Online Activism.

Yesterday I posted what I thought of a certain sort of online activism.  If you'd like to read further on the issue, there's a pretty good article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell that discusses a lot of these issues.  You might be interested in checking it out.  I'm not sure if I agree completely with his assessment (I'm probably fonder of Shirky's worldview than Gladwell is), but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

Since I spent yesterday complaining, I'm going to contrast that with today's post about a project that I have a bit more respect for.  If you've paid any attention to me on FaceBook, or even caught one of the various news programs on which it's appeared, you've probably already heard of Seattle sex-advice columnist Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project.

Savage started the project after the suicide of Indiana teen Billy Lucas.  In Savage's own words -

I posted something to my blog about Billy Lucas — who might not have even been gay, he wasn't out if he was gay, and not all kids who experience anti-gay bullying are gay — but he was bullied for being gay. ... And I was reading about him and about Justin Aaberg in Minnesota, and the reaction as an openly gay adult, always, when you read these stories is, "I wish I could've talked to this kid for five minutes, so I could've told him it gets better" and it occurred to me, when I was really turning over the Billy Lucas case in my mind, that I could talk to these kids. ... I could use social media, I could go on YouTube, I could make a digital video and I could post it, and I could directly address them and tell them, "It gets better."

 
The project started with one video.   And went from there.  Not long after the project started a school administrator in Arkansas was caught on FaceBook saying that he'd wear purple (a gesture intended as showing solidarity with LGBT community in the wake of the teen suicides) when all "faggots" hung themselves.  Savage and many others then organised via FaceBook and other media to pressure the administrator to resign.

Here's the difference, though.  The IGBP offers action.  Email campaigns.  Phone calls.  Videos.  Support in the way of donations to The Trevor Project.  It's tied in to a campaign that aside from offering anemic "solidarity," is also offering concrete methods for making those improvements. 

There's a pretty cool little article that someone linked to on LibraryThing a few days back.  The most heartbreaking part about that for me is this -

Kevin Hines wishes someone like Ritchie was there the day he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000. For 40 agonizing minutes, the then-19-year-old paced the bridge, weeping, and hoping someone would ask him what was wrong. One tourist finally approached - but simply asked him to take her picture. Moments later, he jumped. 

One person.  That would have been it.

There's a reason I "like" the It Gets Better Project's FaceBook page. It's a hell of a lot of people working for change.  I suggest that you like it, too.

There's a bit more action behind the words.