Let’s be real, history can be fun to some, but the other half gets utterly disinterested once a class commences. But this particular series took to Instagram in a way never seen before that captures your attention to the end. Mati Kochavi was one of the brains behind the successful Eva Stories.
Mati Kochavi is an Israeli entrepreneur who has started several businesses like Vocativ, Coach AI, and AGT International. His latest project, EVA stories, has won him two awards at the Webby Awards.
What is the Eva Stories about?
The Eva Stories is an Instagram account that shows the real-life recollection of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, Eva Heyman, who was killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The whole idea was to give the viewers a real take on how things would have been if the young lady had a smartphone during those tough times. The entire experience of the Holocaust was documented in the Instagram story style.
The account currently stands at 1.2 million followers who have seen the 1944 German invasion of Hungary through Eva’s narration. The story has been twisted to fit in today’s dialect, hashtags, and even emojis teenagers are fond of currently.
Just as a teenager would be living today, the story starts as Eva documents her life on the Instagram feed on selfie-mode. She highlights her school life, her crush, and her future ambitions of becoming a news photographer that unfortunately never came to be. The tone gradually darkens as we are taken through the whole gruesome ordeal up until her death.
This story brought to light many facts and experiences that are often downplayed and never given much thought. We bet any teenager accustomed to the social media wave would pick such an approach to a history lesson forfeiting the traditional history class.
The Awards
Webby Awards is practically the most prestigious award any social media page can get. It is centered around getting the best Internet stories that revolutionize things and create massive conversation. Eva Stories took the world by storm and did the two.
The project won two awards, and the first was for the Best Campaigns on Social Media, and the second one was the Best Use of Stories. And truth be told, both these awards were deserving.
Such an approach to using social media was a very revolutionary way to teach young minds about history. And this Eva Stories series did that for teenagers, teaching them all the facts about the German Invasion of Hungary in 1944. But that is not all; it also teaches the world to commemorate all the lost lives in the Nazi-era, which can sometimes be downplayed.
How the idea was conceived
The two people who were invested in this project are Mati and Maya Kochavi, who had taken their time to read numerous diaries owned by children during those times. Eva Heyman was the one that stood out, and they felt she was a role today’s teens would relate to most.
Take away
If there is a more deserving contender of these awards, the Eva Stories, without a doubt, deserved it. And as seen, social media can become educational too.
