My goodness! One of my students from last year's CSP19: Gay Rights in the Obama Era, Josh Erdman (pictured above, right), is quoted in today's New York Times in an article entitled "For Gays, New Songs Of Survival":
THERE is no better place to witness the growing pains of pop music than on the video-sharing site YouTube, where for the past year Josh Erdman, 20, and Bill Klute, 19, both sophomores at Occidental College in Los Angeles [emphasis added], have been posting clips of themselves singing covers of pop songs by Miley Cyrus, B.o.B, Kelly Clarkson and other Top 40 regulars. Shot mostly in Mr. Erdman’s dormitory room, where the walls are adorned with posters of Lady Gaga and from the television series “True Blood,” the videos have the simplicity and sincerity of a campfire singalong. After several of the clips received over 100,000 views, the two men began to add a small stamp to the videos that reads “Legalize Gay,” a line that Mr. Klute cribbed from a T-shirt he bought at American Apparel.
“We weren’t sure if we were going to express our orientation with these videos,” said Mr. Erdman, a member of Occidental’s Queer Straight Alliance. “But we wanted people like us to know we’re out there.”
After finding “We R Who We R” on a music-sharing Web site a couple of weeks ago, they updated the stamp to read, “Legalize Gay ’Cause We Are Who We Are.”
“The lyrics obviously spoke to us,” Mr. Klute said. “What these artists are doing means the world to the gay community.”
The article even links to their YouTube channel, KoverBoys. I am amazed!
No comments:
Post a Comment