'See the Good': Online campaign aims to combat global hate

The idea is to spotlight individuals from marginalized communities whose work and inventions have impacted the world positively.

By HANNAH BROWN DECEMBER 8, 2024 01:02

ANTHONY WOLCH: You’re either on the side of good or you’re not. (photo credit: See the Good)

As international antisemitism and hate crimes have surged in the past year, it might seem like a difficult time to ask people to find good in the world, but that’s what makes it so vital, said Anthony Wolch, the CEO and founder of See the Good.

In a recent visit to Jerusalem, Wolch spoke of See the Good’s global campaign, which is using the clout of mostly American celebrities to focus on the power of storytelling to build bridges between people of different communities and to encourage tolerance and understanding.

The idea is to spotlight individuals from marginalized communities whose work and inventions have impacted the world positively.

Wolch, a creative leader who has run campaigns for major brands, such as Coca-Cola and Nike, for 30 years, feels that he can use his skills to build a campaign that will combat hatred by creating content that tells positive stories about cooperation, innovation, and progress, to break through boundaries and speak to people worldwide.

He was galvanized to start acting, he said, “When a friend of mine called and said, ‘You’ve run the world’s biggest brands, so what are you going to do to slow down hate?’” He took a day to consider this challenge and realized that narrowly targeted campaigns were missing the mark.

Privacy online (credit: envato)

Wolch drew on his professional experience to study data on previous campaigns against hate and learned that broad-based campaigns have had far more success than limited ones.

“As we tracked through human conversation around the world, we realized that so many people are saying, ‘Yes, these bad things are happening, but you have to find a way to see the good. There is so much good happening.’ So we called the campaign, ‘See the Good.’”

Working on building the brand and an advisory team, Wolch decided that, to advance the goal, “See the Good, to begin with, would tell the stories of people from marginalized cultures and visible minorities who have propelled humankind forward with such an order of magnitude that without them, it’s likely that two out of three of us sitting here right now wouldn’t be here today.

“These people have developed certain innovations to propel humankind forward and distributed these innovations without the primary purpose of patent or profit, just to make the world a better place, because they felt that was their mission in life,” he continued.

Wolch has partnered with Irwin Cotler, the international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, which became a not-for-profit partner. Following this, Wolch realized that the campaign would only succeed if he got it to spread virally rather than as a paid campaign, and he has been working on involving influencers and celebrities around the world.

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Two films

TWO OF the films produced so far are now on the SeetheGoodNow.com website. One is narrated by Michael Douglas, who found Wolch’s concept “amazing” and agreed immediately to take part upon hearing about it. His video tells the story of Dr. Patricia Bath, an African-American scientist who invented the Laserphaco device, which treats cataracts in a minimally invasive way and has saved the eyesight of millions.

Douglas reads a quote from Bath in which she says, “Remember that the limits of science are not the limits of the imagination.” A title notes that she was the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a medical purpose. Douglas then utters the motto of the campaign, “There has never been a more important time to see what unites us. See the good.”

A second video, narrated by actress Emmanuelle Chriqui, tells the story of how Jonas Salk, a Jewish doctor, invented the polio vaccine. 

When Wolch ran these videos by friends in Israel whose children had been at the Supernova music festival, which was attacked by Hamas on October 7, and who are from Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the kibbutzim near the Gaza border that was attacked, their response was that this campaign “could be a beacon of hope.”

More videos are in the works, and a large group of celebrities will be involved in their making.

Among them are musicians Gene Simmons, Sugaray Rayford, Geddy Lee, James Maslow, Daryl Davis, Ruben Rada, and David Draiman; influencer/singer Montana Tucker; actress/activist/scientist Mayim Bialik; former NBA champion and coach Josh Powell; Egyptian writer and activist Dalia Ziada; Brazilian actress and filmmaker Danni Suzuki; actress and influencer Bianca Jade; wrestler Samoa Joe; actress Jenna Dewan; rapper and influencer Kosha Dillz; and former NFL football player, Nick Lowery.

So many celebrities are on board, Wolch said, “Because we’re not asking anybody to pick a side. You’re either on the side of good or you’re not. You’re either in for good, or you’re in the way. There is not one celebrity I’ve spoken to who has said no.”

As Wolch raises funds to continue creating and broadening the scope of the campaign, he is optimistic that See the Good can have a global impact. 

“I had an amazing conversation with a psychologist who described hate as a grain of sand,” he said.

“Right now, planet Earth – eight billion people – and hate is coming from a grain of sand. But we’re the beach. How come we’re not covering over the grain of sand? Because no one’s doing anything about it that has any impact.

“This [campaign] has the potential to have a historic impact. Seventy percent of people under the age of 30 see a minimum of two messages of hate online every day. Our job is to reduce that to 1.9. Even 1.8. And that’s historic because none of them are seeing a reduction. But collectively, around the world, if we all get behind this, just for a brief amount of time, we are going to move the needle – mathematically, algorithmically, systematically. That’s the only way to do it.”