First of all, as the site of the organization Sidaction reminds us, today in France nearly 150,000 people live with the AIDS virus and 30,000 are unaware of it. Each year, 6,000 new cases are detected on our territory...
To fight against this scourge, the AIDES association has just started a large awareness-raising operation throughout France. This "viral" campaign, which started on the internet, is called "Me, AIDS". The purpose of this operation is to give the AIDS virus human form.
For this, the organization has set up a kind of fictional character, first on Twitter under the name
@lesida. As communication manager Antoine Henry explains to AFP, many people have already received or will soon receive a message with inside written “AIDS is following you”! The objective is to open a real conversation around this disease, with AIDS itself.
Because @lesida responds to most of the messages sent to it in a light tone, often using humor. He challenges public figures as in this
tweet, which made Internet users laugh a lot:“@christineboutin hello #JeSuisLà! ". It is also thanks to the hashtag
#JeSuisLà that @lesida intends to continue to titillate Internet users. The only weapon of twittos to shut him up is the hashtag
#Shut Up!
Twitter is only the beginning of the campaign, the AIDS character is also present on Facebook, Instagram but also on Tinder. He is everywhere, always ready to engage in discussion with you... Subsequently, several posters will be displayed in France bearing messages such as:"I am neither racist nor homophobic - AIDS".
To illustrate and get people talking about the project, AIDES even offers a first-person video with the voice of Gaspard Proust in the background, who presents himself as the virus. We see him wandering around the capital, meeting new people and as Gaspard or rather AIDS says:"I am a faithful friend but without the word friend".