Wawa Gatheru. The Kenyan-American activist regularly uses Instagram to promote Black Girl Environmentalist, the national community she founded to diversify the climate movement’s leadership pipeline.
But Gatheru cautioned against looping “any young person who is visible online as an influencer” or, alternatively, cheapening youth leaders’ expertise simply because they are active online.
“In order to do it well and effectively and not be tokenistic, it’s so important to see young people as collaborators, young people as capable,” she told The Associated Press.
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