They came overnight. Attaching themselves to neat blue boxes like barnacles to a whale, posters of somber, tire-marked faces have populated the halls. Part of a new campaign by MCPS to raise awareness for pedestrian alertness and safety, these intensely emotional posters are meant to shock students into realizing the dangers of distracted walking. But one thing detracts from this meaningful campaign: YOLO.

The #YOLOwalksafe campaign uses the popularly hashtagged acronym, short for You Only Live Once, juxtaposed with gloomy photographs to create “an ominous warning of the dangers on the road,” according to the campaign’s website. Unfortunately, this counter-intuitive use of a hip phrase falls flat.

YOLO is nearly always used as an excuse to act brash or recklessly. You only have one life, so why waste it being lame, right? An exception is the Lonely Island song “You Only Live Once,” which used the phrase ironically as a statement to act carefully. In other words, a satirical group thought it would be hilarious to use YOLO in this opposite way. This doesn’t bode well for #YOLOwalksafe.

When I imagine pedestrians in conjunction with this Internet creed, I picture a young, foolish student waltzing up to a crosswalk and hollering, “YOLO!” then sprinting across the street with no regard for oncoming traffic because hey, you only live once, why waste time to look both ways? But, whoops, that’s the exact opposite purpose of the campaign.

Using YOLO seriously is the clever intention of the campaign. But it takes away from the seriousness if students still associate YOLO with reckless behavior, which I assure you, they do.

I don’t mean to criticize the aims of the campaign at all. Pedestrian safety is an important problem that needs to be addressed, especially with the days getting shorter, leading to decreased visibility of morning and evening walkers. Over 400 crashes involving pedestrians happen every year in Montgomery County, and decreasing the number of incidents can be as easy as putting down your phone for five seconds to cross the street.

So don’t dismiss the posters just because of the campaign’s unfortunate cluelessness regarding YOLO. I have proudly signed the Pledge Banner in an effort to raise awareness about pedestrian safety. #YOLOwalksafe isn’t the right way to bring attention to this meaningful issue, but that doesn’t mean we should disregard it entirely.