Kelsey Russell she is a twenty-three year old student graduated in sociology and pedagogy who, despite definitely belonging to GenZ and therefore to the generation that paper newspapers practically don’t know what they are, she went viral on Tik Tok with her videos in which she reads newspapers to her peers.
Kelsey Russell talks about paper newspapers on TikTok
It all started with Russell’s discovery of the New York Times: «For my birthday I subscribed to the physical copy of the Sunday New York Times – he says in first video of his series “New York Times Updates” – and to bring the paper back to life, I will literally document, every day, what I learn.”
Kelsey’s series, in which reads and explains newspaper articles, blew up immediately and this intro video alone captured 1.7 million views. Currently the girl has published about fifteen “NYT Update” posts, as well as others in which she reads USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and various local newspapers such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The 23-year-old student has succeeded in a mission impossible: making Gen Z kids read paper newspapers (@instragram)
GenZ is passionate about paper newspapers
Russel’s intent is, on the one hand, convince Generation Z to buy more paper newspapers because, he says ironically in another video, “we are so ignorant and illiterate.” On the other, is to become more aware of current events herself and inspire other members of Gen Z to do the same with his unique way. The crisis in publishing and paper newspapers, above all, is certainly no secret. But it seems like Kelsey’s idea caught onwith followers saying they were inspired to sign up for their own subscriptions.
Information as a birthday gift
Kelsey explained to the news site BuzzFeed in more detail how her social “series” was born: «I really felt so stupid – she said – I was in a graduate school program and I felt that for many of the things I was learning, I needed more social, political and economic context to understand. I was like “I’m turning 23, I need to know more about what’s going on in the world.” So I decided to get that context myself and I asked for a newspaper subscription as a birthday present». Kelsey said that a reporter once asked her how she would make reading the newspaper faster, so that a Generation Z reader could read it in less time, and she replied “I wouldn’t do that. This is exactly the point, choose how to spend your time! Newspapers are another way for young people to explore the possibility of regaining their attention span and critical consciousness.”
Kelsey Russell: «News shouldn’t only be read on social media»
Then he further underlined the influence of the Internet and social media: “They’ll see that you’ve been watching videos or articles online about weight loss. Now Amazon owns that idea, Google owns it. And they sell it. We all consume media online, but if you “only” consume media onlineit becomes very easy for companies don’t show you the whole story or show you a story at all». But Kelsey remains optimistic about the future of Gen Z media literacy: “People in Generation X or even earlier think we’re just not interested in the world. But we are interested, instead, we care a lot».
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