What is the It Gets Better Project?

The It Gets Better Project was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better.

-From the It Gets Better campaign site

Please read more about it here:

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/pages/about-it-gets-better-project/

Everyone from Chris Colfer  to President Obama to Kermit the Frog has sent out an It Gets Better message to the world, and now, it's our turn!

Kermit The Frog's "It Gets Better" Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEoCyLQgdCU&feature=colike

So, in the spirit of the It Gets Better Project, I would like to elaborate on this idea, and add more of an artistic element to it. If you feel that you have an encouraging story to tell about surviving your youth and reaching adulthood, please tell it. If you are a teenager and you're suffering through high school right now- PLEASE share your stories, and don't feel pressured to reveal anymore about yourselves than you feel completely comfortable with.You can use anything to tell your story- video, audio, image, or text, and if you would rather write a story sort of anonymously, you can always start your story by using the words, "I know someone who..." instead of "I..." went through this. Just try to share something real and honest.

Where the art comes in, is that I would like for people to make some RECord about their art indicating WHAT AGE they were when they made it. I believe this can symbolize to young kids the things that would never have come into existence if any of us had given up when we were young. An example might be... Say you have a painting that you love- that you made, and you were 25 when you made it. Take a photo of yourself standing next to your painting that says "MADE WHEN I WAS 25". 

Or you can make a sign that expresses something you feel was important that you accomplished in your life after high school, and make a sign that says something like "GRADUATED COLLEGE, AGE 22" or "HELPED A FRIEND THROUGH A TOUGH TIME, AGE 39" or "CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN, AGE 70" or "I'M STILL WRITING, AGE 99" or "MY FAVORITE ACTOR HEARTED MY RECord, AGE 19" - *wink* I would love it if instead of just posting the sign itself as an image, you would hold up the sign in a photo with your face in it. It just seems far more personal that way. Try to express something you have done in your life that you felt was really worth being here to experience- no matter how big or small it may seem to anyone else. If it mattered to you- it matters for this project.

Please make LOTS of signs that say It Gets Better! Draw it. Scribble it on your hand. Paint it on a shirt. Write it in the sand on a beach somewhere and take a picture.Get creative with it!

You can submit one big project or several different little things. If you have ideas to add to these, please contribute those ideas here in the form of text RECords so that I can add them to this collaboration page. The ultimate goal, for me, is to create both images and videos that can be used online or elsewhere where young people might see them and feel inspired by them.

I would LOVE to see people make their own, complete, It Gets Better videos and submit them, and then maybe we could have some of our editing masters start remixing different messages together to make one big message. That would be really great. Please tell your stories, and send out encouraging messages with them, closing with the phrase "It Gets Better" or a close variation in the last line of your message.

If you don't feel comfortable being on camera to tell your story, consider recording just the audio of yourself telling your story. If you need a free recording program, you can download Audacity here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Consider writing a song in the spirit of encouragement and submit it. Think up encouraging messages that you want the kids out there being bullied in schools every day to hear that will convince them that things WILL get better. Whatever you feel inspired to do for this project, please go for it!

Also, any positive RECords you have made in honor of the LGBTQ community would be cool to throw into the mix so please submit those as well. PRIDE photos, rainbows flags, etc.

On a personal note, I would like to thank all of you here who have inspired me creatively and otherwise in my life. If you think I'm talking about you, then I most likely am. =)

I would also like to let all of the LGBTQ members of hitRECord who may be newer here know that we have proven to be an accepting community, and I believe that this is a pretty safe place online where you should feel open and free to be who you want to be. I am aware of the fact that many LGBTQ teens report being more themselves when online than they feel they can safely be in *real life*. I hope HitRECord can be a positive outlet where you can all express yourselves freely and openly. I truly want that for you. When I was growing up, for different reasons, I was forced to keep a lot of secrets, and I know how trapped that can make a person feel, because I promise you, I have been there. Now it's years later, and I'm still here. I encourage you to read about the Stonewall Riots, to watch the film "Milk" - to learn about how far America has come over the last few decades- and to know that studies and statistics are showing that as a society, at least in America, younger generations are increasingly MORE accepting of LGBTQ peers than the generations before them. You know Kurt Hummel on Glee? That amazing character never would have been able to grace a screen when I was a teenager, and now, Chris Colfer, who is himself an openly gay actor, is dancing to Beyonce's Single Ladies on tour with Glee with over half a million people cheering him on. If that isn't a sign of the times changing in the right direction, I don't know what is. Proof that it's already getting better. (Love and thanks to Chris Colfer and Darren Criss for portraying characters Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson on Glee. Those guys are changing people's hearts and minds all over the world right now- for the better. Klaine 4ever!)

Kurt from Glee dances to Single Ladies

http://youtu.be/5Fr0dnSw64U

How Klaine Changed The World

http://youtu.be/szyXsExkvyw

Chris Colfer: It Gets Better

http://youtu.be/5RKmnAJ3ZWM

HitRECord's project started by the Teafaerie called "They Can't Turn the Lights Off" which was about the evils of California's PROP 8, won an award from the Human Rights Campaign, and RegularJOE himself was very much a part of it. He is on your side, I promise you.

And as for me and over 100 friends from hitRECord who are also my friends on facebook these days, I believe that every one of us would support you if we knew you needed us. If you need to talk to someone and you're not sure who you can go to, please check out the links at the bottom of this page or feel welcome to contact me and I will help you find someone to talk to.

Email - TheRebelliousGayRevolution@gmail.com ANY TIME.

Tumblr: http://fymagazinebygweninterrupted.tumblr.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Gweninterrupted

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/TheRGRevolution

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TheRGRevolution

Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/FYmagazine/

Well, I hope you guys can make some sense of all this. I really look forward to seeing your RECords. So, thanks. Lets all help make it get better.

 Love,

~gwen~

 P.S. A message to Joe & the hitRECord team: It is my hope that if this project takes off, we could find a way to use it to raise money for the It Gets Better campaign and The Trevor Project, which runs a suicide helpline for LGBTQ youth. If that is at all possible, that would be a wonderful thing. Otherwise, even without money involved, I would love to see Joe post some of the resulting projects from this collaboration to the YouTube HitRECord channel and allow our work to be submitted directly to the It Gets Better campaign for them to use on their site and on their YouTube channel. And Joe, I know that a lot of LGBTQ fans of yours out there would love to hear an It Gets Better message from YOUR heart. Please consider sharing one. It is no secret to most of us that you, as an actor, have portrayed a few gay characters over the years, and that you have been both a symbol for and a supporter of equality which I'm sure many of us find to be one of the most admirable things about you as a person. So, thanks for everything you do, for all of us. And thanks again.

The "It Gets Better" Campaign site:

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

To LGBTQ youth, if you need to talk,

please call or visit The Trevor Project.

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

1-866-488-7386

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network

http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/about/index.html

PFLAG, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays

http://community.pflag.org/Page.aspx?pid=194&srcid=-2

 Love.