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An Analysis of the It Gets Better Project

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An Analysis of the It Gets Better Project qsmpc 1 (1) pp. 85–94 Intellect Limited 2016 queer studies in media & popular culture Volume 1 Number 1 © 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/qsmpc.1.1.85_1 Janna Jackson kellinger and lianna levine University of massachusetts Boston While you wait: an analysis of the it gets Better Project aBstract keyWords This article analyses videos created for the It Gets Better Project as well as comments bullying by their viewers. The authors examined the top 21 videos based on number of views It Gets Better Project and rising popularity. Upon analysis of the comments, it was noted that the major- LGBT youth ity of them place the onus on the victim to ‘stick it out’ and wait until they are older queerness for the bullying to stop, as opposed to advocating for support and action by respon- suicide sible adults or bystanders, or even themselves. In addition, the messages within the video videos and the comments rarely offered ideas regarding how to put an end to the violence bullying or that the bullies should be held responsible for their actions. This article draws attention to the unintended, and sometimes contradictory, messages received even when the goal is support. In the wake of a number of publicized gay suicides in the United States, author Dan Savage and his partner, Terry Miller, started the It Gets Better Project. It originally was designed to address the anti-gay bullying epidemic by having individuals in the gay community post their personal stories via video to give gay youth hope. However, it has grown to the point where people outside the gay community have posted videos as well, including straight politicians, celebrities and sports teams. The It Gets Better Project comes with good intentions – to give gay youth hope and prevent suicide – but its messages are often framed in ways that have the potential to discourage gay youth and may even displace the blame from those who should bear some responsibility. 85 QSMPC_1.1_Kellinger+Levine_85-94.indd 85 10/9/15 10:08:00 AM Janna Jackson Kellinger | Lianna Levine In a world where education is no longer confined to schools, or even to the physical world, the messages of digital media and how those messages are framed are crucial in constructing the cultures in which youth engage (Buckingham 2008: 73). Because of the disconcerting number of gay suicides (including the ones that go unreported); the verbal, mental and physical violence committed against not only gay youth, but also those perceived to be gay (Kosciw et al. 2014: 12); and the well documented academic, personal and social consequences of such bullying (Connolly 2012: 248; Freis and Gurung 2013: 11), it is imperative that educators and researchers critically examine the messages all youth receive in schools and out. In the United States, schools have been sites of tradition and conformity, both in the official curricula and policing by peers, often in the form of teasing and bullying. When it comes to gender and sexual orientation, bullying of those who do not adhere to traditional roles has been particularly acute. This has been documented quantitatively, in particular by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which publishes a National Climate Survey every other year, and in numerous qualitative studies (including C. J. Pascoe’s 2007 ethnography, Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School). Despite some queer students and their families winning lawsuits against school administrators who did not do enough to prevent anti-gay bullying, protections for queer students, and enforcement of the protec- tions that do exist, are inconsistent and often depend upon the sentiments of the state, school district and even school administrators. Even outside of schools, the United States has a history of public fights over gay civil rights being inflamed by anti-gay crusaders claiming that inclusion of queer teachers or non-heteronormative curricula will destroy the innocence of children. For example, supporters of a ban against marriage equality in California asserted that same-sex marriage will lead to schools teaching about homosexuality in order to ‘scare’ people into supporting their cause. It is within this context that Dan Savage and Terry Miller launched their It Gets Better Project. Others who have written about the It Gets Better Project have both praised it as an effective suicide prevention tool (Goodman, Wennerstrom and Springgate 2011: S1-97–S1-98; Patrick et al. 2013: 1260) and even an AIDS prevention tool (Herrick et al. 2013: 1423) as well as criticized it for the underlying messages some of the videos promote (Grzanka and Mann 2014: 372–89; Meyer 2015; Muller 2012: 271–76). Criticisms include placing the burden of action, or rather inaction, on those being bullied (Grzanka and Mann 2014: 378) as queer youth are told to ‘tough it out’ for a later reward of success. Because this success is often defined by middle- to upper-class values in the videos posted to the It Gets Better Project website, the testimo- nies by many in them can further the despondency felt by disenfranchised youth by presenting a world that can feel unattainable for those who do not see themselves as possibly being successful in those ways (Meyer 2015; Muller 2012: 274). In addition, in many of the videos cities are depicted as urban oases for queers and rural areas as inescapable havens for homophobia, which can also make queer youth who wish to live in rural areas feel hope- less as well (Grzanka and Mann 2014: 380). While Dustin Goltz acknowledges these critiques, he counters them by pointing out that the project changed the historical depiction of queers as having no future (because queers cannot reproduce, because of the fear of AIDS, etc.) to having promising futures that are ‘multi-vocal’, as a wide variety of people with varied success stories have posted videos, which have reached both queer youth and the mainstream 86 QSMPC_1.1_Kellinger+Levine_85-94.indd 86 10/9/15 10:08:00 AM While you wait (2013: 136–42). Others also tout the It Gets Better Project as a public relations success, pointing to the user-generated content as providing a diversity of perspectives that engage the larger public (Ward 2013: 157–80; West et al. 2013: 49–80). However, Lister et al. have pointed out that the videos tend to offer very little in terms of solutions, particularly solutions supported by health behaviour research (2013: 21–22). Queer youth have also criticized the project for a lack of solutions and expressed a desire for strategies to make immediate change (Craig et al. 2014: 209–11). It is with these contradictions in mind that we set out to analyse the videos and comments on the videos with an ecological systems approach (Bronfenbrenner 1979). The ecological systems theory recognizes that individ- uals operate within systems while at the same time operating on those systems to influence them. These systems are often depicted as concentric circles, with the more influential systems, such as family and school (microsystems), closer to the individual and larger systems, such as community and society (exosystems), making up the outer circles, with mesosystems in between. The theory also recognizes that these systems shape each other in all directions. Bronfenbrenner later added the dimension of time, labelling it the chrono- system. While Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory largely impacted people’s views on poverty by countering the myth of meritocracy, the same issues apply here, as many of the videos suggest that, like some attitudes toward the poor, queer youth ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ (Puar 2012: 151). In analysing videos and comments on the videos uploaded to the It Gets Better Project website, therefore, we applied an ecological systems framework in order to recognize both the agency of queer youth and the influences of their cultural milieu. For this study, we analysed the top 21 videos posted for the It Gets Better Project as determined by relevancy (an algorithm that sorts by a combination of popularity and rising popularity). Because some videos had upwards of 12,000 comments, we only analysed a sampling (n=1,602) of their accompanying comments, focusing on the beginning and end of the comment record in order to get a sense of the received messages of these videos. We interrogated the data by asking Holsti’s (1969: 43) questions for content analysis, which we tailored to our purposes in order to tease out the various levels of queer youth’s ecological systems being addressed or not addressed: • Who (authorship including perspective and potential biases)? • Why (explanation for bullying)? • How (persuasion techniques and common messages)? • What (what key words were used to describe the gay community and how are key words, such as bullying and happiness/success, defined)? • To whom (audience and terms used to describe the audience)? • With what effect (impact on both intended and unintended audiences)? We also included some questions of our own: • With whom (who is depicted as having shared responsibility for the bullying)? • When (when does it get better and/or when should it get better)? • Now what (who is expected to take action and what action is expected to be taken)? 87 QSMPC_1.1_Kellinger+Levine_85-94.indd 87 10/9/15 10:08:00 AM Janna Jackson Kellinger | Lianna Levine Comments were categorized by their contents. Because many people posted multiple times, the ratio of comments was calculated both in terms of number of overall comments and in terms of the number of people who posted among the comments. Our analysis revealed that all of the videos surveyed fit within the stated purpose of the It Gets Better Project, as included on its website: 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.
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