Barack Obama's video contribution to the It Gets Better Project (2010). The It Gets Better Project was founded by Savage in response to the suicide of Billy Lucas and other teenagers who were bullied because they were
gay or perceived to be, such as with Raymond Chase,
Tyler Clementi,
Ryan Halligan, Asher Brown, and Seth Walsh. Reflecting on Lucas' suicide in his
Savage Love column, Savage wrote, "I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that
it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was,
it gets better." Former U.S. President
Barack Obama lent his voice to the project and its anti-bullying message during its infancy. On October 21, 2010, Obama contributed his own video saying in part, "We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage; that it's just some inevitable part of growing up. It's not. We have an obligation to ensure that our schools are safe for all of our kids. And for every young person out there you need to know that if you're in trouble, there are caring adults who can help."
Google Chrome backed the project as well, promoting its YouTube channel and airing a video ad for the project on television; that ad's first appearance came during a May 3, 2011 episode of
Glee. Today, It Gets Better is the world's largest storytelling effort to empower LGBTQ+ youth. Since 2022, It Gets Better distributed about $1.5 million to middle and high schools throughout the United States and Canada to fund projects that uplift and empower LGBTQ+ students. In 2023, It Gets Better was the first of several LGBTQ+ nonprofits to leave Twitter/X, citing a surge of hate speech and misinformation targeting queer and trans youth. In 2024, the organization dropped the Project from its name to reflect its "growth from a viral movement to a more comprehensive support system for queer youth." It is now known as It Gets Better. ==Book and television==