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53 thoughts on It Gets Better

  1. I’ve seen one of the videos already uploaded via a friend (no, really, we take dance classes together) on Facebook. Really, really good stuff.

    It makes me insanely angry that we still haven’t figured out ways to protect kids from bullying and harassment. Yeah, kids *do* have to figure out how to negotiate things for themselves, but there is a line that, once crossed, should mean that the adults in their lives will protect them. And getting beaten up, thrown into lockers, stuffed into toilets for “looking like that, talking like that, acting like that*” is just intolerable. It’s probably a really good thing that I am NOT mother to someone getting bullied (for ANY reason) — I’d have school admin for lunch if they weren’t doing everything possible to protect my kid and others.

    I know this is primarily about LGBT youth and I *don’t* want to derail anything. I just think that NO ONE should have to put up with that kind of treatment from their peers, no matter the “reason” for the bullying. Kudos to Dan Savage for launching this thing, and I hope that it helps.

    * Paraphrased, probably badly, from the video I saw.

  2. This isn’t bullying. This is TORTURE and harassment and evil. What the hell is wrong with these kids? Why did his orientation even MATTER? Different? Is that a bad word? What the fuck?
    This shit keeps happening. I know I’m emotional right now, but I want to ask my sisters if it happens at their current school. One of my sisters was ‘bullied’ for dressing differently in middle school and they were both ‘bullied’ for being black in another school. The one they’re at now, I don’t think there are any problems. But I need to know if people are being tortured and harassed for being gay. Because I’m going to let the school know that torturing, and telling someone to kill themselves is not okay. Do something about that. Provide counseling for the boy and tell the rest of them to shut the fuck up.

    A boy in middle school committed suicide at my sisters old school. Within the past year.

    Im not lgbt, but I’m going to have a talk with principal. This is so heartbreaking. These are KIDS.

    I hate this. He was only a freshman. He had his whole life ahead of him. My heart is breaking for his family and friends and him.

  3. God, there are so many reasons I didn’t want to acknowledge my orientation, let alone come out in highschool.

    What a waste of a young man’s life. I’m glad they’ve started this project.

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  5. @Laurie in Mpls.

    I agree with your last bit– though I see a real need for support for LGBT youth, they certainly aren’t the only ones. I think the message “it gets better” goes for so many more people than that.

    On the other hand, though, I would have loved to find something like this project just for LGBT youth when I was younger. It would have helped me so. much.

  6. So many kudos for posting this. When this case developed a few weeks back, it floored me. I kept thinking about how vulnerable the 15 year old boy was, how out of the ordinary it is for stalwart social conservatives to want to even step in in situations where other children are reinforcing the status quo (Straightness and gender conformity are important and you’re “sick”, and “wrong” , and “don’t deserve to live”).

    The language the principal uses to dismiss the gravity of school bullying is a jarring case of “blaming the victim”:

    Having the problem of “causing a stir” is in no way a justification for being a target. There should never be a point where we make excuses for students psychologically tourturing others because of real or percieved differences. Its just reprehensible beyond my ability to articulate. We merely reinforce the victimizers when we sidestep anti bullying ordinances because we don’t like how it “encourages” differences based on real or percieved orientation.
    I really do want it to get better…but I’m skeptical the majority of us do.

  7. Also, something that should be born in mind when we talk about the possibility of kids “negotiating things for themselves” or adults “stepping in”: if kids were really allowed to handle bullying for themselves, many of them would do so, effectively, by leaving the dangerous environment and not coming back. They can’t, because the social and legal environment requires them to be in school for a large portion of their lives.
    Now obviously, there are a lot of benefits to requiring kids to stay in school, whether by law or just social pressure. But it does make it meaningless to talk about adults “not getting involved.” Adults are involved, and they’re involved in such a way that they make bullying easier and harder to escape. So we have a really serious responsibility to intervene in cases of bullying, in the same sense that zookeepers have a responsibility to keep the tigers out of the antelope cage, or prison guards have a responsibility not to let prisoners harm each other. Kids are in situations where they get bullied, very often, because we put them there and don’t allow them to leave.

  8. Laurie: The problem is that there’s no real way to stop bullying unless the adults are willing to cut class sizes way down and monitor those kids each and every minute. Kids are cunning little pack animals, and unless they’re monitored closely, bullying will happen.
    I think the only reason I survived kindergarten and first grade was because the bullying stopped once I left the school building. I’d like to support anti-bullying laws, but a lot of them smack of Utopian thinking. Y’know, ‘people are basically good’ and other such twaddle.
    That said, I really like Dan’s effort and I wish I could participate.
    (I lack a video camera, and I’m sort of straight. Besides, I wasn’t bullied for being gay, I was bullied for being a fat, clumsy tomboy.)

  9. @ Politicalguineapig: Utopian thinking, perhaps…but I dispair at the idea that gay inclusive language in the anti-bullying ordinances (hell, a fair degree of anti-gay politicians were extremely reluctant to even consider hate crime legislation that included gay people) is somehow utopian. Will stating firmly that schools are safe places where everyone be honored and can learn free of violence and intolerance change everything? Doubtful. Will it inform a few students that they’re not alone or alien? Hopefully.

    When we as a society basically say “kids will be kids, and all kids have a microcosmic representation of the larger society”… it means that we should look at the larger society. If kids are getting the message that gay people are less than, and are justified in telling those percieved as gay they deserve to die… then we’ve got real problems to address. This is a start, but its not nearly enough.

  10. @latinist: Extremely good point that, though I feel I knew in my gut, I hadn’t really considered before. I daydreamed about my family moving to a different school district when I was young, and as an adult I’ve left jobs to get myself out of (non-physically-endangering, not entirely equivalent) situations when administration won’t cooperate. I hadn’t considered just how trapped many kids are in these situations.

    If we can’t offer minors the freedom of leaving a bad situation, it is our responsibility to make sure the situation doesn’t get to that point in the first place.

  11. @latinist #6

    Yes, *this*. Thank you. That flight reflex is there for a reason. No wonder so many kids who’ve been bullied have stomachaches and headaches.

    I’d also like to reinforce something that everyone *here* probably knows and acknowledges: “ignoring” the bullies until they “get bored” and “go away” doesn’t help. Does. Not. Help. Besides blaming the target for the actions of others (“well, if you wouldn’t give them such a good reaction….”), it ignores the fact that if you’ve EVER reacted to the bullies, they’ll keep pushing until you react again. And honestly, how can adults expect KIDS to ignore the kind of cruelty their peers can come up with?

    Politicalguineapig:
    Utopian language? Maybe. And maybe letting everyone know from the time they are tiny that they are *safe* at school and steps will be taken to *keep* them safe would keep situations from escalating so badly. But I also think parents need to step in with the other *parents* when the school is obviously not doing anything. And for that to work, your kid needs to believe that you will protect them, and you need to have the intestinal fortitude to confront other adults. It’s tough.

    But yeah, cutting class sizes down and monitoring the *known* bullies (and every. single. class. has them, and the teachers and other people in charge DO know who they are) is a start. I’m weird — I really *don’t* mind tax raises if they are going to improve public education, and I am child free at the moment. I’ve just seen my state do way too much to gut the system and then wonder why we have falling test scores. (Don’t even get me started on “No Child Left Behind”!!!)

    Anyway…. /sort of a derail. These kinds of cases just smack me right in the guts, hard, because this stuff should be so preventable.

  12. @5 – I’m really starting to despair over ever getting past that sort of eliminationist rhetoric. It’s not just confined to schoolyard bullies and thugs like the Westboro Baptist Hate Group, it comes from places like the offices of Sen. Saxby Chamblis (R – if you had any doubt, GA). When some of the most powerful people in the country still embrace this sort of undiluted, undisguised hatred, how are we going to change anything?

    And then – even if we waved our magic legislation wand tomorrow and achieved legal equality for all (which is hardly going to happen tomorrow, or probably for years or decades), how long will it take society to catch up? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been the law of the land for almost 50 years, and we’ve still got major conservative voices on the radio chanting the n-word. And that’s not even getting into the avalanche of more subtle racist language and policy positions the right advances (and the center does precious little to fight back against).

  14. What is it with teenage boys that they always have to find new victims to torture? Is it a way to prove themselves to each other, or insecurity? I’m asking because I never encountered with this when I was in school, I mean there were occasional mean jokes, but they usually got old that same day. Besides, how did they even find out that he was gay, people usually don’t “come out of the closet” until their early twenties or something.

  15. gwhiz and Laurie: I do think that including safeguards for glbt students is a good idea, but laws need teeth behind them, and as libdevil noted, I’m not sure that any politician has the fortitude to make sure they’re enforced.
    As for parents, most of them are to busy to notice when the child starts complaining about school or tries not to go. And intervening takes time- I was stuck at that school for another year, although the admin at least moved me from my first-grade class. If I’d been a teenager, I don’t think I’d have told my parents anything- and we were close.
    Also, as I said before, internet bullying is really difficult to stop. Teens don’t really want their facebook/myspace pages being patrolled by parents. (Heck, my facebook page is squeaky clean, and I still had a moment of panic when Mom joined Facebook.)

  16. Bytheway, it’s not just teen boys. My younger sister was literally beaten up after her prom because three girls through she was flirting with one of their boyfriends. Black eye and everything, they had her against a wall punching. Bullying is sickening and the people who perpetrate it are disgusting.

  18. Bytheway: They probably just assumed it from his behavior, or he may have been out.
    From what I understand, a lot of kids are coming out these days, so I think your information is a little out of date. Also, I’m guessing you’re a girl. Guys usually just harrass girls- they don’t usually beat them up.
    Girls don’t usually beat each other up either, although physical confrontations are getting more common these days. Personally, I’d take a black eye over the slow niggling and psychological erosion that girls-and grown women- tend to use as standard operating procedure.
    Andrea: That’s awful. I hope they got arrested.

  19. @bytheway- from what I’ve read, there’s nothing to suggest that he was openly gay or out of the closet. The other kids *thought* he was gay, and so he was bullied for it.

    Homophobic bullying is bad, but ALL bullying is bad and potentially fatal. That’s one reason I’m kind of “meh” about this project. It’s supposed to reach out to LGBT victims of bullying, when this kid may not even have been gay, so would he really have felt it was something that applied to him? Anytime you are vulnerable for some reason, and a group of people have it in their heads to make your life a living hell… they will terrorize you until you break, and then suddenly it was just teasing, and they didn’t mean anything by it, but you’re dead or in a hospital or jail.

    Smaller class sizes? I say lower the drop-out age to 14, and let kids drop out at 16 WITHOUT their parents permission. 18 seems a century away when you’re a teen, time really does seem to move much slower. It would definitely make smaller classes. And at the end of the day, what’s more important? A high school diploma, or a teenager’s LIFE? You can drop out of high school and still go to college, so what’s the point of forcing someone to go someplace they’re going to be tortured?

  20. Personally, I’d take a black eye over the slow niggling and psychological erosion that girls-and grown women- tend to use as standard operating procedure.

    God, those awful bitches. If only they’d learn to HIT, like MEN do!

  21. @bytheway whichonespink:

    It’s not just boys. I didn’t even have that much of a problem with boys at my school… they’d say lewd things occasionally but weren’t really that mean. The girls were terrible to me. I think a different kind of abuse *usually* comes from boys vs. girls– you don’t hear about girls stuffing people in lockers, etc. very much. But girls can also be terribly cruel when they want to be, both with physical harm and emotional drama.

    Also, whether or not someone even *is* gay doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with being teased for being gay. I dated men my whole life until I came out at 24, but I was teased for being a “lesbian” all through middle school. If you’re weird or different that often translates to gay in the mind of a bully.

  22. Ahhh, I was damn near beaten up at least once in Jr. High (the only thing that stopped it was the proximity of a teacher), and I was there in the 80s. Girls certainly DO go for physical harassment, and boys DO go for the “niggling and psychological erosion” type harassment. What do you call cat calls and sexual harassment?

    And who said anything about laws? I don’t think it needs to go that far. I DO think that schools with anti-bullying policies need to back them up, and I DO think that parents need to pay attention to their kids. Saying that “most parents are just too busy” is just a cop out. (OK, there are circumstances, but most? Really?) Besides, if the parents are too busy, there should be *someone*, in the schools, looking out for kids. But I guess I’m just a utopian dreamer who thinks people should protect kids that they come in contact with.

  23. bytheway whichonespink: What is it with teenage boys that they always have to find new victims to torture?

    I wish this was just teenagers because it would mean that you could grow out of it. I’ve seen a lot of adults behave like this.

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    Too true 🙁 Adults need to lead by example.

  28. “(OK, there are circumstances, but most? Really?)”

    As more and more people are shoved into lower and lower economic brackets, keeping the family’s head above water financially sucks up more and more of their time. I don’t know if it’s a “most” thing yet, but the middle class is shrinking, and the lower class has always had to do this sort of calculus.

  29. Homophobic bullying is bad, but ALL bullying is bad and potentially fatal. That’s one reason I’m kind of “meh” about this project. It’s supposed to reach out to LGBT victims of bullying, when this kid may not even have been gay, so would he really have felt it was something that applied to him? Anytime you are vulnerable for some reason, and a group of people have it in their heads to make your life a living hell… they will terrorize you until you break, and then suddenly it was just teasing, and they didn’t mean anything by it, but you’re dead or in a hospital or jail.

    Sure, but LGBTIQA teens have a much higher rate of bullying, mental health problems and suicide than the average population. Since queer teens are a particularly vulnerable group I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a response catered to them, as well as general anti-bullying programs for everyone else.

    Plus, it’s only recently that we recognised the problems facing queer kids, and for a long time bullying against them was encouraged.

  30. Elizabeth: Yeah. That saying about sticks and stones has always bugged me. And drama- argh. I was so glad that I was sort of on the outskirts socially- nothing can ruin a senior year faster then a small class and a love triangle involving two of the seniors. By high school, I was kind of a bad-ass, so people knew not to mess with me. At that point, I had school friends, but no one I hung out with after hours. Didn’t like or trust most of the girls, and at that age, you can’t hang out with the guys either.

    TinfoilHattie: Bruises and scars heal pretty quickly. Psychological stuff takes a loong time to heal, and the wounds aren’t immediately apparent.

    Laurie: I was speaking in generalities. I agree that there should be people looking out for kids, but these days, the differences between a predator and a person who’s got genunine good intentions are really hard to spot. And how many parents would be okay with an unknown (to them) adult taking an interest in their kid? Not many. Just out of curiousity, how do you think schools should enforce these policies, when most of the bullying takes place either off-campus or during passing time or recess? Teachers can’t punish stuff they don’t see.

    Lasciel: I’d suggest transferring the younger kids up, so that they can get out sooner too. My dream was to get bumped three years ahead.

  31. Bruises and scars heal pretty quickly. Psychological stuff takes a loong time to heal, and the wounds aren’t immediately apparent.

    Do you see that your comments about beating being somehow “better” than verbal abuse marginalize actual victims of physical abuse? Not to mention, relegating verbal abuse to those horrible awful women/girls, while manly men and boys use their fists, is sexist and crappy. On a feminist blog, no less.

  32. TFH: Generally speaking, if people see bruises on a kid or a teen, someone figures out that they’ve got to act. Psychological bullying flies way below the radar, so it goes on longer and no one tends to realize the victim is being bullied until it’s too late. I’d also like to point out that I was speaking from my personal experience, and that kids tend to play out their gender roles, unless they’re raised in a bubble. (And yes, they’re pretty sexist.)

  33. Er, kids are pretty sexist, and tend to define themselves by gender roles, rather then by internal definitions.

  34. I’m still trying to understand why we’re letting these sociopaths have a right to the same education as normal students?

    I’ve been posting on Oprah’s bulletin board in response to her recent shows about the documentary Waiting for Superman, about our failing schools systems. Asking her, when they’ll discuss bullying. How is a student supposed to learn anything when they’re spending their days terrified? You could ask a boss to fire, or sue a company if you were told to work with someone like this, but it’s alright for our children to remain helpless in the face of these sociopath children?

    I don’t care if they have a bad home life, were abused, or whatever, that does not give them a right to abuse others. If they cannot participate in a school setting, without victimizing and abusing other students then they should be made to find another option for education. It is not fair to the students who have their morals and priorities straight, to have to contend with these monsters who’s personalities resemble those of serial killers.

    These children have no conscience, or ability to care about others. It’s like expecting someone to work as a business partner with Charlie Manson. Extreme? Well being reasonable hasn’t worked so far, and it’s clear these children have a high possibility of growing up to be criminals.

    The worst thing is these sociopath students, are sent to Special Ed under the claim they have a “behavior disorder”. They’re sent to a place where they have their pick of sensitive students to abuse. It’s essentially rewarding them for their abusive behavior.

    And if a student should report they’ve been bullied, the bullies will know how to manipulate the situation to make themselves look like the victims. They will know how to fake cry at the dean’s office, and claim they’re the ones who are bullied. So the victim is blamed for their own victimization, and learn to embrace a sense of learned helplessness. That no matter who they tell, the bully will still be allowed to abuse them.

    Why are children dying, when we have these soul murderers in our school. Bullies should not be allowed a public school education until they learn to behave. We would expect a school to expell a student who brings knives to school, but we’re told that we should tolerate when a student uses words as their weapons?

  35. Jackie: You might want to reconsider that statement. There’s very little difference between a victimized child and a bully child. I’m not fond of kids, but labeling a child ‘a sociopath’ seems like overkill.

  36. TFH: Generally speaking, if people see bruises on a kid or a teen, someone figures out that they’ve got to act.

    Not in my experience.

    And in that same experience, psychological bullying not only does not fly under the radar, but is all out there, for anyone who’s paying attention, to see. My school teachers (at 3 different public schools) not only ignored the bullying. Sometimes, for great laughs, they joined in.

  37. Jackie, I agree with politicalguineapig.

    Am I the only one that is of the camp that MOST kids bully? In my middle school, it was like a circle-jerk of hate. None of what I remember was what I’ll call the legally protected classes -ists, but we had LOTS of classism, fat phobia, and a fair chunk of able-ism (which I suppose is one of the legally protected classes -ists). We had the popular kids who picked on kids who “looked” poor, then those kids picked on kids that were also poor, and so on and so forth until it came back to the popular kids – who really weren’t all that popular.

    This isn’t a justification of the behavior, but it’s acknowledging that they are all human. They learned that this was the way to act and they aren’t going to unlearn it by getting kicked out of school.

    Removed from the kids they’re harming? Yes. Yesx20. Out of school and then shamed by adults on the internet using ableist language? No.

  38. Its true that a lot of kids do bully, and that high school pecking order is a microcosm of overarching society, but if you look at the suicide rates, and homelessness rates of those that idenfity as gay or lesbian (etc) in high school there’s a lot of systemic problems/questions that arise.

    We in a lot of ways, culturally reinforce or excuse bullying in some groups. I’m not sure how many of you have done any background reading on the case Jill mentions, but the principal basically implies that the kid brought it on himself. If we live in communities where we casually imply its okay for the bolder of our teenagers to act in ways that humiliate or torment (or worse) groups of people because of their ascribed statuses because their differences make them conspicuous, and we’re going to just say “kids bully”, then we’re just rationalizing that away.

    The fact that homophobia and outright anti-gay bullying happens based on the ASSUMPTION of being gay, or not conforming to idealized gender norms (as happened in this case) underscores what I feel to be a very large problem with our culture. When we have educators and politicians saying “bullying is wrong, unless of course you happen to make waves or have it coming (by being percieved as gay)” then we have to step back and see if we can find ways to rescue kids from communities that accept them all too conditionally.

  39. in high school, i was called into office of the vice principal who told me if i knew was what was good for me, i would tone it down. no joke. (i really wish i had a tape recorder then). apparently a male classmate of mine told his parents (catholic, surprise surprise) that i had a crush on him and that made him uncomfortable. ugh! as if! in hind sight i see i was being bullied by the administration too.
    here is my submission for itgetsbetter. enjoy!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLPAK0rlpec

  40. I isn’t possible to fully rid of bullying, but it is possible for us to help those who have been bullied. This is a great way for people to get there emotions out.

  41. g_whiz: Frankly, I agree that a lot of the GLBT bullying is condoned by the administrators, and it does need to stop. But how would such a rescue effort be conducted? Close all schools near churches, or force administrators out of their jobs if they go to church? Close all schools in small towns or in certain regions? It’s a delicate balance, trying to stop bullying without turning schools into the Panoptikon.
    TFH: Those teachers should’ve lost their jobs. I do sympathize with you, ’cause I had the Queen of cluelessness as my first teacher, and I actually got into a lot of squabbles with my second teacher. I also acquired an undying hatred of principals. The point is, psychological bullying is easy to mask, bruises aren’t.
    Plus, I’d like to point out no one can duff up someone for lunch money over the internet or over a cell-phone. It is increasingly easy to send hurtful and hateful messages over the internet when both bully and victim are at home.

  42. Its not anti-Christian to at least teach all students within their charge with the same respect and rights to safety and humane treatment. I’ll agree that a lot of the homophobia in our schools is a result of Judeo-Christian propogation, BUT the belief that children should become human targets because they don’t adhere to the scriptural tennants of your faith? Sure education and christianity go together like peas and carrots, if we’re allowing people to be educate and structure our children for the love of god learn some objectivity. Turn a blind eye on your own time.

  44. g_whiz: I think you may have mistaken me for a Christian. I’m not.
    I’m not Christian precisely because of the loud majority’s stance on GLBT issues and women’s rights. (Which is not the same as the actual majority, but more on that later.) I would actually be totally fine with shutting down churches near schools. But then, there’s the First Amendment to consider, too. I’d like to believe that children’s safety outweighs certain adult rights, but I’m sure the U.S. and most of the commentariat would disagree.
    Also, I said: Kids are cunning little pack animals, and unless they’re monitored closely, bullying will happen.
    I do support monitoring, but not a lot of kids thrive under constant surveillance. Neither do adults.

  45. Just an FYI to folks: boys use psychological bullying too. More precisely, boys use both physical and psychological means to inflict harm upon their targets. When I went to school, most of my tormentors were boys and the bulk of the abuse that I received consisted of regular verbal abuse and ostracism punctuated with physical abuse. Don’t be fooled into thinking that physical abuse is so much easier to overcome. When you couple it with other forms of abuse, it’s really quite terrible. You live in social misery from constant insults and barbs and you live in fear for your physical well being from random acts of physical violence.

  46. Noted, timberwraith. Most of my bullies were girls, so I didn’t touch on male bullying..

  47. This project is awful.

    Shut up Dan Savage. It “got better” for you because you are RICH, WHITE, CIS-MALE and American.

    this is a horrible approach to take. Don’t try to convince people that life for adults is some walk in the park, if you are dealing with hate crime, discrimination, and worse.

  48. Worked with kids, male and female, in lock-down treatment facilities for years. Regardless of gender, level of supervision, or attempts at intervention, most bullying will never be reported, because snitches get it worse than anyone. This also applies to high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. Even the constantly bullied kids tend to prefer that state to outright ostracism, which is what you get if you tell.

    Worse, as a society we punish kids that fight back: if someone is beating you up for being gay, and you knock her teeth out, you’ll likely face the same, or worse, punishment as she.

    Also, many kids, if confronted by an adult about a black eye, will lie to protect their attacker.
    The trick to rooting out the worst bullies (as a staffer) generally came down to watching for minute psychological signs in victims, and then constantly noting when and where these signs became more pronounced. Long, arduous, and all but impossible to do unless you have capabilities for 24/7 monitoring.

    And, quite honestly, if you are a staffer in charge of security in today’s public schools you have enough guns, drugs and gangs to worry about that bullying is just beyond your resource level. In addition, bullying of (perceived) LGBT students is difficult because it is the students that have that perception. Most faculty neither knows nor cares which kids are gay, much less which kids other kids believe to be gay.

    (Just FYI, in residential, the bullies in the girls’ wing were much worse, on both the psychological and physical levels, than the boys. Bullies of both genders were dead-set on having power over other children, but the girls seemed to require constant exercise of control whereas the boys seemed to settle for proof of their dominance. Suicide attempt rates of victims reflected this.)

  49. Me: This project is awful.Shut up Dan Savage. It “got better” for you because you are RICH, WHITE, CIS-MALE and American. this is a horrible approach to take. Don’t try to convince people that life for adults is some walk in the park, if you are dealing with hate crime, discrimination, and worse.  (Quote this comment?)

    THANK YOU. My thoughts exactly. Hate this project on a gut level and have since I first heard about it.

    1. Really though? I mean, of course, I understand that it doesn’t get all that much better for everyone. But Savage isn’t trying to convince anyone that being an adult gay man is a walk in the park — he’s trying to convince near-suicidal kids that maybe there’s something to hold out for. That’s admirable. It’s a hell of a lot better than nothing; it’s a hell of a lot better than what most people are doing. It’s better than just saying, “Well, sure it’s easy for you, but life sucks for everyone else, so how dare you try to tell miserable kids that there is life beyond high school.”

  50. Hey, I’m a suicide survivor. “It gets better” would just read as more bullshit to me in that state, *especially* since it is not always true.

    Maybe it’s because I keep seeing this bullshit pop up on my facebook, and it hits me in the gut every time.

    I’m also gay, and that’s not my experience. Dan Savage is a rich, white, cis, upwardly mobile man. Of course his life had an upward trajectory, of course he found his people and went vacationing in France. He also is pretty famous for using trans women as the butt of his jokes, so that could pretty easily be read as…it gets better for ME, giving me this great enormous platform I can use to ridicule people who it doesn’t necessarily get better for.

    Just a thought.

  51. Join Michael and Marisa in the “It Gets Better” campaign to STOP bullying. The sibling music duo share their thoughts and urge their peers to stand up against bullying with their acoustic song “The Same.” http://bit.ly/bwXTg0

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