Friends and family rally for Bretto. Photo: @surfersforbretto
Social media is a central part of life now. That’s just a fact. We check in with it all day long, we get most, if not all of our news through it, and we even keep tabs on our favorite celebrities. And every once in a while somebody uses it to do something more than just get a few people to double tap a tiny little heart for the sake of offering a vote of approval. That’s the case in the wake of Brett Connellan’s shocking shark attack.
The Australian nearly bled to death when a shark took a chunk of his leg outside of Sydney last week. He’s since made it through more than eight hours of surgery and has been sharing some good thoughts and messages on his own social media. Doctors are starting to say things look “promising” for Brett, and this is where things have started to take a positive turn in something that could have been completely tragic. The Local Artist Division decided with all the buzz around Brett’s story they should create an opportunity for “likes” to become something tangible for once, which gave birth to the @surfersforbretto campaign.
The idea is of course to raise as much money as possible to help Connellan and his family with their new medical bills and the long expensive road ahead. But beyond just asking people to spread the word, they offered an entertaining little incentive to making it all go viral:
“We have Justin Wynn putting his hand up to get the ‘Brett Simpson’ style drawing tattooed on his ribs if 2 people donate $5,000,” the campaign site says. “Or if a business donates $10,000, or 10 pro surfers donate $1,000.” It turns out Brett is a huge fan on The Simpsons, so his friends figured they’d make putting a smile on Connellan’s face just as important as the fundraising itself. And their trick? They’ve asked supporting surfers to tag their own favorite celebrity and ask for a shout out to the cause, which in turn would gain more visibility to the cause, and of course raise even more money.
A photo of the Simpsons tattoo Justin Wynn will be getting in support of shark attack survivor Brett Connellan if and when @surfersforbretto raises $10,000.
Naturally, it didn’t take long for Kelly Slater to chime in, offering his own positive message and shout out to Brett while he starts his road to recovery.
“@brettconnellan was attacked by a shark south of Sydney last week,” Slater wrote on his instagram account. “In case you haven’t heard or seen any info, here’s a link if you’d like to assist in his recovery. Best of luck in your healing, Brett. When one of our troops goes down it affects all of us so just know you’ve got a lot of people in your corner pulling for you that you’ve never even met. Hope to see you back in the water very soon.”
So, for a campaign that’s all about using celebrity influence to get as much visibility as possible, @surfersforbretto just snagged their biggest fish as far as surfers are concerned. Is it working? Well, at the moment @surfersforbretto is halfway to their $10,000 goal. Not too bad.
