Up until the most recent few weeks, much of America had no idea what was happening in Aleppo. Most of us were aware at most that the Syrian civil war was happening, but until the military offensive that took over 90% of East Aleppo that left civilians alone to be bombed and raided by the pro-Syrian government, no one knew the extent of it. Most of us didn't know enough to care or want to help.

I, for one, don't watch the news as much as I should. I've known about the Syrian conflict, but I was fuzzy on the details. I didn’t know it had been going on for over five years or if ISIS was involved at all. It wasn't until I started seeing videos of civilians' final thoughts and words, perhaps the last words they'd ever get to share with the world, on Facebook that I was compelled to learn more. It's been heartbreaking, and it made me wonder: why didn't I know that this was happening? Why did no one care about Aleppo until we were forced to face people's dying words? Is it too late now?

This led me to a truth: American's media coverage of this whole conflict has been a joke. My google endeavors and the automatic search options that came up revealed that many people still aren't sure who is fighting whom and what the conflict is even about. We don't even have the basic facts of who's involved and what's at stake. Is the government good or bad? Should we have armed the rebels? What role did America have in this? That's because our mainstream media is more concerned with keeping us up-to-date on what celebrity couples are getting divorced, how to be better in bed, how to lose weight and what beauty standards the average person isn't good enough for. There has been that little information going out to the American public of what is happening across the world. And now, it feels as though we are too far behind to catch up.

Our media should cater to its audience’s interests, and while Americans do eat up the trash they put out, I’d like to believe that our media is forming our interests more than anything. We have been manipulated and conditioned to care about nothing outside of our first-world lives and luxury-laden society that is obsessed with fads and celebrity culture. We have been taught to give in to fear-mongering and are happy to point the finger at ISIS or Putin or Hillary Clinton or President Obama or whoever else could potentially be an easily-believed scapegoat for the world’s problems. Then we move on. The news that does have any journalistic integrity and reports on important world events is often extremely biased, dramatized or a little too complex for the average person to turn on and understand (particularly now that most of us are catching up). Especially with the Trump presidency looming over us, continual scare mongering and deflecting from the issues are an even bigger threat to any search for information.

Subsequently, the lack of real news coming out of our mainstream media is creating a cycle of an uninformed population: I know that most news is biased or not going to tell me anything of importance, so I don’t care to keep up with it. That makes it my responsibility to find the information I want and to scour through all of the trash to find credible sources telling me what I want to know. With how much energy that takes and the sheer attitude that one shouldn’t have to go through that trouble to figure out what’s happening in the world, many people simply don’t. We don’t make the news tell us what we want to know; we just stop listening to it.

So what did it take for Americans to want to know more about Aleppo? It took the raw, unedited last words of civilians telling us what was happening outside of our selfish lives. It smacked us in the face and it made us pay attention.

These videos show us the power that social media can have. That even with the terrible news coverage, even with the bias of publications, these people can broadcast themselves straight to the world and show that they are human. They can show what this conflict is doing to civilians and what is first-hand happening in this city. There is no sugarcoating, there is no mask; there is just a person who is showing the world their honest nightmare. These people are scared and truly believe their time is almost up. For many, it will be. And now, we know that Aleppo has been liberated and many civilians were taken in as refugees unharmed. This was not the sole result of these videos, but it put the spotlight on leaders to do something about the situation.

It is time to step up and not only understand what is going on in the rest of the world, but to care about it. It is time to make our media tell us what we want to know without pushing their own agendas. It is time to recognize that there is more happening than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s split-up. With the President elect and his cabinet that are about to be in charge of our country, it is time to make it known that we want to care before it is too late.

To help understand what is happening in Syria, here is a timeline of the events leading up to this recent evacuation and bombing of Aleppo.

Here is a summation of the Syrian conflict, who’s fighting, what countries are helping, and what is being fought over.

Here is a website that provides detailed daily overviews of the conflict.

And here is an article that lists multiple organizations you can donate to to help Syrian civilians.