One simple wish from a 5 year old boy generated so much goodness. Indeed no hero too small.
Miles Scott, 5 years old and in remission of leukemia had a wish: to be Batman. So the Make A Wish Foundation turned San Francisco into Gotham City for a day on November 15.
Dressed up at Batman, he accompanied an older Batman around Gotham in the Batmobile to stop the Riddler and The Penguin from their dastardly deeds. Including rescuing a damsel in distress.
Make A Wish made things happen. Thousands turned up to watch the events and cheer Batkid on as he saved the day.
Tweets with the #SFBatkid hashtag made Tweetdeck one big blur of tweets. The photos, Vine videos and YouTube videos tugged at the heart strings, made me tear up and brought a lot of joy around the Internet and the world.
I learned a few lessons:
1. Make A Wish made use of social media to send out a call for volunteers. The response was tremendous. So while social media played a big, big role in making this happen, the beautiful lesson here is among all the constant negativity in the world, there are indeed good people on our Earth. Even the media — notorious for cashing in on their concentration on negatively spun stories and such — got in on the act.
2. Batkid inspired illustrations on Instagram. And they were quite detailed and DC style!
3. The importance and impact of cartoon characters. Little kids love them so much. This past Hallowe’en saw many, many, many Iron Mans, Captain Americas, Batmans, Spider-Man’s, Supermans, etc… as per usual. It’s important to keep this in mind when drawing stories.
Just this week I found myself realising how little I had known back when I was a kid watching Porky Pig cartoons that one day into the future I’d create a stuttering cartoon character for other people who stutter around the world. Batkid made me realise that part of my audience may be children just like Batkid. This confirmed my intension on making Franky Banky and his friends strong and positive role models.
4. People love helping others.
Thanks Batkid. You not only saved Gotham City today, but you made the world a little brighter.