The #Proudtobe video was recently posted on the YouTube Spotlight page during the month of June. June is known as Pride month in the LGBTQ+ community, and this video was a celebration of pride. I watched it and felt inspired to see so many people living their best lives and finding happiness in their identities. There was pride in every clip because of how far each person had come in their personal journey. The video, to me, held a huge amount of credence and spoke beyond the realm of gender identity and sexual orientation. It encouraged self-discovery, self-improvement, inner happiness, openness, and vulnerability. These are all things anyone could stand to evaluate and work toward. The message could have easily resonated with any person seeking their best life. It was an invitation to happiness and pride in oneself and one’s journey. At the end of the video appeared a prompt asking for viewers to tag “#Proudtobe” on their social media posts about their journey to pride.

Expecting heartwarming, uplifting comments, I scrolled down only to find some of the most heartbreaking things I have ever read. Comment after comment full of hate speech and imposed superiority. Each thought eradicating any margin of acceptance for anything different than that commenter’s world. It seemed as though in that space all respect that had ever been forged simply did not exist.

The hate speech was almost addictive to consume. I felt like I had just passed a car wreck that I could not dare look away from. There was so much hate spiraling right before my eyes that all I could do was tear up.

After peeling myself from the hordes of damaging comments, I began to think about the freedom we have to say whatever we feel. Similar to any organized hate group, individual people have the right to express their views. It truly is a beautiful right to have that freedom, but it means everyone, even those who wish to hurt others, has a right to voice their opinion. The Internet has given individuals an unparalleled group mentality to rip at the dignity of others. Hate speech does little else than elevate the speaker and belittle the attacked persons. All-in-all everyone is a person; there is nothing that can change that. Marginalized humans being deserve respect simply because we are all united in humanity.

Since I don’t directly encounter it every day, I easily forget how wretched hate speech is. Things like this pull me into a pit of compassion and somber hurt. We should strive to replace hate speech with an infectious, pervasive respect for all people and a celebration of diversity among ourselves.