For six minutes on Wednesday at President Joe Biden’s Inauguration, all eyes were on Amanda Gorman. The 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate combined a message of hope and promise as she read, "even as we grieved, we grew."
In less than a day, Gorman gained more than a million social media followers.
“The fact that she's actually dominating my feed on LinkedIn, that we're not even talking about Twitter or Facebook, but LinkedIn, the professional network, tells you how much she's resonated with people across the spectrum,” said Hanson Hosein from the University of Washington’s Communication Leadership said.
Hosein studies the impact of social media in a professional landscape and teaches graduate students as well. He says the meteoric rise of Gorman’s social profile after her performance is no surprise.
“Her delivery was just so authentic. She spoke not only of the country, and of our recent history and past history, but also of herself and put it all together,” he said.
Stacey Abrams and Bernice King are just some of Gorman’s newfound online fans while her name made headlines across the country.
“You can't prescribe these things. And I don't think she necessarily expected this to happen to her, either. But it's probably what a lot of people were waiting for -- kind of that salvation or that salve from this young person who shows us how good we can be,” Hosein said.
