But he struck a more serious tone later, noting that not all kids have access to the Internet, and not all kids can "risk leaving an incriminating Internet history behind." He spoke of how the "gay books" tend to move around the library, picked off the shelves by kids who read them and leave them in remote sections of the library, where they won't be seen. Savage said he wanted the It Gets Better effort to be found by that kid in the library, so he challenged people to buy the book and donate it to school libraries. So far, more than 1500 copies have been donated.
Above all, however, Savage emphasized the "subversiveness" of the campaign. A frequent speaker on college campuses "as an antidote to abstinence speeches," Savage said one day he thought he needed to give these talks at middle schools, but that he would never get that permission. And then it dawned on him: in the YouTube era, he didn't need permission. Savage said the It Gets Better campaign "broke the old deal," where gay people were not allowed to talk about sexuality with young people without being accused of some kind of abuse, or immoral purpose, a tradition that made gay or "questioning" kids eight times more likely to take their own lives.
Savage choked up as he told a final anecdote about emails from a young girl who, after trying to come out and being rejected by her parents, recanted, and said she was in fact straight. "Up on the wall went the Justin Bieber poster," he quipped. But at night, under her covers, she was watching the It Gets Better Videos. "We were right there in her bed with her," Savage said, "giving her hope." But, he added, the videos were also helping the parents that rejected her, because the videos were not only helping the young girl to understand and love herself, but also to love her disapproving parents, and to understand them. "Someday," Savage added, "you will thanks us."
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