Savage Action

So, if you pay attention to the media and/or social trends at all, two things will have become very evident to you at this point in the earth's history:

1) Bullying in schools (specifically homophobia-induced bullying) is an all too real problem that destroys, and, often, and tragically, prematurely ends lives.

2) Social networking websites are very fun and convenient to beat up on and blame for societal ills!

Obviously, bullying and homophobia are stupid things; a basic sense of right and wrong will suffice as a proof here. I'd be willing to bet that almost everyone who is reading this was bullied during some period during their adolescent life, and found it a miserable, suffocating experience. Unless you were yourself a bully as a kid. In which case, you are definitely going to Hell. Haha, I'm just kidding, that is an imaginary place. However, the fact remains that in the real world, these are real problems that destroy lives. The last story there (click on lives), that of Tyler Clementi, ties these two threads together in the most negative sense.

Also obviously, all of us here at Cake Police believe that social networking via the internet can be a positive thing, or else this blog would not exist. A mostly unspoken objective of this blog, which has organically evolved multiple times, has pretty consistently remained to disseminate information that we individually find valuable in some way. Whether those values lie in LOLz or in politics varies depending on the poster and the individual posts.

And herein lies the purpose of this post. Author and activist Dan Savage, in response to the often related epidemics in this country and the world of homophobia and child bullying, has launched a YouTube channel called It Gets Better, whose purpose is to unite adults, gay and straight, to send messages of hope to these kids that life does get better after the brutal experience of junior high and high school. The inspiration for which, according to Savage (aside from the slew of recent suicides by bullied gay teens to which I referred you in the hyperlinks above), is Harvey Milk's old maxim: "You've gotta give em hope."

So, basically, I wanted to share this as an example of the positive potential of the internet and social networking, as well as an example of someone not just citing a societal ill, but taking action to, if not single-handedly repair it (which, let's be honest, is more than a one person job), then at least aid and empower the afflicted in their struggle.

Here is the first video, made by Dan Savage and his husband, Terry: