When Tyler Atkins heard about the shooting of Michael Brown, 18, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., he posted on Twitter a picture of himself in a tuxedo, with a saxophone around his neck, next to a photograph of himself dressed in a black T-shirt with a blue bandanna tied around his head and his finger pointed at the camera.
Like hundreds of young African-Americans, he placed his pictures under the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, protesting Mr. Brown's killing by a police officer and the way young black men are depicted in the news media. He said Mr. Brown's identity was distorted and filtered through negative stereotypes, and that the same would have been done to him with the bandanna image if he found himself the victim of a similar tragedy. The first picture was taken after a jazz concert at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Tex., where Mr. Atkins, a senior, studies music. The other was taken during a recording for a rap video he made with friends for a school math project.
'Had the media gained a hold of this picture, I feel I it would be used to portray that I was in a gang, which is not true at all,' Mr. Atkins, 17, wrote in an email.
The speed with which the shooting of Mr. Brown has resonated on social media has helped propel and transform a local shooting into a national cause, as African-American commenters draw attention to continued incidents of blacks being shot by police and the media portrayals of young black men.
'This affects me deeply because the stories of Mike Brown, Renisha McBride, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo and many more could have been me,' Mr. Atkins wrote, referring to the shooting deaths of blacks, some at the hands of police.
Local authorities in Ferguson have said that social media contributed to some of the violence that took place after the shooting. Commenters on Twitter have coordinated a series of vigils called the National Moment of Silence or #NMOS14, which are meant to commemorate victims of police brutality. The vigils are expected to be held on Thursday evening in cities around the country, including St. Louis.
Brittney Gault, 28, a student at DePaul University, said the #IfTheyGunnedMeDown campaign gained popularity because of the strength of black Twitter users collectively known as 'Black Twitter.'
'They are really a media response team,' Ms. Gault said. 'Everybody is tapped into Black Twitter.'
Ms. Gault posted a photograph of herself at a shooting range, her head turned to the camera, a smile on her face, and a handgun firmly in her right hand. In her second photograph, Ms. Gault holds a microphone as she gives a talk; her hair is tied back into a tight headwrap.
'Those two pictures are in the public domain, they are on my Facebook page,' Ms. Gault said. 'If I was gunned down, those are the images that would be circulated.'
Since the IfTheyGunnedMeDown campaign began, the phrase has been used on Twitter more than 158,000 times.
The image of Mr. Brown that spurred the campaign on Twitter showed him with the fingers of his right hand extended in what some considered a peace sign, but which others called a gang sign. A spokeswoman for NBC News, one of the outlets that published the photograph online, said it was taken from Mr. Brown's personal Facebook page, where it was his profile picture.
In a subsequent article about Mr. Brown's killing, the network used a different photograph of him that showed him wearing headphones and gazing at the camera.
Tosan Tutse-Tonwe, 32, a blogger, consultant and co-founder of a nonprofit group called Act 4 Accountability, who participated in the campaign, said photographs remove context from a situation, particularly when the public is prone to thinking black men are menacing and therefore deserving of violence.
Mr. Tutse-Tonwe posted a photograph of himself wearing a T-shirt from his nonprofit and another with a black male friend who is flashing peace signs as Mr. Tutse-Tonwe gives a stern look to the camera. Mr. Tutse-Tonwe said he chose to post the photograph with his friend after the image of Mr. Brown making the same hand gesture was circulated.
'Mike was throwing up a peace sign and people thought it was a gang sign? You've got to be kidding me,' Mr. Tutse-Tonwe said. 'People make these leaps and there's no basis in them and they go unchecked.'
Jeremy Connally, 24, a student studying computer science at University of Texas at Arlington, agreed. 'They're portrayed as if they deserved it, cop versus robbers, good guys versus bad guys.' In one of Mr. Connally's photos, a red scarf is tied around his nose and mouth. His eyes are staring directly at the camera. In the other, a rabbit is nestled against his face.
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