"Words Do Hurt"

Anti-bullying campaigns pushed off in full force last fall with the It Gets Better project created by Dan Savage. That campaign, which began modestly, resulted in hundreds of encouragement videos from celebrities, politicians, and everyday people (including googlers) who wanted to share stories and words of encouragement. Eventually the President of the United States even contributed one.

(View our "It Gets Better" timeline here.)

We've continued to see anti-bullying videos appear on YouTube since -- there are still hundreds of "bullying" vlogs and "It Gets Better" videos posted each week -- and in the last month, the conversation around teen bullying has once again spiked. Sometimes the most powerful responses are the ones put up by those who are subjected to that sort of treatment. This one has just drawn national media attention:



Alye's simple message -- "Words are powerful" --- has generated video responses and hundreds of comments.

We took those comments and created a graphic to get a general idea of what "words" had been used by those responding to her video:

Click to enlarge. Image created at Wordle.net