If you should ever watch anything on the web, it should be this.
I'm breaking radio silence. My plan had been to wait until the anniversary of my last post and come back with something long and thoughtful on a subject I haven't decided on yet.
However, something strange happened to me this week. In a lifetime of dodging any kind of activism or anything that involved any kind of general social responsibility, I got blind-sided by something that reached in and grabbed my heart. God knows, there have been any number of issues over the years I could have thrown my weight behind, but this one just got me. Maybe it was because I was bullied at school for being a bit odd, or maybe it was the extraordinary way in which this message was delivered? I know not...but let us get on with the story.
In Fort Worth, Texas, there is a councilman by the name of Joel Burns. Joel is openly gay in a state not exactly famed for its tolerance toward homosexuality. On Tuesday, Joel gave up his alloted 12 mins of time for municipal announcements to highlight an issue very close to his heart. The issue being that of young gay teens commiting suicide for being, or being perceived to be, gay. He told us the stories of several young boys before revealing for the first time, to anyone, his own story of being bullied.
This is the video clip from YouTube. If you can make to the end of the clip without welling up, you have a tougher heart than me.
This affected me so deeply, I decided to make a big thing of this on Facebook and Twitter. This isn't just a US phenomenon, nor is it just a gay phenomenon. The issue of young people being bullied to the point of wanting to take their own lives happens worldwide, and for many different reasons (being gay, being fat, being goth, being different).
Joel's speech represents a larger campaign, started by the US journalist Dan Savage. The 'It Gets Better' Project. A worthwhile cause to get behind, I hope you'll agree.
Word is getting out. When I picked this up on Thursday views of the video stood a 568. Now they stand at over 1.2 million. Joel has appeared on almost all of the large US news networks over the past couple of days and his heartfelt, heroic act has been championed by everyone from Ellen DeGeneres to Barack Obama. In so many ways, this is a total win for both Joel and the It Gets Better Project, but if you click on the stats of the video clip, the picture doesn't look so good. There is still so much of the world this message needs to reach. Admittedly, proliferation of the video is much higher in the mostly English speaking countries, but just pushing it out there has to be doing something good.
I'm Paul Corrosion on Facebook, where a lot of friends have passed the message on. Thank you to them.
On Twitter, I'm doing my best to get the video out to as many people as possible and am trying to get the hashtag, #joelburns trending. This is proving difficult and frustrating due to the very high signal-to-noise ratio. I'm gashinryu on Twitter.
Please, if you feel at all inclined to help highlight this issue, it only takes a few clicks.
However, something strange happened to me this week. In a lifetime of dodging any kind of activism or anything that involved any kind of general social responsibility, I got blind-sided by something that reached in and grabbed my heart. God knows, there have been any number of issues over the years I could have thrown my weight behind, but this one just got me. Maybe it was because I was bullied at school for being a bit odd, or maybe it was the extraordinary way in which this message was delivered? I know not...but let us get on with the story.
In Fort Worth, Texas, there is a councilman by the name of Joel Burns. Joel is openly gay in a state not exactly famed for its tolerance toward homosexuality. On Tuesday, Joel gave up his alloted 12 mins of time for municipal announcements to highlight an issue very close to his heart. The issue being that of young gay teens commiting suicide for being, or being perceived to be, gay. He told us the stories of several young boys before revealing for the first time, to anyone, his own story of being bullied.
This is the video clip from YouTube. If you can make to the end of the clip without welling up, you have a tougher heart than me.
Click to viewThis affected me so deeply, I decided to make a big thing of this on Facebook and Twitter. This isn't just a US phenomenon, nor is it just a gay phenomenon. The issue of young people being bullied to the point of wanting to take their own lives happens worldwide, and for many different reasons (being gay, being fat, being goth, being different).
Joel's speech represents a larger campaign, started by the US journalist Dan Savage. The 'It Gets Better' Project. A worthwhile cause to get behind, I hope you'll agree.
Word is getting out. When I picked this up on Thursday views of the video stood a 568. Now they stand at over 1.2 million. Joel has appeared on almost all of the large US news networks over the past couple of days and his heartfelt, heroic act has been championed by everyone from Ellen DeGeneres to Barack Obama. In so many ways, this is a total win for both Joel and the It Gets Better Project, but if you click on the stats of the video clip, the picture doesn't look so good. There is still so much of the world this message needs to reach. Admittedly, proliferation of the video is much higher in the mostly English speaking countries, but just pushing it out there has to be doing something good.
I'm Paul Corrosion on Facebook, where a lot of friends have passed the message on. Thank you to them.
On Twitter, I'm doing my best to get the video out to as many people as possible and am trying to get the hashtag, #joelburns trending. This is proving difficult and frustrating due to the very high signal-to-noise ratio. I'm gashinryu on Twitter.
Please, if you feel at all inclined to help highlight this issue, it only takes a few clicks.