Leading up to Super Bowl LIII, Twitter users boosted the hashtag “ImWithKap” in reference to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, according to a Twitter data analysis conducted by reporters at the Peninsula Press.
The total number of tweets with the hashtag in the month leading up to game day was 1,955. On Super Bowl Sunday, there were 30,715 tweets with the hashtag.
Kaepernick, who last played in 2016, is famously known for kneeling during the National Anthem as a protest against racial injustice and oppression in the United States.
In our visualization, each Lego block represents five tweets including “#ImWithKap.”
Each photograph documents the increase in tweets starting on Jan. 5, 2019, through Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 3, 2019.
Gillian Brassil has been reporting for as long as she can remember. She is pursuing her M.A. in Journalism while finishing her B.A. in Communication with a minor in Creative Writing at Stanford. Most recently, Gillian has been experimenting with different forms of journalism at CNBC. Gillian is eager to continue writing, filming and photographing important stories to make the world a well informed and connected place. In her free time, she competes for Stanford's varsity synchronized swimming team, serves as a peer advisor for the Communication department, edits for The Stanford Daily and hosts a news hour on KZSU.
Aliyah Chavez is a multimedia journalist passionate about the intersection of Indigenous communities and news. Much of her inspiration stems from growing up on the Kewa Pueblo tribal reservation in New Mexico-- a place where Native people are largely underrepresented in all forms of media. She graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in Communication and the Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity in 2018. Previously, Aliyah has completed internships with the U.S. Department of Interior, NBC’s TODAY show, and the West Valley View in Phoenix. She is also a member of the Native American Journalists Association. In her free time, she enjoys all things fitness, playing with her young siblings and cheering for the Stanford Cardinal as a member of the cheerleading team.
Connor Richards graduated from the University of Utah in 2018 with a B.S. in Communication. He worked in various roles at The Daily Utah Chronicle where he covered criminal justice, racism and discrimination, environmental justice, sexual assault and other topics related to systemic injustice. In fall 2017, he worked on a research project looking at the role of race and class in local media coverage of Utah’s opioid epidemic. He has interned on the government and politics desk at The Salt Lake Tribune and as a general news reporter for KSL.com. Connor is eager to develop skills in multimedia and computational journalism to make him a better investigative reporter and more compassionate storyteller.
Zoe Schiffer is a journalist based in Berkeley, California. Her work centers on the tech industry, with a focus on privacy and surveillance. After graduating from UC Berkeley in 2014, she worked as a writer for companies like Uber and IDEO, and contributed to The Huffington Post. Most recently, she worked at the East Bay’s independent news site, Berkeleyside.
