Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Brian Delaurenti: Wow. Hey, Portland.
(Cheers)
So, when I was 17 years old,
I had already spent several years struggling with a decision
that I felt I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders:
whether or not to come out as gay.
For so long in my mind, I thought,
"Well, if nobody knows that I'm gay, then I'll have nothing to be ashamed of."
Right?
But life or at least hormones
have a funny way of bringing issues to the surface when you're that age.
(Laughter)
At that time, I had started telling a few close friends that I was gay,
but what I dreaded most was telling my parents.
Perhaps they were the people I was most fearful of disappointing.
They certainly were the ones I was most fearful of losing.
In my mind, though, I was never going to tell them.
This, of course, was how I felt
until it was time to have my wisdom teeth removed.
(Laughter)
I know, I swear this is going somewhere.
(Laughter)
We've all seen the viral videos online
showing what happens when you come out of a day procedure like that.
(Laughter)
Incoherent babbling,
people afraid they've lost their tongues or nose,
just in general wondering if this is real life -
(Laughter)
What did I do?
Naturally, high as a kite, coming out of surgery,
apparently I thought it would be a great idea to come out to my nurse.
(Laughter)
Of course, when I finally came to and I realized what I had done,
she was assuring me that my secret was very much safe with her,
but it quickly became apparent that my secret was no longer safe with me.
(Laughter)
Flash-forward to later that day, though,
and those post-operative drugs gave me enough courage to come out to my parents.
And they were chill, so I was good.
But for so long, that moment felt like it would harm me for the rest of my life,
and looking back on it now,
it was truly one of the best decisions I could have ever made.
(Applause)
Johnathan Dahl: So, true story, funny story,
it's four years later, Brian and I were both 21 years old,
and I had my own little secret:
I'm also gay and I'm very much in the closet.
I'm scheduled to have my wisdom teeth pulled,
and I am mortified.
(Laughter)
I know about Brian coming out to his parents and his nurse,
so naturally, I was terrified.
So I go for my procedure, and when I wake up,
what did I do?
I came out to my nurse.
(Laughter)
JD: It gets better. BD: It does.
JD: I didn't just come out to my nurse.
It just so happened to be the exact same nurse that Brian had come out to.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
BD: We don't know who you are,
but if you see this, message us.
JD: Yeah. BD: We need to take you out for a drink.
(Laughter)
BD: It's a true story.
Four years later,
Jonathan and I apparently like to come out after we get our wisdom teeth pulled, so -
Same nurse.
JD: But we're not here to talk about -
seriously, we're not here to talk about coming out of the closet
under post-operative drugs.
(Laughter)
We're here to share an idea with you guys today,
and it's bigger than just Portland,
it's bigger than Blue States and Red States.
It's a universal message that can be understood by anybody,
regardless of your gender, your culture, your religion,
your upbringing or your orientation.
We all encounter love and hate in our daily lives,
whether it be directed at us,
or directed at someone else and we're just a witness to it.
How do we best process the hate and learn how to respond appropriately?
How do we find love for ourselves when hated,
and how do we find love for those who need it the most,
those consumed by their own hate?
How do we stop looking at the world as us against them
and look at our collective humanity as one worth loving?
BD: So, Jonathan and I have been best friends since we were eight years old,
and we have very much been partners in crime since day one.
At 12 years old, we went door to door, asking to rake leaves for our neighbors.
At 14, we were selling newspaper subscriptions for The Oregonian.
At 16, we had both gotten jobs at a local grocery store,
stocking the dairy cooler.
And by high school, we were well in the age of MySpace.
Who here remembers MySpace?
(Laughter)
JD: Who could forget Tom, your first friend, right?
BD: Very first friend.
Well, what do we find ourselves doing?
None other than creating and running celebrity MySpace accounts.
JD: Sheryl Crow, James Taylor -
BD: Now that I said it out loud, we sound very weird.
JD: A little bit.
BD: They wouldn't have their MySpaces without us.
JD: True.
By our early 20s,
I'd just wrapped up several years of touring the band in the country,
and Brian had just moved home from college.
On a whim, Brian decides he wants to grow up that glorious beard of his,
and naturally, as best friends,
I got envious and decided that I wanted a beard too.
So there we were, two gay, bearded best friends in Portland, Oregon -
(Laughter)
Anyone that knew us well could have foreseen what was about to happen.
Brian comes up with this idea that he wants to start an Instagram page
based around our beards.
And after throwing a few names around and awkwardly taking photos of us
trying to look like Vogue models -
(Laughter)
We weren't sure if we'd had an idea worth sharing.
(Laughter) Audience: Aw ...
JD: July 21st, 2014.
Brian has this idea that he wants to put flowers in our beards.
I'll be honest: the first thing I told him was I thought that was pretty gay.
(Laughter)
BD: I think we can all agree that's just a little ironic.
JD: A little bit.
But after seeing what the pictures could be,
we realized what else we could do.
After receiving some encouraging feedback from the followers we did gain,
we wondered, "What else can we put on our beards?"
(Laughter)
BD: It turns out -
(Laughter)
Quite a lot!
(Laughter) Audience: Aw ...
BD: Oh, man ...
From there, though, the rest was history.
We knew what The Gay Beards could be.
When we started out on Instagram, our aim was to be comical.
We've clearly never been the type of people
that take ourselves very seriously,
but we didn't really expect much of a response.
A few laughs, at best.
But what really took us by surprise
is when people began to reach out to us with their own personal experiences,
sharing with us stories of coming out,
adversity, their fears, their hopes, their dreams;
sharing with us things
that we would have never expected someone to share with a complete stranger,
confiding in us, really.
But their strength and their honesty and their willingness to connect
made us realize early on
that we had a real opportunity to be a support system
for those who may not have had one otherwise,
an opportunity to be a light in times of other people's darkness.
We all have the ability that way
to be there for someone in the time of need.
JD: It's safe to assume we've all had moments in our lives we have felt lonely.
Think about how we are as a society today.
We're just one click away from connecting with somebody
even halfway across the world,
yet we still feel lonely.
The reality is we're hyperconnected.
We're addicted to our phones, we're addicted to the internet,
we're addicted to this immediate gratification.
We feel this need to know everything all the time:
what's the news, what's the weather, what's everyone up to.
It's "feed fatigue."
BD: Hashtag "feed fatigue." JD: Hashtag "feed fatigue."
JD: Knowing everything all the time can be exhausting and overwhelming.
BD: Sometimes, we as a society just need a break from everything,
a reason to laugh, to smile,
to forget our struggles and the insecurities that plague us.
We all have them,
and social media, of all places, is an outlet
where we can either choose to immerse ourselves in those things
or step away from them.
Let's take the news, for example.
Tragedy happens every day.
We know that horror and devastation very much exist in this world.
But whether or not you go looking for the news,
it's showing up everywhere:
on our feeds, on TV,
it's hitting the newsstand -
We know as humans, sometimes it's hard not to feel helpless.
JD: We're constantly made aware of other people's happiness,
whether it be the glamorous life of a celebrity
or that person you know who, at least on social media,
is living their best life all the time.
(Laughter) BD: We do.
JD: It's hard not to feel inferior in your own life
when you constantly have someone else's to compare to.
We're equally made aware of other people's opinions,
people who disagree with us or might even hate us for who we are.
So how do we show love for those who'd rather see us perish
than hear us out with acceptance and understanding?
Are we all so divided that we can't see that, at the end of the day,
we are all human and we're all in this together?
We have different opinions, sure, but so, what if they're different?
BD: So, how do we find happiness?
How do we find happiness and share it with those around us?
Well, it starts with each one of us as individuals,
because every day, we have an opportunity to wake up and pursue our own happiness,
which in turn has the ability to affect others
in ways that we sometimes least expect.
When those first flowers landed themselves in our beards,
we would have never imagined the impact it would have
on allowing other people to feel empowered in their own lives.
But that's the beautiful thing about pursuing your own happiness.
People are able to see when someone is passionate,
and passion is contagious.
(Applause)
We know love and positivity isn't always the forefront of media these days.
Various forms of hatred and negativity surround us
when we decide to subject ourselves
to a life of immediate information gratification.
When Brian and I decide to take a photo
and decorate our beards with flowers or glitter or whatever,
we know we run a much greater risk of exposing ourselves to criticism
by putting ourselves out there.
Pushing boundaries is almost always followed
by people having something to say.
We've been overwhelmed by the amount of love and support we've received,
on our page,
but what we weren't expecting was the hate.
Some of the comments I'll show you guys are a little brutal,
but we know there's no point in hiding it
because we all know this exists in today's world.
BD: So we're going to take a look at some of our personal favorites,
and we're going to do our best to channel our inner Jimmy Kimmel
and read these meme tweed style.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
"Faggots shouldn't have beards. It's a disgrace of being a man."
(Laughter)
BD: I'd say, being a man, we have pretty decent beards.
BD: I don't know if everybody else will - JD: I'd say so.
(Cheers) (Applause)
JD: "As a fellow bearded man, kill yourselves!"
Audience: Aw ...
BD: Well, we already know that once you get a death threat,
you've officially made it.
(Laughter)
JD: "You're a pair of irritating cunts."
(Laughter)
JD: Although I'm pretty sure we've been called that before we had beards.
(Laughter)
JD: And last but not least - BD: Our personal favorite.
"LMAO. Fuck off, faggots."
(Laughter)
BD: Well, at least we made them laugh.
(Laughter)
JD: So hard they laughed their ass off.
(Applause)
JD: But I think we've seen enough of this. BD: We get the idea, right?
BD: So, Jonathan and I aren't looking to argue with anyone.
We know just as well as everyone else
that everyone is entitled to their own opinion
even if it does seem a bit futile,
but what we've learned to do is love the hate.
Hatred normally stems from challenging other people's perspectives,
which in today's world is so absolutely necessary.
With all the wonderful comments and stories we've received,
it would be an absolute pity to let the negative ones hinder what we're doing.
(Applause)
Negativity fuels our fire
because negativity implies there's still a change to be had.
JD: We have a choice when it comes to how we react or respond
to something unfamiliar to us.
It's easy to judge something or someone who's different than ourselves,
but words are like weapons, and they can be terribly powerful.
A pivot in our word choice can make a significant difference.
When you say that you hate something, do you actually mean it?
You don't really think about it.
Like, do you hate water chestnuts?
Because I do. What the hell are those things anyway?
BD: We don't know. JD: I don't know.
(Laughter)
Hate is something that is taught.
Now think about that:
hate is taught.
It's the people, whether it be in person, on your phone screen or on your TV screen,
that play a heavy role in our influences and who we become as people.
We have a choice to let hate intimidate us
and whether or not we choose to react to it.
It is so important that we realize that hate is not tangible.
You can't see it, you can't touch it,
and in all reality, it only exists as much as we let it.
It's sort of like a nightmare:
the only real threat it holds is our willingness to fear it.
BD: Now, everything you do in life
isn't always going to be met with raving reviews from everyone.
And you know what? That's okay.
In fact, honestly, it's more than okay.
It's wonderful.
How can we grow, as individuals and as a society,
if we aren't pushing the boundaries of ourselves and others?
In a way, we can't live in fear of hate,
because hate is only as damaging as we allow it to be.
But if we anticipate hate, it can't surprise us.
If we anticipate it,
it can't break our core and force us to give up and move on.
But if we know some people will try and be hateful,
then how do we react?
Honestly, the answer might not be the same for everyone,
but for us, we just don't.
And why would we?
In a way, when someone offers you hate on a silver platter,
they want you to eat it up.
They want to chip away at your security and make you feel lesser because of it.
(Cheers) (Applause)
Now, we already know
that there's no reason to try and change somebody's arguments
when they've already got their mind made up,
and we know this because research tells us
that opposing someone's argument just strengthens their belief in it.
So if anything, why give somebody a reason to build on their hate,
when you can simply acknowledge their right to an opinion, or move on?
(Applause)
JD: Hate is an interesting thing that way.
It's so intended to make someone feel bad about themselves and who they are -
Yet as humans, we often feel inclined
to turn around and hate someone right back.
But this isn't a mudslinging or pissing match
of who can hate more than who.
It's fighting fire with fire,
and when we're fighting fire with fire, as we all know, everybody gets burned.
Even though being the bigger person can feel far too daunting
and perhaps an exhausting task for one person,
it's really not.
Learning to love in the face of hate is exactly what the world needs more of.
BD: In the end, we have to remember that love is far more powerful than hate.
Both sides are very much prevalent in life every single day,
but it's what we choose to do with them that matters most.
Let's remember that nobody is born with the innate desire to be hateful.
Future generations will learn about hate from one place, and one place only:
us, right here and right now.
We can't wait for the day where the world feels divided,
because unfortunately, that day is already upon us.
The next time you decide to say "I hate something,"
stop to really think about your intentions
and the implications it can have on those around you.
If you take one thing away from our talk today
it's that if you're going to say "I hate,"
make sure it's not applicable to another human being.
Hating somebody for who they are is not going to change them.
So why bother?
The next time -
When you wake up tomorrow and you wake up every day here after,
don't be afraid to lead with love.
BD: Love can heal - JD: Love can rebuild -
BD: And above all, love is our future.
JD: Thank you. BD: Thank you.
(Cheers) (Applause)