Mini Youth Campaign 2025Online communities, emojis and Algospeak: How do young people talk to each other?
What is the Mini Youth Campaign?
The Mini Youth Campaign is a joint online project run by klicksafe and Nummer gegen Kummer. The aim of this project is to actively involve young people in media education.
The idea behind it: Young people themselves create content for the social media channels of the two organizations. They contribute their experiences and perspectives and show what concerns them.
In doing so, current online trends, risks and youth culture are made visible at first hand and adults are given guidance at the same time.
This year, young people worked with media educators from klicksafe and Nummer gegen Kummer to develop content on the topic of Algospeak. This was based on two online workshops in which the young people discussed, planned and ultimately developed specific contributions.
Focus 2025: Online communities, emojis and Algospeak
Digital communication today is characterized by emojis, abbreviations and codes that are often not immediately understandable to adults. At the same time, online communities are playing an increasingly important role for young people. They offer a sense of belonging, exchange and identification, but can also become problematic spaces.
This is precisely where the Mini Youth Campaign comes in. Real-life examples are used to explain how quickly misunderstandings can arise, what risks there are and how important it is for parents and teachers to stay in contact with young people.
The content developed by young people
Pros and cons of online communities
Comparison of pros and cons. Created by young people:
Positive aspects:
- Belonging and exchange
- New friendships
- Sharing interests
- Retreat in case of stress or exclusion offline
Negative aspects:
- Glorification of violence
- Glorification of eating disorders (Pro Ana, Pro Mia)
- Extremist movements (e.g. Manosphere, Incel networks)
- Manipulation and psychological violence
- Livestreams of cruelty to animals or damage to property
The focus is on helping adults understand how different online communities can be and why young people often feel safer there than in everyday offline life.
Quiz on terms from the manosphere
For an interactive quiz, the young people selected four terms that they encounter particularly frequently online:
- Incel: involuntarily single, associated with misogynistic attitudes.
- Alpha Male: extremely masculine male role.
- 100 Emoji: Code for the 80/20 theory (only 20 percent of attractive men are desirable).
- Looksmaxxing: extreme optimization of appearance, origin in incel forums.
The quiz post explains the terms clearly and shows how such ideologies can influence young people.
Parent-child relationship in everyday digital life
An emotional article addresses what young people really want:
- A willingness to talk instead of control,
- interest in digital topics,
- understanding that parents can sometimes feel overwhelmed.
Three key messages of the post are:
Talk - Ask - Inform.
Tips for a healthy approach to social media
The final post contains specific recommendations that the young people themselves consider important:
- Check security settings together,
- Plan breaks from social media,
- agree fixed smartphone times,
- actively influence the algorithm (block, like, pause),
- unfollow unhelpful accounts,
- report problematic content (on the platform or to reporting centers).
You can find all the content of the Mini Youth Campaign during this week (November 24-28, 2025) on the Instagram channels of the Number against grief and klicksafe.
