There is a simple truth we keep relearning in moments like this. Change does not begin with a verdict. It does not begin with a headline. It begins with people choosing to show up.
Over these long days in Los Angeles, while testimony unfolds inside the courtroom, people from the Sustainable Media Center community have been there in the room and on the steps outside. Sitting quietly in the gallery. Standing in the heat. Waiting when there were no seats left. Holding space when all that was left to do was bear witness.
That kind of presence is not symbolic. It is real. It carries weight. It says that what is happening inside those walls is not abstract, not theoretical, not just another legal proceeding to be debated at a distance. It is personal. It is human. It is about real families, real harm, and a future that is still being contested.
We want to name, with gratitude, a few of the people who have been showing up in this way:
Nicki Reisberg, host of the “Scrolling 2 Death” podcast and SMC Advisory Board Member, for helping carry this story into the public conversation, for refusing to let it be flattened into soundbites, and for staying with the hard, uncomfortable parts of what this moment represents.
Toney and Brandy Roberts, parents of Englyn Roberts, for the courage it takes to walk into a place that holds so much grief, again and again, and to do so not only for your own child, but for families you have never met, whose stories echo your own. They are SMC Advisory Board Members as well and we appreciate all they do.
Laura Marquez-Garrett, with the Social Media Victims Law Center and SMC Advisory Board Member,, for standing with families every day outside the courtroom, for translating legal process into human language, and for insisting that truth belongs in public, not behind closed doors or managed by press teams.
Sarah Gardner, founder and CEO of The Heat Initiative, for bringing a steady moral clarity to this moment, for showing up in solidarity, and for reminding all of us that protecting young people in digital spaces requires more than statements. It requires presence.
What is happening in Los Angeles is not just a trial. It is part of a reckoning that has been building for years. Courts move slowly. Outcomes are uncertain. But presence is not nothing. Being there, in real time, in real space, says something powerful: these stories matter. These families matter. This moment matters.
The Sustainable Media Center exists to help hold space where youth voices, parent voices, and advocates can stand together, not in parallel, but in common cause. Seeing members of this community shoulder to shoulder on courthouse steps and inside courtrooms is a reminder of why this work exists at all.
We see you. We are grateful for you. And we carry this moment forward together.
