Project Poppy

It’s a new concept to me that many young people actually care about Remembrance Day and aren’t jaded, cynical individuals. So with that background, I’m torn between thinking that this is just another example of how different things are in Canada and the rest of the Western world, or if it’s partially a whole lot of teenagers jumping onto the bandwagon and turning this into a trend. Would it be too good to be true that every person who is joining this Facebook group is doing it out of a sincere belief in the importance of remembering and not because it’s a short-term, fun thing to be a part of?

Anyway, giving the benefit of the doubt, I wanted to talk about Project Poppy for another reason. (Facebook search the group to see it if this link doesn’t work for you.) Its aim is really extremely simple: they want 9 720 453 members on Facebook to change their display picture to one featuring a poppy by November 11th. Presumably this is as many people who died in WWI, although I’m not sure where they got such an exact figure.

Currently, with less than two days left, they have 38 384 members at the time of posting. They began on November 2nd, so the rate of joining is extremely high. They still need more than 9 million people to join to reach their goal, though. I’m doubtful that it will happen — are there even that many people on Facebook?

But you know what? I don’t think it matters if they don’t get their nearly 10 million strong members. It would be an incredible achievement and I hope that they will continue to grow (and faster) than they already have. But already they are making their point — does anyone not have at least one friend who has joined or heard of this group yet? (My friends, by reading this, are predestined to fall into the category of having heard of it.) Splashes of poppies can be seen everywhere if you crawl around Facebook for a while. And that is one of the greatest points that is being made: you begin to see the soldiers as individuals instead of figures.

Here is an individual with a poppy, representing one of the dead.

Here is another.

And another.

And another and another and another.

You know some of these people with poppies in their pictures. You know something about what makes them tick, about their family, their friends (definitely their friends with that useful button on Facebook), maybe something of their past, present, and dreams and aspirations. And though you may not personally know that stranger with a poppy in their picture too, they are a person regardless.

And that was only six people. The more people you see, the more you comprehend that the people — not just soldiers, but doctors, nurses, and others who worked at the front lines — who died were once living human beings. For this, I think the project will make an extremely worthwhile point.