Chloe I can’t hear anything. There’s no sound!
James Oh no! It didn’t work.
Chloe Did you have your finger over the microphone?
James Yes, maybe. I didn’t check. I’m useless with
technology!
3.23 Lesson 7D, Exercise 7
James'>Chloe Never mind. Tell me about the festival. Were you
close to the stage?
James No, I wasn’t. I couldn’t see very well. That’s why I
wanted to film it.
Chloe What kind of music did Cool Heart play?
James Mostly dance music. They didn’t play any of their
new songs.
Chloe Were the other bands good?
James Yes, they were. But I didn’t hear all of them. I left
early because I didn’t want to miss the last bus.
3.24 Lesson 7F
People Power In March 2015, a British man went to a gig in London. He
liked the music and he began to dance. Because he was
a large man, other people noticed his dancing. a few of them
laughed and took photos of him. When the man saw their
reaction, he stopped dancing and looked sad.
A few days later, the photos appeared on a well-known
internet forum. There were comments about the man’s
dancing and some of the comments were very unkind. The
man was a victim of cyber-bullying. But that wasn’t the end
of the story; it was only the beginning.
A group of people on social media, including an American
writer called Cassandra Fairbanks, were angry about the
cyber-bulling. They wanted to help the man. They decided to
have a huge party for him in California. But they didn’t know
who he was! However, it quickly became a viral story and
Twitter users started a hashtag campaign:
#FindDancingMan! After one day, they found him. Sean
O’Brien was his name. He was originally from Liverpool but
lived in London.
Cassandra Fairbanks and her friends on social media began
to organise the party for Sean in Los Angeles. They also set
up an online fundraising page to pay for Sean’s ticket to the
USA. This quickly raised more than $20,000. They gave the
extra money to anti-bullying charities. By this time, the story
of ‘Dancing Man’ was well known. When Sean opened his
own Twitter account (@dancingmanfound) he quickly got
more than 80,000 followers. Celebrities offered to help with
the party and American TV shows wanted to speak to Sean.
The party took place at a nightclub in Hollywood in May
2015. About 1,000 people were there and they danced to
music from celebrity DJ Moby. Afterwards, Sean said: ‘It was
the best night of my life!’ But it was just part of an amazing
weekend in the USA. Before the party, he appeared on the
Today Show, one of the most popular shows on American
TV. On the show, he danced with Meghan Trainor. The day
after the party, he threw the first ball of an important
baseball match. So in the end, a story about cyber-bullying
became a story about kindness. “It really shows the power
of people,” said Cassandra Fairbanks.
3.25 Lesson 7G, Exercise 2
