Celebrities reaching out to LGBT youth

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Patrick Garvin

By now you’ve heard about 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, but just in case you haven’t, he was outed as gay on the Internet and subsequently jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project. That was triggered by Billy Lucas’ suicide, which was one of a few in the last few weeks. Just this past week, even after the news of Clementi’s death, another gay youth’s suicide was reported.

Ellen DeGeneres felt moved enough to record a video about these events:

Her last line echoes the sentiments of Savage’s “It Gets Better” project:

“Things will get easier, people’s minds will change, and you should be alive to see it.”

Savage created “It Gets Better” for LGBT adults to create videos to let the youth know that no matter how shitty it might be now, “it gets better.” When I posted about it a few weeks ago, Dan and his husband Terry were the only ones to have posted a video. Now there are several videos. Take a look, as they are quite encouraging and representative of the richly diverse possibilities you can have as an LGBT adult. But, you need to be alive to see it.

Elsewhere on the Internet, I found this ad from the “Give A Damn” campaign:

The “Give A Damn” project has an impressive roster of celebrities — gay and straight — who are lending their name and time to this cause. From the website:

The Give a Damn Campaign is for everybody who cares about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality.

But, it’s especially for all you straight people out there! Whether you’re already an active supporter, want to show your support for the first time, or hadn’t given equality a lot of thought before and now want to learn more, we are here to help you get informed about the issues and get involved, at a pace that works for you.

You’ll find a lot of useful information throughout this site—information that’ll engage you, surprise you and move you. You will also find a bunch of ways to get involved and show your support and encourage your straight peers to show theirs as well.

For all you gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender folks—we need and want you here, too! Because this site is also for you. Not only will you learn new things that might surprise and interest you, you’ll also find a lot of useful tools and resources that will help you encourage the straight people in your life to give a damn.

And then, through my friend Greg, I found this PSA on behalf of the Trevor Project:

If you’re in Jacksonville, Fla., the Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network can be reached at (904) 389-0089. Nationally, the Trevor Lifeline can be reached at 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386), where youth can speak with a trained volunteer counselor.

I know firsthand how it can suck to be an LGBT youth, but it gets better, and we need you around to see it.

“It Gets Better”: Being A Gay Teenager

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Patrick Garvin

Sex columnist and gay icon Dan Savage has created a project to let LGBT teenagers know that while life may be difficult now, “it gets better.”

Savage started the “It Gets Better” project after 15-year-old Indiana teenager Billy Lucas hanged himself in his family’s barn after enduring bullying from his classmates. In the weeks since Billy’s death, Savage has written about the incident in his Slog, inspiring multiple comments.

One comment struck a chord with Savage: the commenter expressed regret at not being able to tell Billy that things get better for gays and lesbians after high school. Savage explained on his podcast how this inspired him and his husband to create a video. They wanted to share their stories of how they were able to experience happiness as openly gay adults, despite the bullying they received as kids. Their hope is that other gay and lesbian adults will upload similar videos so that LGBT youth can know that despite how tough things might be now, it gets better.

I hope more LGBT adults will post videos to the “It Gets Better” channel. I’ve always said that it’s incredibly helpful for people to be open and accepting so that others will feel less isolated. Dan and Terry endured some difficult things in high school, but they got through it, found each other and have great lives. Hell, even I was inspired by their stories, and I had a good high school experience and come from a very accepting family. I can only imagine how helpful this could be for someone whose high school experience and family sucked.

Side note: If you’re a longtime Dan Savage devotee and groupie (like me), then you’ll relish the opportunity to finally see Terry. I’ve read almost every Dan Savage book, so I feel like I know Terry, D.J., Judy and the rest of Dan’s family. Terry looks nothing like how I pictured him to look.

Anywho, check it out. It’s an interesting use of the Internet and a hopeful event in an otherwise sad story.

The nebulous intersection of media and Foursquare

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Patrick Garvin

The news that Foursquare is partnering with MTV in September to give virtual badges to Foursquare users who get tested for sexually transmitted infections is news for many reasons, one of which being that it reminds us that many media companies are still trying to wrap their minds around Foursquare (and all social media).

If you’re a newbie to this whole social media universe…

Foursquare and similar services use smart phones’ GPS capabilities to locate where users are and what’s around them. Users can then “check in” to a venue by tapping it on a list — or typing in their own.

Foursquare users already receive scout-inspired merit badges for a range of check-in accomplishments. These include “Gym Rat” for hitting the gym 10 times in a month or “Crunked” for checking in to four or more places in a single night.

Why would you want to advertise where you were? Some businesses are offering specials to people who check in, and others offer discounts to “mayors,” the Foursquare user who has more checkins at a given location than any other user who has checked in there within the last two months. And, the game mentality of the app drives users’ desires to earn as many points and badges as possible. I know a couple here who would check into funerals if they could.

The businesses who do offer incentives for people to check in there seem few and far between. Some of the businesses of which I’ve become mayor have said, “Foursquare? Like whatchoo’d play in grade school?” It’s nowhere on the radar for them, and when I explained the potential rewards, they’d say, “Wow, the things you can do these days.” But, as the Wall Street Journal has pointed out, there are businesses trying to embrace it.

When The Wall Street Journal unveiled its metro section for Greater New York, it included some Journal-specific Foursquare badges. When the Journal “checked in” near Times Square in May when the area was evacuated for a bomb threat, it was the first time the Journal had used Foursquare to break news. In the months since then, there have been musings as to how reporters can use Foursquare to find sources. In places like New York, you might find enough people on Foursquare at a given moment who will see your alerts and find you. But in smaller places, it could be hit or miss.

I’m curious as to how media companies will gauge success with Foursquare. Until there’s a model for how to integrate it into a media company’s mission, I think the best way to judge it will be reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s obscenity statement in the ’60s: “I know it when I see it.”

I Can Haz Page Views? You Want A Blog

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Patrick Garvin

Social Media Guide posted an interesting link this morning: “34 Reasons To Start A Blog.” It’s a pretty good list, and many of those reasons factored in my decision to start this very blog.

When I created my online portfolio, I asked an SEO-minded friend how to get page views for my site. (“SEO,” for the n00bs and unititiated, being “search engine optimization”). I could pay Google oodles to be one of the sponsored results at the top of the page, but that would not be fun, he warned.

“The owners of those sites paid Google directly for you to see those listings. They maybe didn’t pay too much to get that link high on the page, but if you click on that link, Google may […] them over for more than a dollar just for that click. And if you don’t buy anything on their site or click on one of their sponsor ads or something, you and Google make them look and feel like real assholes… Based on the type of website this is, the types of visitors you’re trying to attract and my assumption that you don’t want to pay through the ass to get your numbers to creep up, free SEO tactics are probably what you’re most interested in.”

And? Those free SEO tactics?

Start a blog. “It doesn’t have to be a strictly graphics blog, but it should mostly be about you and your career and design and whathaveyou. Also things that you think are interesting and cool. You want to do this because search engines reward sites that are updated more frequently, so just a couple short blog posts per week will help. A post could be just a heading, a couple sentences, a link and a picture, and that will go toward boosting SEO. Putting links in blog posts, and really anywhere else on your site, will also help. Search engines like sites with lots of external links.”
Get people to link their site to yours. “It’s up to you how you want to arrange for this to happen and whose sites you’d like to have linked back to yours. Search engines also like sites that have lots of links going TO them, so this gives everyone an incentive to ‘link swap,’ or agree to link to one another’s site in an even exchange.”
Optimize your copy. “The basic principle is super straightforward: if you have a specific phrase that appears prominently and multiple times in the copy on a page of your site, your site is more likely to come up in the search results for that specific phrase. For instance, ‘info graphics artist,’ ‘info graphics designer,’ ‘Jacksonville illustrator’ and ‘news graphic design’ may all be appropriate for your list. More generic phrases like ‘info graphics artist’ will put you up against more competition, and while they may improve your ranking for those phrases, they may never get you close to the top of the list. As you get more specific, ‘Jacksonville illustrator,’ for example, you’ll be up against fewer sites and can make it closer to the top of the list. If you need help coming up with search term ideas based on your basic keywords, use the free Google Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool.”
Work those phrases into copy on your site in a way that comes across as natural. “It matters where they appear; search engines can tell heading text apart from body text, and they weigh it more heavily. All text that is emphasized in terms of font size and placement on the page is weighted to some degree. For each given page, I would recommend choosing just one or two selected search terms. Try to find a way to work one or both phrases into the title bar at the top of the browser window, and pick one phrase to put in the heading over the body text on that page. Then use one or both phrases about two times each per 300 words of body text, as a general rule of thumb. Be sure to list both terms in the meta tags and site description. Capitalization and punctuation won’t affect the phrases in terms of their effectiveness in optimization, but any other editing will, like inserting additional words within a phrase, changing spelling, etc.”

Another friend who’s much more web savvy than me offers this morsel for journalists wanting to blog:

“It’s one thing to have a nicely designed portfolio site that features your work, but a competitive job a recruiter also wants to see that you are involved in the cutting edge issues of your industry and demonstrating that you have ideas, and that other people care what you think and are commenting on it. In other words, I don’t just want to see your clips. I want to see you thinking critically about other people’s work and leading a conversation with other key players in your industry.”

From that Social Media Guide link, I found another blog-related read: Why Start a Blog and 25 Tips to Make it Work.

Enjoy, and get to blogging.