I work with this older Jewish guy. I’d say he’s like late 50s and just the nicest dude ever. His job  at the company is to solicit ads for companies that want to advertise with us, in short.

It’s not a job that requires too much computer-savvy, so he came to me for help with a personal project (my role here is primarily to devise social media strategy and offer some direction in terms of implementation).

So, he’s just the nicest dude and he’s like, “Adam, when I was a kid I was bullied all the time for being gay and I just want to do something, something to let kids out there know they’re not alone”. Which was sweet, so I was like, yeah, fine, I can help, despite its risk of making me feel abhorrent “emotion.”

So, basically, he posts little things every couple of days, little essays or something. His intent is to be read by younger kids who may be depressed by their peers.

So, whatever, I’m helping him with formatting and setting it up and getting connected with the “It gets Better network” thing, and I read one of the headlines and it’s about how he got teased when he was younger and the headline is “Bye bye Girdle.”

Here is the conversation between us

Me: Bye bye girdle, huh?
Richard: Do you like it?
Me:What, girdles? I’m more of a corset man, richard
Richard: No, it’s a play on the musical Bye bye birdie. I thought it might let younger kids who are gay and maybe a little overweight relate
Me: What? What young person is going to get a reference to a musical from the sixties?
Richard:Oh, no! do you think no one will get it?
Me: Well, they will if you’re trying to tell gays in nursing homes that it gets better.

But, whatever, he didn’t take the social media maven’s advice, the sagacious input of the marketing mind, and kept making corny plays on words to musicals and other stuff that would never appeal to anyone under 100.

And, of course, it turns out his blog is highly popular among gay kids (I mean, I don’t know that their kids, I guess I should say young people) and that people everywhere love these references. And, while I’m proud of myself for helping him set it up and putting him in a position to succeed, I think this is a good opportunity for me to learn, I should never touch content because I have no clue what I’m talking about. And frankly, I think that’s a pretty good lesson. Trust people who are smart to understand their demographic. Trust me to say horrific things to those people and fill them with self-doubt.