Parkland activist Emma Gonzalez now has more followers than the NRA

Among the impressive and unwavering young activists that emerged from the mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead, 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez has stood out. Since her powerful and emotional 11-minute speech at an anti-gun rally two days after her classmates were killed, she, along with fellow activist David Hogg, has amassed a huge social media following and national recognition.

Taking to Twitter to help spread their message, Hogg as of this writing has just under 300,000 Twitter followers while Gonzales approaches a million with just over 800,000 — a huge change in social media presence since they were just average high school students before the shooting. Turns out, they’re not so average.

As their star power continues to grow, someone noticed a symbolic milestone Gonzalez has achieved; In just a span of two weeks, she now has over 300,000 more followers on Twitter than the NRA.

Currently, the NRA’s official Twitter account has just under 600,000 followers.

At first glance, it seems like a milestone that’s purely symbolic, but ignoring the real-world implications of her popularity would be a mistake. Elections are coming, and the movement headed by the Parkland survivors is ready to burn it all down.

Featured image via screen grab/YouTube

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.