Being in a group with the responsibility of creating a social campaign about LGBTQ hate speech issues in Poland in one week and reaching 1,500 people.

(Dylan, Andrzej, Anna)

As an American fellow, those words and that phrase scared me. As an American fellow, group work doesn’t come easy: I talk a lot and I don’t easily trust others with actually doing their work.

As an American fellow, I’m still not fully comfortable with commenting about Poland and their political issues. Like every other country, their relationship status on Facebook is complicated. I also don’t have much experience creating a social campaign or researching LGBTQ issues.

And, all this in one week? Fuhgeddaboudit![i]

But actually, for real, this worked out. Here’s why: my group was awesome!

With Andrzej Mikołajewski reppin[ii] Poland with his campaign experience and Anna Mykytenko reppin Ukraine with her artistic talents and (most importantly) patience, I quickly realized our diversity and talents were our greatest strength.

Faith Bosworth, straight outta[iii] Peng Collective in Berlin, was our mentor for the week. Her creativity, enthusiasm, and cool demeanor rubbed off on us. That first day, she stirred our imaginations to think of utopia (and dystopia, but why focus on the negative?) in relation to our issue, and make an advertisement about it.

Well, actually. To tell you the truth, my group’s imagination wasn’t all that stirred. The other group’s, yeah, sure. My group? For those allotted 20 minutes, we struggled. I kept thinking of dystopia, Andrzej kept over-thinking positivity, and Anna kept thinking of overly preachy messages.

At the last minute (literally), we finally agreed on something. There would be a split screen: black and white, thunderstorms and sunshine, football hooligans and a lot of gay people. God would be atop presiding. The gay people would be pleasantly walking to the football stands, and the football hooligans would be attempting to ruin their moment. But, every attempt the hooligans would do something hooligany, God would change it to something polar opposite.

Hooligans throw a rock? The rock becomes a flower. Gay people get happier and closer, and the hooligans more frustrated. Hooligans curse and say “Fuck you!”? The phrase becomes “I love you!” Gay people get happier and closer, and the hooligans more frustrated. The hooligans try to throw a punch? God intervenes and makes it a hug.

Then the scene becomes colorful with a rainbow (of course) and the hooligans become gay (as in, happy). And the slogan, “Imagine a world without hate” appears.

Preposterous idea. But guess what, it worked. Fellow fellows were laughing and some told me it actually made them think, for a moment, about a happier world.

My group and I learned a lesson that day: chill.[iv] Let the imagination and ideas flow, don’t take yourself too seriously. What matters is connection with the audience, telling a story, prompting some thought about the issues, and leading them to action. Yes, LGBTQ hate speech issues are very serious; they are deadly. But, if you want to connect and make people move, you don’t necessarily need to be uptight.

This momentum carried over. This time, our idea took five minutes. Boom.[v] We collaborated and created a Facebook-like, infographic-ish[vi] thing detailing hate speech in the LGBTQ community. Anna drew it legit, Andrzej read Polish the way his grandmomma[vii] taught him, and I told people what to do.

This Facebook-like, infographic-ish thing morphed into our campaign. We targeted our target group: neutral and passive supporters, youth, and Facebook users with LGBTQ friends. We targeted the hate speech at a specific place: the internet. And we had a message: stand up for your LGBTQ friends because a lot of people already support LGBTQ people (over 75%). Aka, it’s already cool to be a nice guy toward the LGBTQ community, so, become one.

So we had the idea. And everything went smooth. And now I’ll stop writing this blog post. …. Right? … … Nope.

We hit some walls. Andrzej wanted every meme to show the audience an example of positive behavior; I thought it was more powerful to show a void. Anna thought the comments were too mean; Andrzej thought they were, if anything, soft.[viii] I thought we should expand the idea into an interactive space; no one agreed with me. I can go on, but my head would explode.

But we compromised. We made two memes with positive behavior and two memes with a void; we softened some comments and kept others; and we definitely did not make the page interactive. The egos of Andrzej and I should be an exhibit at the museum, but Anna’s listening and patience made us into boy scouts.[ix]

With the creative walls vanquished, we had another problem: we aren’t graphically designed inclined.

I took a computer class my senior year of high school but it was my senior year of high school. Totally forgot it. Shout out and sorry to Mr. Chiafulio.

But we were saved. This time, by Hannes, also straight outta Peng Collective in Berlin. This guy helped eight other groups with their graphics and made them all look legit.[x] He is amazing and has an impressive beard.

Through being in a fake relationship with Hannes (which somehow generated 30 likes on Facebook) and checking into a gay club in Warsaw, I enabled our group to produce screenshots for him to edit.

Then the question came, where would these memes go. Yes, mom, they would go on the world wide web. But, where? Website? Facebook page? Psh, no. Let’s give them to NGOs in Poland!

Oh, what a heart-warming, selfless idea. Just one problem. It was a holiday weekend. We reached out to a few organizations, and they all thought the memes were awesome, but they were also about to go on vacation. Thus, none actually had the time to officially approve our memes.

We were annoyed for about 20 minutes. Then, Andrzej played soccer with his brother and I left the hostel for the botanical gardens. Anna, once again, stepped up. Her, along with help from Andrzej, created the Facebook page, titled it “Dobre towarzystwo” (“Good Company”) and spread it.

Two days later, we – WE – surpassed the HIA goal of 1,500 people reached.

Now, I’m no longer scared to express my humanity in actions that will spread love.

Thanks. Good bye. Dylan.

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[i] According to Urban Dictionary, “fuhgeddaboudit” means “1. Forget about it - the issue is not worth the time, energy, mental effort, or emotional resources. 2. Definitively ‘no.’” The term is almost never used, but associated with Italian-Americans in New York City, New Jersey and Boston. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuhgeddaboudit

[ii] According to Urban Dictionary, “reppin” means “to represent something or some place.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Reppin

[iii] According to Urban Dictionary, “outta” means “out of.” Within this context, it is indicating the origin of the subject. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=outta

[iv] According to Urban Dictionary, “chill” means “1. To calm down.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chill

[v] According to Urban Dictionary, “boom” is a word that can be utilized as an “oral exclamation mark but in a purely conversational context. Its function is not as heightened as the afore mentioned symbol so its impact is designed to simply reinforce ones point or statement. Generally found in light hearted, but not overtly humorous, situations.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Boom

[vi] According to Urban Dictionary, “ish” means “kind of/sort of, usually added onto the end of a word or phrase.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ish

[vii] I made this word up. “Grandmomma” was coined to describe someone’s grandmother. Officially penned by Dylan Kitts in June 2014, the word “grandmomma” has its origins in the black vernacular term “momma.” The word “momma” is utilized to express the word “mother”, or, “mom”. 

[viii] According to Urban Dictionary, “soft” means “some one who is weak and feable.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=soft

[ix] According to Urban Dictionary, “boy scout” is “one who does everything according to the rules.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boy+scout

[x] According to Urban Dictionary, “legit” is a “modern synonym for words such as ‘cool’, ‘ill’, ‘tight’, or ‘dope’. Used to describe a noun that is of a particularly excellent quality.”