BlueSky to comment via emoji on the tragic Wisconsin school shooting, and shared a headline that is receiving a significant amount of attention.
The shooting occurred this past Monday at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, resulting in a teacher and a teenage student being killed while six others were injured, including five students and one teacher.
The shooter was a 15-year-old student at the school and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes.
“Today truly is a sad day for Madison and for our country,” Barnes said during a press conference. “It is a day that I believe will live in our collective minds for a very, very long time.”
Reactions to the shooting have been a mix of sadness and numbness, as if Americans are so used to school shootings that it isn’t surprising anymore. That reality is, in itself, a tragedy. Yet, here we are, listening to the news of the never-ending nightmare that has become the killing of our children.
It’s incomprehensible.
Mark Hamill, who became one of the most popular celebrities on social media thanks in part to his The Onion — a publication that specializes in satire.
Though misunderstood by some, the headline is meant to remind people just how serious an issue school shootings are because even the satire publication doesn’t joke about it.
The headline reads, “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
It was originally used for an article published in 2014, which concludes, “Residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past five years were referring to themselves and their situation as ‘helpless.’”
In the decade since, the article and/or headline has been shared whenever a school shooting happens in the United States, which is sadly very frequently.
Mark Hamill shared the headline and added a simple “heartbroken” emoji.
Hamill’s audience on BlueSky is rapidly growing after ing the platform fairly recently. He currently has over 900k followers.
The post received numerous replies, some misunderstanding The Onion’s approach, but most fully understanding and expressing frustration over shootings happening on a regular basis.
Others pointed out that it’s the only headline they hope to never see again.
For years, Hamill was arguably the most popular figure on Twitter/X yet announced a few weeks ago that he he will mostly be inactive on the platform, at least temporarily, thanks to the appeal of BlueSky and his vocal disdain for Elon Musk, in particular.
It hasn’t stopped Hamill from still logging into his X and sometimes replying to others, even congratulating some people. You may not know it unless you check his replies tab, where he might say thank you to someone or just offer encouragement. After all, he still has nearly 5 million followers on X. However, he does limit his original posts to BlueSky, at least for now. Perhaps he will return to X someday, but hopefully it won’t be due to the need to share the aforementioned Onion headline.
Published: Dec 17, 2024 06:32 pm