We created a wearable price tag to symbolize the price politicians put on student lives by accepting money from the NRA gun lobby and show how they value money more than student lives. The price on the tags is calculated by dividing the total amount received from the NRA by the total number of students.

March For Our Lives student activists like Emma Gonzalez (1.5M followers) and David Hogg (782.4k followers) shared the price tags online and directed followers to share and to download, print and wear at March For Our Lives events. The price tags not only called out politicians who take money from the NRA, they directed supports to an online fundraising tool for the movement and sent a clear and direct message to politicians that they cannot continue to value gun money over lives.

The wearable, bright orange (orange is associated with gun safety) price tags feature the price NRA backed politicians put on students’ lives. The first price tag read $1.05 and represented the price for students in Florida. We started with Florida because that is where the student activists live and where the Parkland shooting took place. In Florida, if you take the $3.3 Million in NRA donations Senator Marco Rubio received and divide it by the 3.14 Million students in Florida, it comes out to $1.05 per student. From there we calculated a price tag for every state using the worst offender’s total NRA donations divided by the total number of students in the state. The back of each price tag lists the other NRA backed politicians in the state and the NRA money they take. Politicians from both political parties are included.

Originating on a few viral social media posts by student activists, the orange price tags made their way into the sea of millions of people at March For Our Lives events across the country and on stage during activist speeches and celebrity performances in Washington D.C. Some of the biggest names wearing the price tags that day were George and Amal Clooney as well as Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. The media took notice. The price tags were featured on segments aired on CNN and Good Morning America, with reporters asking politicians for comment, and on relevant sites like Vox, Slate, Huffington Post, and Teen Vogue. Overall, there were 826 press mentions with headlines explaining the price tags and issuing a warning to politicians who accept NRA money, generating over 2.2 Billion impressions. The movement has already started to influence legislation and elections in a few key states.

The prominent student activists behind March For Our Lives shared the symbolic price tags on social media and directed students and gun control supporters to download, print and share the price tags and wear them at March For Our Lives events. They also drove supporters to an online fundraising tool to “buy back lives” by donating the amount on the price tags. Wearing the price tags was a clear message directed at politicians calling them out for putting a price on student lives by accepting large sums of money from the gun lobby and not passing gun control legislation.

The price tags were launched on social media to mobilize the student activists’ millions of followers and direct them to download, print and share. Price tags were also distributed at March For Our Lives events for supporters to wear, in order for the symbol to become iconic and drive press and awareness of the price tag message and March For Our Lives, so that American politicians and the NRA heard loud and clear that valuing gun money over lives would no longer be tolerated. The price tags were also used to drive online donations by directing supporters to “buy back lives” and support the movement.

The USA gun lobby, The National Rifle Association (NRA), gives millions of dollars to politicians so they don’t pass meaningful gun control legislation. Gun violence continues to be a major issue and after every mass shooting, the USA engages in the same debate over our gun laws. And even though the majority of Americans support gun control, these NRA backed politicians continue to do nothing. But after the latest mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, the survivors spoke up to demand change. They organized the March For Our Lives rally which attracted millions and started a movement. Building off the success of the March they created the March For Our Lives (MFOL) organization and action fund to continue to push politicians to pass gun control. We were tasked with creating a symbol for the movement.