The Center for Volunteerism and Social Action is trying to encourage the University of Idaho community to be kind through a campaign called Nice Nominations.
The idea for the campaign came from an online drinking game called Neknomination, in which “nominees” upload videos of themselves consuming an alcoholic drink — frequently, a pint of beer — as quickly as possible.
Nice Nomination participants are asked to upload a picture or video of themselves doing a random act of kindness within a set time limit, and nominate others to do the same. Uploads are marked with the hashtag #nicenominations.
Natalie Magnus, the center’s coordinator, said this movement started at UI around the time of National Random Acts of Kindness Week, because the center wanted to get students’ attention and participation in random acts of kindness. She said they decided to use the name Nice Nominations, because several other organizations are already participating under that name, and it was an opportunity to draw attention through the rebranding of something that many students already know about.
“It was definitely stemmed from the idea of doing something nice for each other, and something healthy instead of doing something that can be more or less destructive,” Magnus said.
Andrew Blake, a student working at the Center for Volunteerism and Social Action, said the Nice Nomination project intends to offer a positive alternative to Neknomination.
“I think the idea was kind of to rebrand that program, or put a different value behind it, where it was people doing a spontaneous act of kindness, instead of a spontaneous beer chug,” he said.
Blake said workers in the center hope university community members can take control of the movement, and help it spread.
“It definitely originated in our office, but I think the beauty of it is that people who do the random acts of niceness are then able to nominate others to follow up on that, and hopefully those others nominate others, and it kind of perpetuates itself,” Blake said.
Magnus said she thinks there are people who have participated, but have been unable to send a picture or video because they didn’t have one. She said it’s difficult to tell how many responses there have been — or if people are still participating — because not everyone who participates will send their evidence to the center’s email address, which is what the initial participants did. Magnus said she thinks it’s fun to have pictures or video to help increase the interest in the program, but that it is not necessary.
“The point of the program — if you could call it a program — is to do random acts of kindness, and random acts of kindness don’t need to be posted on Facebook, they just need to be done,” she said.
Micaela Iveson, outreach coordinator for the Center for Volunteerism and Social Action, said she thinks Nice Nomination is twofold, because it both encourages people to spread positivity and helps people recognize ways in which they already have a positive impact.
“I think that people tend to go around their daily lives doing kind things for people, without necessarily even realizing it,” she said.
Iverson said she liked the idea that it was possible to change something silly into something positive for the community, and she hopes the campaign makes people’s days a little brighter.
Daphne Jackson can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu