It Gets Better... helpful or a PR stunt catered by celebrity vanity

That has been a part of the criticism all along. I'm not too happy that much of the focus was given to people like Ellen Degeneres and President Obama, and was more touched by the normal people that sent in videos.

But I also criticise the critics. Where were they before "It gets better"? What did they do for these kids apart from holding up placards at poorly attended rallies?

The vast majority of the videos are made by regular run of the mill people. However, the media focused on the high profile ones. It's not a professional PR effort. It's just people responding, often unscripted, to something.

It is what it is. And what it is, is basically good.

IMHO.

It's not sufficient to prevent queer teen suicide/despair, and I don't think anybody ever claimed it was. It's also not the only form of support available to struggling queer teens. There's The Trevor Project, and other teen helplines, and GSAs across the country, and LGBT teen shelters, and free mental help and counseling for queer young adults through LGBT centers. I mean even that's not sufficient, and may not reach kids in every part of the country, but it's valuable, and does help many.

The editorial (written by a college freshman FWIW) seems to be making a weird point, that every Youtube video in which someone says "It gets better" must drive home points about suicide prevention and depression treatment...but why? The Trevor Project already has its own commercials about help for depression and suicidal thoughts. Seriously, the point of "It gets better" isn't to prevent suicide, it's merely to point out that It gets better. Editorial calls it "public ego stroking" but is that all it is? I would argue that people who see the celebrities they worship talking about it getting better, and not tormenting the queer kids are getting a positive message and being induced to act less shitty. It's also been great publicity FOR The Trevor Project, which has been getting loads more time in the spotlight than ever before as a direct result. The kid who wrote this piece is advocating that the "It Gets Better" videos should feature non-celebrities who were depressed queer teens instead--but those videos are out there too. They just aren't getting as many hits, and why would they? That's kinda the point of celebrity spokespeople--people care what they have to say, for better or worse.

The 'It Gets Better' campaign is also valuable for the straight community. It's an eloquent reminder to be a friend, actively. Empathy is for everyone.

People can only do what they can do. I think there is a point in despair for some people that, once reached, can be diverted by only a hidden, superheroic space in their own brain. If it unlocks and cuts the blue wire, not the green wire, it will save them. A deus ex machina.

Someone I know was poised to kill herself - already in the hot bath, the pills and strong drink lined up on the porcelain edge. Then her sister called. For some reason, she answered it and pretended nothing was wrong. By the end of the conversation, she had decided to put it off. And things got better. Stupid. Unscripted. Completely un-plannable.

The 'It Gets Better' campaign is, as I see it, a hopeful jolt to the mechanism of community and friendship that can help people before they get to that point. Because once they're there, all that can save them is a miracle.

It's absolutely fair to call on people to stop cruelty. I don't see that it is to make the case that their efforts won't save everyone.

I thought I'd said something about it here, but danged if I can find the post now.

While I appreciate the sentiment (and am not a Dan Savage fan, at all) in some ways, it doesn't get better. You get better able to cope.

That said, I like very much the video my publisher, Peachpit, part of the Pearson family, made:

http://www.peachpit.com/blogs/blog....age-from-your-friends-at-Peachpit-and-Pearson

I don't think you're wrong, Gale. There is always room for more ideas, more ways to improve things. This campaign was someone's idea and it serves a purpose, I think. It doesn't serve as a destination, that's for certain.

For some reason, maybe because many adolescents feel a glimmer of their own power without much long-range perspective on what all there is to lose in life, cruelty is something that comes easy to them. And it's horribly contagious. They have a glimpse also that there is power in numbers, so others participate or at least play along. 'It Gets Better' is some small counterweight to that, something almost everybody can relate to.

I'm not gay, but I was very poor. I had the different color free lunch tickets and the Salvation Army clothes. At one point, we lived in a homeless shelter. The kids were not kind. It's weird now, with adult perspective, that it would be so obvious to everyone that I had troubles and instead of even just leaving me to it, some decided to whet their wits on my sad-sack face.

At any rate, that's one reason 'It Gets Better' speaks to me. Now, of course, I cannot equate my lifelong experiences with the hurdles that the QUILTBAG community faces, because it doesn't end at graduation or that first good job or finding love for people who are, in some sectors, considered defective at best or willfully vile at worst.

But the considerations of 'It Gets Better' remind me to be a friend, to not just assume my children will also be kind, but to actively engage them in discussion and hear what they see and what they think about what they see.

So there needs to be more. Of course there needs to be more. It'll be a long time before that need is filled. But still, I don't think the spirit of this effort is patronizing. I do see, though, how it could maybe seem that way from some angles.

I still think there ought to be a companion campaign out there - the 'Don't Be An Asshole' campaign.

It's well and good to bolster people who are feeling low, but there's a lot of satisfaction to be had from calling out a shithead.

Or so says me.

I also want to say that sometimes I feel out of my depth in these types of conversations. So, if I've been wrong-headed or am not seeing something because I don't know what it's like, please don't feel like you can't call me out on it. I think these issues are so important and I want to be right. So set me right if I need to be.

My favorite videos in the project have been very honest about the fact that life doesn't always get easier and that the problems don't go away entirely, but make the point that sometimes you can be truly happy anyway and experience some wonderful things. I've never seen it as a broad thing saying that life always gets better. It's more about giving young people some evidence that it can get better, and that it's not just you: a lot of people have been bullied or gone through rough times, and have survived.

One of the things that was hard for me when I was coming out is that I'd never really had many examples of LGBTQ people and relationships. It was hard to picture myself getting married, for example, when all the relationships I'd ever seen were straight ones. I was really excited to get the Logo channel when I was a teenager, because I didn't even have many fictional examples of people who were like me.

I think even though I was never bullied, something like the It Gets Better Project still would have helped me just by showing me adults who are LGBTQ and who have happy lives and (oftentimes) loving partners. It would have made me more convinced that yes, someday I was going to be an adult and being queer wouldn't necessarily stop me from being happy.

I will say I think the It Gets Better Project has been a bit derailed by people like celebrities and politicians. I don't really mind it when the people speaking in the videos actually are LGBTQ, because even if there's a publicity angle, those people still have experiences to share. But I wish straight people didn't make videos. I don't think it's the right project for that, and to be honest I feel it's kind of patronizing.

Perks said:

I still think there ought to be a companion campaign out there - the 'Don't Be An Asshole' campaign.

It's well and good to bolster people who are feeling low, but there's a lot of satisfaction to be had from calling out a shithead.

Or so says me.

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I'm in favor of this plan.

Gale Haut said:

And theirs also this since of expectation. If you're going to offer people this since of hope, then you now owe them something. You can't just abandon them to figure everything out on their own. These people need assistance and having shelters and hotlines that are available only to some isn't adequate to the promise you don't realize you've made in those web videos...

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This sounds frighteningly like a call to inaction; that it is far more "responsible" to give nothing than the meager support you have available to offer.

DancingMaenid said:

My favorite videos in the project have been very honest about the fact that life doesn't always get easier and that the problems don't go away entirely, but make the point that sometimes you can be truly happy anyway and experience some wonderful things. I've never seen it as a broad thing saying that life always gets better. It's more about giving young people some evidence that it can get better, and that it's not just you: a lot of people have been bullied or gone through rough times, and have survived.

I think even though I was never bullied, something like the It Gets Better Project still would have helped me just by showing me adults who are LGBTQ and who have happy lives and (oftentimes) loving partners. It would have made me more convinced that yes, someday I was going to be an adult and being queer wouldn't necessarily stop me from being happy.

I will say I think the It Gets Better Project has been a bit derailed by people like celebrities and politicians. I don't really mind it when the people speaking in the videos actually are LGBTQ, because even if there's a publicity angle, those people still have experiences to share. But I wish straight people didn't make videos. I don't think it's the right project for that, and to be honest I feel it's kind of patronizing.

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This -- with the exception of the LOGO bit I snipped out--summarizes nicely my feelings about the project. I was not bullied much in the traditional sense during High School, for a variety of reasons (though I suspect my popular older sister gets a great deal of credit), but I nevertheless tried on two separate occasions during my senior year to kill myself. I further suspect those actions arose largely from my feelings of absolute disconnect with humanity, something an "It Gets Better" would have spoken to nicely.

The editorial felt in error to me for a couple of reasons: first I sensed a great deal of personal animus toward Dan Savage. I think going back to the original video, when it came out, it struck a nice positive tone during the sort of viseral outrage many people (including Mr. Savage, from all reports) were experiencing given what was happening. And the editorial also hinted at that aforementioned call for inaction--that it is better to do nothing rather than risk doing too little. I seemed to recall at the time the project started there was also an active facebook campaign along the lines of "Yeah, another dead fag!", which given the argument posited, would have been the only thing out there.

Maxinquaye said:

The vast majority of the videos are made by regular run of the mill people. However, the media focused on the high profile ones. It's not a professional PR effort. It's just people responding, often unscripted, to something.


It is what it is. And what it is, is basically good.

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Also, this. (Because I just always want to post the word "THIS".)

DancingMaenid said:

My favorite videos in the project have been very honest about the fact that life doesn't always get easier and that the problems don't go away entirely, but make the point that sometimes you can be truly happy anyway and experience some wonderful things.

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This is the message that I think needs to be emphasized more, by emphasizing the realistic, and true, videos that try to make the point.

DancingMaenid said:

One of the things that was hard for me when I was coming out is that I'd never really had many examples of LGBTQ people and relationships.

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This is why I think that in some ways the most effective statement is to be quietly but actively out and proud. A picture of same-sex spouses on a desk speaks volumes without making a sound.

DancingMaenid said:

I will say I think the It Gets Better Project has been a bit derailed by people like celebrities and politicians. I don't really mind it when the people speaking in the videos actually are LGBTQ, because even if there's a publicity angle, those people still have experiences to share. But I wish straight people didn't make videos. I don't think it's the right project for that, and to be honest I feel it's kind of patronizing.

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This is one of the things I'm still wrestling with, along with the fact that I don't want anyone ever to think Dan Savage speaks for me; he's misogynistic and transphobic, and often says incredibly viciously stupid things.

But there's something a little disquieting about some of the straight celebrities' well-intentioned and I think sincere videos. The use of phrases like "openly gay" and "life style choice" is troubling in some.

And there's a sort of well, patronizing is the perfect word, aspect to a lot of them. Plus the "see how cool I am? I accept queers!" tone is troubling.

But then I get all tangled up in the fact that that path leads right to the slough of despair known as identity politics, and I want no part of it.

On of the things I like about the Peachpit /Pearson video is that it's ordinary people with ordinary lives. They're real. They've been there done that, and have lives. That's terribly important for teens to see.

While It Gets Better might not the perfect campaign, I think it does offer hope to some, and that's hard for me to find fault with.

The website, which most people who actually see the IGB videos should be able to visit, has a very clearly marked Resources link that leads to The Trevor Project, both by phone and website.

It's unfortunate that it's the only resource listed, but it is a resource for kids who feel like hurting themselves and need help now. I don't think a single campaign can be everything that's needed, so I'm not bothered by IGB in that way.

The straight celebrities that do the videos, maybe their motivation is publicity, but most of them don't need it. I don't feel like they're trying to be cool by liking the queers, either. I think it helps kids see that it's not just other gays who think they're okay, but other people, period. Straights should be standing up and saying it's okay that you're gay, OF COURSE there's nothing wrong with you right along with gays. That should be heartily encouraged, IMO.

And in the same way people will buy more Mountain Dew or Crest or whatever when a celebrity does the commercial, kids may listen a little closer when it's a celebrity.

Shelley

Gale Haut said:

That's not at all what I meant. I'm actually suggesting that in someways the videos aren't giving anything substantial to begin with. That they are unintentionally an equivalent to teasing, like how children will sometimes dangle food over a dog and then not give it to them.

I feel like it's better not showing off how amazing your life ended up being if you're not going to offer any actual guidance or assistance.

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I felt pretty certain that wasn't what you meant (and I think the author of the original editorial would be shocked to find I interpreted his argument that way). I just thought I'd point out how those arguments can sound. And I'd say again that the best videos are the ones from everyday people who aren't showing off their amazing lives, just pointing out that they still have them, and enjoy them, despite how things might once have looked.

shelleyo said:

I think it helps kids see that it's not just other gays who think they're okay, but other people, period. Straights should be standing up and saying it's okay that you're gay, OF COURSE there's nothing wrong with you right along with gays. That should be heartily encouraged, IMO.

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And I think that is really what the project is about--whether the message comes from straights or not sos, or from famous or unknown--and I do think it is enough of a purpose for the project to be considered worthwhile.

Perks said:

I still think there ought to be a companion campaign out there - the 'Don't Be An Asshole' campaign.

It's well and good to bolster people who are feeling low, but there's a lot of satisfaction to be had from calling out a shithead.

Or so says me.

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Rather than post my memoir in this thread I'll just say I'm absolutely in favor of an anti-bullying campaign, and I'd hope it's not limited to targeting the bullying against LBGT's.

The article seems to be indignant that the It Gets Better campaign isn't a silver bullet solution to queer suicidality. ("Telling them that they need to have hope will not help someone who — essentially by definition — has stopped being able to feel hope.") But there is no silver bullet solution. Why act indignant that these YouTube videos are insufficient in themselves when no YouTube video can fix such a dark and complex problem as suicidal depression in a 3-minute monolog?

I completely agree that these messages come off as a little smug and often focus too much on the speakers themselves rather than the hypothetical "you" of the audience, but that doesn't mean the messages are useless. No YouTube video is likely to fix depression in a flash of brilliant empathy. But there are plenty of depressives who don't leave the house and live most of their social lives online. With that in mind, this seems a useful, if not all-sufficient, tool for encouraging this house-bound online audience.

We're also completely overlooking the huge majority of the queer population who are struggling, but not necessarily at the end if their rope. While the article reviles these videos for having insufficient impact on suicidal teens, it ignores the positive impact it can have on non-suicidal teens. I know plenty of troubled but not clinically depressed teens who found these messages incredibly helpful and encouraging. Shall we remove their lifeline?

Gale Haut said:

If you're going to offer people this {sense} of hope, then you now owe them something. You can't just abandon them to figure everything out on their own.

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I respectfully disagree. I believe these videos do something but they don't have to do everything. I guess it's a matter of what you expect from a 3-minute YouTube video. Do you want guaranteed life change, an extensive list of resources, and a cure for heterosexism? Perhaps we're expecting too much.

The resources a depressed gay teen are many and varied and different services will fill different needs, whether it's shelter, a suicide hotline, gay role models, or professional counseling. All I can realistically expect from someone in a YouTube video are a few words of encouragement. And encouragement doesn't come with the obligation that you'll hold the person's hand and walk them through every step of the process.

For instance, I believe passionately in the power of encouragement. We hear so little of it in daily life. If I hear a neophyte writer say, "I'm going to write a novel!" I'll say, "All right! You can do it! Keep on going."

This doesn't make me beholden to walk this novice I just encouraged through the entire publication process or mentor them for the next decade. There's plenty of times when I felt disheartened and ready to quit writing, but I'm grateful for the people who verbally encouraged me, even if they had nothing more to offer. The encouragement is far better than silence, or worse, the nay-sayer who will point out all the obstacles in my path that made me so depressed in the first place.

Even the article seems to contradict itself, vascilating between feeling the encourager is responsible for taking care of their audience, to later admitting that real change is ultimately up to the individual:

Telling them that their lives will get better, as if by magic, merely serves to remove responsibility from the speaker...

It should be made clear to the viewer that however bad they feel, there is a way out, but you {the depressive} have to be willing to take steps toward that end. These feelings of misery will not evaporate by themselves.

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We need to be willing to assist our queer friends on many different fronts without expecting any one front to be a magical solution (presidential action, It Gets Better videos.) These videos may just be a drop in the bucket when it comes to relieving the despair and pressure on gay teens, but if that bucket is still pretty dry, every drop counts.

Let's not discount the resources that make positive change just because that change is small. It's still better than nothing at all.

Ardent Kat said:

Let's not discount the resources that make positive change just because that change is small. It's still better than nothing at all.

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That's the issue right there. These videos are addressed into the aether, to a general target group. Overall, do this videos make positive change? Or, on balance, do they do more harm than good? This is a question worth asking. You don't usually install a program without quality control.

I don't know the videos; I don't know about being gay. But I do know that well-meant encouragement can have that isolating effect the article's author is talking about. Yes, you know they care, they mean well. But that doesn't help. Instead you feel the pressure to get better, so that others don't have to worry about you. I found the metaphorical kick in the ass way more helpful.

People are different. Some draw strength from these videos. Some roll their eyes at them, but ignore them. And some may see them as a sign of business-as-usual (re-inforcing their negative world-view). Do we know the distribution? Do we know how many people are helped, how many are not impacted at all, how many are pushed further down the road to suicide? This is not a stupid question to ask. This is not Mr. Sourpuss speaking.

There are questions of responsibility at stake, too. These videos are a resource. You show them to the depressed (or those on the way). Some of them draw strength from them, others get even more frustrated. If you're drawing strength from the picture, is this your success? If you're getting further frustrated, is this your fault?

If I'm in the latter group, if I get further frustrated, because I think that this campaign shows that even well-intentioned people don't get it, am I supposed to shut up and take it, because there are others that draw strength from these videos? Am I to compare myself negatively to those people? Am I to look at myself as a failure yet again?

And if I do that project, is it enough to provide a resource and push the responsibility to use it onto the intended audience? If someone came to me, saying that these videos will frustrate many of the terminally depressed even further, should I not at least listen, if not look into it?

I'm not saying the program is bad. I'm saying the article has a point, and that it's a difficult situation. I'm saying that I find the article's reasoning plausible enough, so that I will not automatically assume that the program works positive change (on balance; I have no doubt it does in individual cases). And I know from experience that I, personally, do not respond well to it-gets-better messages (although experience reports, which I might find among those videos, might certainly help).

I'm saying that - if the point of the program is to help gays deal with their lives rather than to help people deal with troubling headlines - this is a serious criticism that deserves attention. It's a messy situation. I think that the article is saying that the programs akin to teaching your child to swim by pushing him/her into the water and then walking away. The article points out problems with the program, and suggests modifications. The article also implies that Mr. Savage (whom I don't know) is resistant to criticism.

The article can be wrong about these points. But personal experience makes the part about depression ring true.

Ardent Kat said:

I completely agree that these messages come off as a little smug and often focus too much on the speakers themselves rather than the hypothetical "you" of the audience

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This is probably inevitable. If the speakers self-consciously steered towards what the watching 'you' was going through , it would engender feelings of "Oh yeah? What can you possibly know about my situation."

It seems there would be even more to take exception to if the campaign tried to get the speakers to frontload their simple message with too much I-feel-your-pain. It seems a bit more genuine this way, in my opinion.

I dunno. I'm of two minds w/ regard to this kinda stuff. To start off, though, I wasn't very impressed at all with this argument from the article:

It serves no other purpose than to make the depressed person feel even more isolated because it demonstrates to them that no one understands his or her suffering.

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I'm sorry, but the whole "no one understands my suffering" thing is a teenager problem, not a gay problem. And there's nothing that can be done for it. Wallowing in not-being-understood-because-I'm-oh-so-special is a disease that only age and maturity can cure. And no, it's not my problem --nor society's, nor the gay community's-- if you think you're so unique that no one can even begin to fathom the depth of your affliction.

That's the point of this campaign, I think. That there are people who've been there, done that. And have survived, thrived, and are happy. It's not a "this is what you can do to improve your life" manual with step-by-step instructions for how to make things better, because that would be impossible. There are too many people with too many different types of situations to account for. But what we can account for is pain that we as a disenfranchised and hated group have all experienced at one point or another, to some degree or another. It's a powerful sense of unity in strife that is needed to build our emotional barriers and train our ethical, political, and social armies to fight back.

If someone is too special to be included among peers who want to fight for them and show them that there are ways to cope, become stronger, and assert yourself... well, those are people who aren't inclined to get help in the first place. You can build support structures until the cows come home and reach out until you dislocate your shoulders, but people have to take the first step, reach for others' hands and carpe the diem themselves, otherwise they're responsible for their own dismal fate, up to and including suicide.

Now, as for straight, heteronormative society as a whole, fuck 'em. Fuck every single one of them where they least want to be fucked. The good parts about these videos for them --especially the celebrity videos-- is that, with time, as more and more people start to recognize that, hey, gay people are pretty fucking cool, when heteronormative mouth-breathers continue to spread their vitriol like so much piss, sooner or later someone's gonna poke them in the nose and say, "Dude, did you know that Gandalf is motherfuckin' gay? Shut the fuck up. He's cooler than you. Get over yourself and stop thinking about where other people put their cocks/mouths/vaginas, whatever."

Bigoted hets will soon learn to at least keep their enmity to themselves, which is the best we can hope for. Because enmity swallowed will soon pickle their insides, render them social eunuchs, and stop the dissemination of hatred after a few short generations of ethical infertility.

I do believe that. And publicity like this is the first step.

I think, as has been mentioned above, the It Gets Better campaign should be looked at in perspective.

I've worked in the LGBT service community for 17 years. Like every sector, there are splashy organizations and initiatives that become the squeaky wheel (without having much substance to them) and there are those that quietly do life-saving work in the trenches.

I used to be quite bitter about this; but these days, I see the efforts as complimentary.

We need campaigns that raise visibility, offer hope, challenge prejudices--as an end in themselves. And we need the community centers where individuals can access sustained types of help and get actively involved in changing the conditions that create isolation and despair.

One other point: the beneficiaries of It Gets Better aren't just the kids. Many of us were traumatized by the series of outrageous bullying/suicide tragedies. The videos give adults--LGBT and non-LGBT--an opportunity to connect, tell their own stories, do something meaningful in the aftermath.