The Safety Series was born from me coming across a Tiktok compilation on YouTube. The prompt was “did you ever have a time when you realised a good friend wasn’t actually your friend?” and the stitches that followed ranged from irksome to incredibly cruel! There were some really unsettling recollections about how people ended their relationships with folks who had once called themselves friends or besties but would be better described as enemy or hater. I then thought about my own friendships that have faded to black over the years and while I don’t think I have really bad blood with people I’ve un-friended or who’ve walked out of my life, the concept of safety in friendship became an interest I wanted to explore a lot more detail. Then November 2022 came around and I stumbled on the Shanquella Robinson story on my IG explore page and I was floored…heartbroken even. Trigger warning!!! I will not link the story but it is a tragedy. Shanquella lost her life in the company of her “friends” and I find it difficult to resist assigning blame to all of them in some capacity.   

The Series will follow the concept and value of safety from 4 different aspects of one’s life, namely: