"Stigmatized" is a series of animated shorts aimed at removing the stigma around mental illness. The aim is to get people talking and sharing their stories about mental health to encourage others to seek help without shame.
Our strategy was to use simple but impactful animation to tell stories about everyday people struggling with mental health issues. As a Fusion Media Group initiative, we have the opportunity to release episodes on three different platforms including FUSION, Univision.com, and The Root - each platform receiving a story about mental health that is of the utmost relevance to those audiences.
We find participants through social media channels like Instagram and Reddit by asking for people to share their stories in order to help others. The animation is narrated by the participant, which lends a personal touch to a very personal topic.
The process of "Stigmatized" is unique because we use social media influencers to find participants, then we share the finished product through the influencers channel which makes more people want to come forward with their own story.
Lastly, our community outreach involved contacting organizations and influencers to assist in amplifying each video's reach so as to raise awareness of mental health issues.
This ongoing series has met our team's objective and goals. Two episodes of "Stigmatized" have been released to date garnering approximately 700K views across video players.
We also received incredible support from organizations like ADAA and NAMI who picked up the videos and shared them with their audiences.
Additionally, we are thrilled to see overwhelming positive support for the series, which is reflected in the amount of comments left by Facebook users suffering from "Panic Attacks" and commenting on issues related to Black mental health.
