It Gets Better

[ganimede]

I was catching up on my feeds on Google Reader just now as I do every Sunday. One of the feeds is from the GLAAD blog, all the news and media announcements from GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). One of the major pieces of news on there this week is that in September, four young lads, aged between 13 and 18, killed themselves

Comments

[wellinever]

i agree with some of what you've said in the way it comes across but i disagree that it won't help at all. i think if i'd found something like that regarding my situation when i was in school it would have been a huge help. some of the videos really resonated with me for that exact reason - i found myself wishing i could be 13 again and watch it because i think it would have made me feel way less alone and saved me a very long time of believing my isolated school world that made it very clear i would never have a normal life of any description.

of course videos like that alone can't save someone from the brink of suicide, but i think they can help people who are in that situation to realise you can come out of it okay. i genuinely assumed when i was in school that nobody else in the entire world had ever had to go through what i did because of the way high school feels when you're that age. this makes it clear that that isn't the case, and i think sometimes that's all the *some* people need to hear. it won't help everyone, but for some people whos only realistic hope right now is to hold on, i think it can definitely be helpful.

[ganimede]

One of the main issues I have with the video is that it's a very temporary fix. It doesn't provide people with a coping mechanism, a support network, a shoulder to cry on/ear to vent to or a peer network of people in the same situation and around the same age. I think the age thing is important, a lot of young people find it hard to believe that an adult understands or has experienced what they're going through.

Sometimes to give someone false hope can be worse than having no hope at all, because when it doesn't get better, or it is a long way off, people can crash even harder :-/

[wellinever]

but the reality is without a vast overall of youth services that frankly isn't going to happen anytime soon, a kid isn't going to be handed any of those things on a plate. no video is likely to really provide those things, so should people not start youtube projects like this? i'm seeing a lot of criticisms of these videos but not many realistic or useful alternatives offered. i don't think the project is claiming to be the entire solution to lgbt kids problems, but there's a good chance it could help be a stepping stone towards someone being able to cope a little bit better. i think the point is to try and bridge that gap where young people assume no adults could have ever been through anything similar - i think a large part of young people believing that is because the stories of LGBT adults are rarely told.

[ganimede]

Belated response because I've been busy. The main thing is this: the video is aimed at the wrong people. It should be addressing the issue of the homophobic bullying. That's the root cause of this and it seems to have been forgotten.

[wellinever]

but surely that focuses on the perpetrators? why give them the attention/power? making a video about it isnt going to stop it. at least this way it addresses the important people directly.