When sex advice guru Dan Savage, of â┚¬Å”Savage Loveâ┚¬Â column/podcast/iPhone-iPod app fame, founded and launched the It Gets Better Project in September 2010 with husband Terry Miller via its first YouTube video, he never expected that it would go as far as it has in sheer numbers. So far it has reached 10,000-plus submissions and input from across the globe and social strataâ┚¬â€ÂPresident Obama's video went up just a month after its launch.
Edited by Savage and Miller, the book companion, It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living (Dutton; $21.95), features all-new written essays by the likes of David Sedaris, Kate Clinton, Michael Cunningham, and Alison Bechdel, as well as video transcriptions and expanded essays from high-profile personalities and everyday folks alike.
Savage, who serves as Editorial Director for Seattle's The Stranger weekly and recently shot a TV series pilot for MTV (he's awaiting word on whether it's being picked up), spoke about the book, where he turns for advice and the next social-sexual mission on his agenda.
WATERMARK: How does this book further the It Gets Better mission and message?
DAN SAVAGE: Well, the book includes pieces from people who haven't made videos. It also creates another way for kids who need to hear these messages to find them. I've written books before, and you never really know where a book is going to wind up. They wind up in school libraries. I've gotten notes from people who stumbled across my book The Kid in the Himalayas. The internet has tremendous reach, of course, and kids are wired and tech savvy, but not all kids have access to the internet and not all kids want to leave a browser history that might incriminate them. So this gives another way to reach a lot of kids.
Who would you like to see contribute an It Gets Better video or message but hasn't yet?
I would love the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, to make one. I would like to seeâ┚¬â€Âand am not surprised we have not seenâ┚¬â€Âa video from a prominent Republican elected official. There has been not a one. I wish every politician would make one.
Look at New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He made a video where he said we welcome everybodyâ┚¬â€ÂLGBT youth have a home in New York if where you're at is not welcoming you. At the same time that he released that video he slashed funding for the Ali Forney Center, which is a shelter for LGBT teens, and he was called out for his hypocrisy.
People were able to use the video to shame him and he reversed and re-funded the Center. So calling in these chits, and being able to hold the people to the promises they made in their videos, is valuable. That said, for me the most important videos are the ones from people no one has ever heard ofâ┚¬â€Âaverage everyday LGBT folks reaching out and sharing their joy with LGBT kids who may be having trouble picturing a future for themselves.
Queer kids know there are gay celebrities out there, and straight celebs and politicians who are fine with gay people, but what some of them are having trouble picturing is how they get from being a bullied, miserable 14-year-old gay kid whose family is also tormenting them to a happy, secure, loved, and perhaps reconciled with their family gay adult.
What are the next steps in It Gets Better's future?
â┚¬Å”There's a good body of videos and we want to archive and tag them so they're more easily searched. There are a lot by trans people, but you can't always tell which just by looking at the thumbnail images, so we would need to make them easier to break out into playlists and search. We're working on that now.
The mission after that is to make sure that 5-10 years from now, once this moment of such intense media interest has passed, that kids who are five today and going to be fifteen then and don't know about the website can find their way there. We have to make sure that there is enough money raised to host and maintain the website and awareness about it in schools and where kids are.
