On March 17, Adelaide Charlier posted a video on her Instagram account. In front of the camera, she decides to talk about the drilling project in Alaska. The Willow Project, which caused debate in the United States and which brought together many opponents on TikTok. More than 418 million visits for the hashtag #stopwillow on the network.
Followed by more than 21,000 people on Instagram, Adélaïde Charlier is co-founder and French-speaking coordinator of Youth for Climate, an association founded after the Friday youth strike for climate movement, started by Greta Thunberg.
She is also a student of social and political sciences and a special adviser to the vice-president of the European Commission. Although this Belgian activist is already juggling all her titles, she finds time to post content on Instagram every day. Her objective: to mobilize by sharing the actions of her movement.
Actions in front of the Total headquarters, calls for training in civil disobedience, boycott of the World Cup, but also explanations of the latest IPCC report and operations on the seabed: all issues related to global warming are covered in his account .
But to attract people on Instagram, “you have to know how to play with codes,” Adélaïde admits to Tech&Co. And therefore appeal to the emotions. That’s why she prefers videos in front of the camera, often accompanied by background music.
“Promoting the Cause”
Considered by the media as “the Belgian Greta Thunberg”, she wants to translate her words. “I don’t really like this term ‘incarnation’, because ecology is a collective struggle. But I decided to post on my personal account, which was in private mode before.” The first publication of her is a photo of her where we see her together with Greta Thunberg, in March 2019.
Being an activist on Instagram involves a double bind: getting attention and keeping it, especially when it comes to serious issues. You also need to know how to simply and effectively talk about a complex topic, such as ecology.
Posting on Instagram has become a true profession in its own right, which implies a certain professionalization. “Mainly I appeal to my environment, I have friends who work in communication, I borrow equipment from right to left…it’s clearly inventive,” she underlines.
All this takes time. “You have to think about the subject, choose the format, shoot it, edit it, publish it. What also takes time is reviewing each piece of information that I provide, because I am the one in charge”.
She believes, however, that Instagram has a negative social and environmental impact, “but it’s also a tool that allows us to advance the cause.”
Youth for Climate is an international movement, so “social networks give us the opportunity to coordinate, organize our actions and mobilize. We are a generation that grew up with social media and hyperconnection.”
“This account is my way of getting involved”
Pierre Rouvière takes advantage of this hyperconnection of young people to talk to them about ecological causes. With his Ecolo mon cul Instagram account, which he defines “as sarcastic and humorous”, he makes comparisons between objects (plastic toothbrush vs. bamboo toothbrush, tote bag vs. plastic bag, for example).
His other main publications try to denounce the greenwashing of companies: Google, H&M, Heineken, Sanex… none is spared. Greenwashing is a communication technique that consists of artificially promoting a more responsible and ecological brand image.
“This account, which brings together 49,000 subscribers, is my way of getting involved,” he explains to Tech&Co. Above all, he wants me to “think” among Internet users. Pierre had the idea of launching this account during the lockdown, when he saw that around him there was a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about global warming.
“I am an engineer and an eco-designer, so I am interested in learning about exchanges with those around me,” he explains. However, he does not consider himself an expert on the subject: “I watch the news, I read reports, I cross-reference data, I discuss, but I am not a researcher.”
Then he thought about how he could address a large audience. Instagram has proven to be the best platform for visual and explanatory content.
I wanted an Instagram account that didn’t feel guilty. “Decomplex without simplifying”, she adds. So she opted not to make videos and stay in a text format because “it allows you to qualify and present the speech, although it is always difficult to talk about such a complex topic in 10 slides.”
In exchanges with his subscribers, he’s glad to see people asking questions, but maintaining this account “takes a lot of time” because he does everything himself, from graphics to text to illustrations.
Regarding his vision of the climate future, he believes that “times will be difficult, but all is not lost.” “I am not a fatalist, we must continue the fight”, he assures.
Get on the trend
On Féris Barkat’s Instagram account, one of his latest videos shows him in Matignon questioning the prime minister about the need to train young people in ecology and to introduce this notion into the school curriculum to create new skills.
And he knows what he is talking about: Féris Barkat is co-founder of the Banlieues Climat association, born in November 2022, with which he works with young people who are often neglected by the climate issue, or who are not interested at first glance. .
Before fully committing to the climate cause, the 20-year-old from Strasbourg decided to drop out after a few months at the London School of Economics. He later joined the Collège citoyen de France, which supports youth projects.
Since the beginning of the year, he has put aside his TikTok account to invest more in Instagram. If TikTok was the platform that best suited the discourse she wanted to share in her eyes, she eventually discovered that “on TikTok, few accounts were focused on ecology,” she notes for Tech & Co.
To stand out, he has posted videos in which he slams texts that talk about global warming. An original format that earned him a small success: “Everything was very fast, in a month he had 40,000 subscribers.”
On TikTok, even more than on Instagram, you have to know how to capture attention from the first seconds “and therefore find topics that divide and make people react: red meat, Elon Musk,” he explains.
Slam videos allow you to directly touch the emotions of users while conveying a message. “If you can attract a young man who is distant and doesn’t know much about climate issues, if I can open a door, then I’ve already achieved something.”
For this reason, through his social networks and his association, Féris Barkat wants to reach another public: “There are young people who have no idea about these issues, they are exposed to misinformation, it can be difficult for them to be interested because we do not have the tools We have the impression that the climate emergency is a boho thing, while the youth of the suburbs are among the first to be exposed”, he concludes.
Source: BFM TV
