We Are Here

We Are Here has become one of the speeches that elementary school kids have to memorize at least part of, and for good reason. It's one of those speeches where that probably would have happened even if it had been entirely off the cuff and just some dude waving hi awkwardly. But Shadow Master, aka Connor Tackett, did a really good job and this speech deserves to be remembered even if it wasn't entirely topical.
The speech was given about thirty years ago now, and it marked the day that superheroes became mainstream. That superpowers as a whole became mainstream. Before that you knew someone, or at least knew someone who knew someone with powers, but it was some kind of vague thing. If you lived in a more heavily populated area, you'd probably seen a superhero, or been mugged by a supervillain or something. They existed, and it wasn't a secret.
But this speech was given publicly. On TV, so that everyone could see it. Shadow Master still wore his mask, but he was a person that day, not some vague cloud that could be excused by people who were worried about ruining some secret by pointing it out.
It set the table for how superpowered people were treated going forward. Not some weird arcane thing, not some backroom evil, not something mysterious and unknowable, but people, who existed and lived and breathed.
And people remember it. Perhaps superheroes with their masks are still a bit larger than life, but if you met one in line to buy chips, it wouldn't be weird. Because this speech--and about a thousand little actions in between--mean that they're still people. Not going to disappear overnight. Not going to turn out to be vampires, and mostly not aliens. People.
Because...Hello. We are here. (And you ought to know the rest.)

Type

Statement, Political (Manifesto)