Valeria Shashenok lives, or I should say lived (since she managed to travel to Poland), in Ukraine as a free-lance photographer. Now she is a TikTok-celebrity because of her tongue-in-cheek TkTok-videos made in the bomb shelter where she and her family survived.
Quote from The Cut: "While jaded and darkly funny, her footage doesn’t hide the devastation. She says she uses humor as a coping mechanism, but also to make people care. Her TikToks are a way to show the war from her eyes, a reprieve from the bleak news streams in the West. “Everybody cries now,” she says. “If I cry too, it’s not helpful.”"
I think it show how social media can also enhance resilience. Shashenok's videos are not only a coping mechanism for her but for all of us who care about what happens in Ukraine. They are also bad news for oppressive regimes and their pathetic propaganda wars.
TAGS: WAR SOCIALMEDIA TIKTOK RESILIENCE