To This Day

I'm going to step aside from talking about the Harlem Shake and instead talk about the next best thing: the To This Day Project by Shane Koyczan. It is a 7-minute long video in which Shane Koyczan recounts his bullied childhood and how it affected him. In addition, he reflects on numerous other cases with classmates and friends, and how confronting bullying is such a hard thing to do, yet it is so important to accomplish. This is an amazing video illustrated by a myriad of art mediums and narrated by a poem that Koyczan himself wrote. I was awed by the simple beauty of this video and the profundity of the message that follows.

If you were as touched by this video as I was, please share it! 

The awful truth is that out of the millions who watched this video, a good chunk would have been vulnerable to its message. After all, the majority of us have been both the bully and the victim at one point. Or a subtle action or a few words might have hurt someone way more than we intended. However many of us could relate to this video, it is really hard to change people and the way we behave towards others. I would love to live in a utopian world where bullying and the like don't exist, but that simply isn't possible. People (including myself) take too much comfort in being safe and unnoticed by the bullies by the overarching shelter of pack mentality. It is really hard to step out of your comfort zone, walk up to a "bully" and say, "hey, stop that", even when we have played it out again and again in our heads.

I merely hope that this video- even if only for an instant- lets you come to terms with how seemingly "okay" actions might have affected someone, and you wouldn't even know it. Maybe it doesn't hurt to smile at some of your classmates or colleagues more, or ask how they're doing.

Hope you guys enjoyed this video and how it was beautifully rendered. Thank you!