"It Gets Better" Site Maxes Out

The video submissions to the YouTube channel launched by Dan Savage, in response to a sharp increase in media reports of suicides by LGBT youths, have exceeded the channel's capacity.

Savage launched the “It Gets Better” channel  September 21 with a video in which he and his husband, Terry Miller, discuss their experience of how difficult it was to be a gay teenager, to be mocked, ostracized, and harassed by teachers, parents, or classmates. Savage and Miller said that they, like so many other LGBT adults, have been able to escape the difficulties of their childhoods.

“We reserved the video channel on September 15. We didn’t post the video until September 21, but my column about it didn’t come out until the 22nd, but in just in a week, we have gotten probably 1,000 videos,” Savage told the McClatchy-Tribune News Service. “The limit you can post on YouTube is 650, and we’ve hit that. We didn’t post every one we got, and there are more coming in — every day, every minute.”

Notables who have recorded “It Gets Better” video messages to gay youth have included actor-comedians Sarah Silverman and Kathy Griffin, Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn (pictured), musician Joel Madden, and actors Michael Urie and Chris Colfer.

Because the video submissions have exceeded the YouTube channel’s maximum allowance, Savage says he’s working with a social media site to host the videos, and it will have a place to make donations to the Trevor Project.