Some stuff just writes itself, and you have to put it somewhere. I'm fairly sure that Daily Kos is not entirely the right somewhere, but as I have very few somewheres right now and some of you might appreciate it, well...here it is, the script for my It Gets Better video. After reading that your ten dollar purchase of rainbow Doritos (tm) corn chips is donated to the It Gets Better project, my heart was full. So full this essay just poured out, below the fold.
It gets better. I promise, it gets better. When you finally get out of your miserable boring little town, you will get laid more. Probably. And you will either get a job or die. Since I’m still alive, let’s assume you’re still alive. The future you. (Conveniently, those who are not still alive do not make these videos. If they could make one, it would be – exactly, line for line – Angels In America. And there are so many who are not, who will not speak except in memory. Perhaps you should watch that instead. All three volumes. Just a thought. I'll wait.)
You can be a person for whom it is better, who is happy, or at least scraping by in an illegal sublet while doing contract creative work. Oh, sure, you could end up like one of those seal sleek gay men with a job in advertising or a high powered lawyer someplace, but let’s face it. You’re queer in a little town, you have to get out, and nobody is going to cosign a college loan in the meantime. Hope like hell you have some friends in the city. Hope you are really, really good at something. And, there is this: if you survive it, you can be genuinely proud of that, no matter what the fuck else happens in your life. Even if you only partly survive it, or spend the next thirty years putting together the pieces that other kids just naturally get. The world is actively trying to kill you. Not consciously, not at all. It is just there are already too many people, and you don’t fit in.
OK, maybe that sounds a tiny tiny amount too bitter. It does get better. No matter how crappy life gets, it gets better. It might get better after you’ve done something stupid or been fired and there isn’t a hope in the world. And just for a moment, out of the blue, it is really better. And you know, just know in that moment, that the game is worth the candle, a gift. And then a little later it will suck again. Of course, you can get better at creating the conditions for those moments, but since you are human and stupid (and there are too many of us)…well. You either get that or you have already embarked on some private ideology of happy, and are sure in your path. In that case, well, good. You can make future videos like this…with less irony. But fuck, you’re still young. Read more Dostoyevsky. Get outside more. Something.
OK, the idea of these videos was to persuade the young against suicide. Don’t do it! I mean, maybe all those other videos are totally full of shit. And maybe you just don’t believe what I said a little bit ago, about it getting better even if just a few bright transcendent moments in the suck. Not your chemistry, not your frame. Sure. But the thing that I said about lack of conscious malice, a bit ago? That was maybe a little bit of a lie. They do, actually, want you dead. They don’t think about it often but they would rather. Are you going to give them the satisfaction? Really? That is pathetic. And suicide is contagious. You’ll rob other queer people of hope as sure as the sun comes up. In short, don’t give in and don’t be an asshole. If you do we’ll be sad. It does hurt terribly. Like a deep cut, and don’t take that metaphorically, think about how much a deep cut hurts. We’re wired to social disapproval. There are societies where the shunned just die, they just stop eating and die. And we sit around in support groups saying “sticks and stones” when our lives are master classes on human shame and pride and resilience. But there is this: if you off yourself now after a youtube speech, that is your voice in memory. But you are not the first to go and you will not be the last, and the ones who live are the voices for the ones who have gone, not just themselves, and if you live you can be one of those voices. That is why you should be watching Angels in America instead of this video, of course.
The down home nature of the it gets better genre requires, I think, a certain leavening to the natural gravitas of the successful city queer speaking to his or her younger self. I think this has gotten too heavy sounding, especially since you are watching this after buying a ten dollar bag of It Gets Better rainbow doritos, and have put a rainbow on your facebook portrait, and stuff. A complete off topic downer for a nice little project. So, you will move to the city, and meet someone, and get a nice apartment or a house, and have a rewarding job with other professionals in a progressive environment. You will emerge from the pain of adolescence like a butterfly. Doritos will sponsor your inclusive projects. Or, you will hang on to life with your fingernails until they break and gaze in wonder at the world, knowing that it never gets better. We do, a little, we get better, and sometimes, for a little while, the world is a joy.