Collected Item: “Masks are Not Dangerous”
Give your story a title.
Masks are Not Dangerous
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
text, meme, and photograph
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
Anyone who follows me on social media knows I am pretty open about everything. I talk openly about my disabilities, my activism, and my health struggles. One of those is my allergic asthma which seems to increase in severity each year due to climate change and this year, bored neighbors over mowing their lawns. As an avid outdoors person having a severe allergy to grass pollen is a major bummer but last year I found a way to enjoy the outdoors without dying. It's cheap, it's more effective than most of my medications, and it comes in cool colors; a mask! For two pollen seasons, I have happily worn and talked about the wonders of wearing a mask and the freedom they give me to live my life. So for the life of me, I cannot understand why anti-maskers I know personally have chosen to privately message me their memes about the dangers of masks. I can only sit back and laugh at their complaints and fearmongering. I'm not the only one who has worn a mask in the US long before the pandemic but our very existence debunks the beliefs of anti-maskers. No one cared about our oxygen levels when we wore masks due to the fires in California or Montana. I got odd looks from people on hiking trails but no one feared for my safety. I can only laugh and carry on at this point because it's just silly.
Photograph shows the first vog mask I owned. I was so happy to get it because I had been wearing disposable masks before and I wanted to environmentally friendly. I posted this on all my social media accounts.
Meme was privately messaged to me through facebook messenger. For ethical reasons I did not include the original sender. This person is well aware that I wear masks on a daily basis long before the pandemic.
Photograph shows the first vog mask I owned. I was so happy to get it because I had been wearing disposable masks before and I wanted to environmentally friendly. I posted this on all my social media accounts.
Meme was privately messaged to me through facebook messenger. For ethical reasons I did not include the original sender. This person is well aware that I wear masks on a daily basis long before the pandemic.
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#promasks, #anti-anti-maskers, #humor, #fearmongering, #fauxscience
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
Stephanie Berry
Give this story a date.
2020-07-01