I'm not sure what was sad about it. A group of young people went through a tragedy that took away their sense of safety and autonomy in this world, and they took action by appearing on that platform to get back some sense of autonomy and control over their world. The event itself did have an exploitative feel to it, yet if I had undergone a tragedy similar to their own, I would rather take control of the narrative of my own experience rather than let other people speak my experience as an abstraction on this talk show or that news broadcast. Or, perhaps more to the point, the experience of these kids was going to be used as a political football in one way or another, so I can see a sense of empowerment in having some control over how that football is thrown.