March 8th is International Women’s Day, a holiday that celebrates the various achievements of women and calls for greater equality. In order to celebrate International Women’s Day, YouTube has created the #DearMe initiative. To kick off the initiative, YouTube has released a #DearMe campaign video which features prominent YouTubers such as Michelle Phan, Lilly Singh, Scherry Shroff, Magali Vaz, Bilingirl, Gigi Chao, Sasaki Asahi and Shruti Anand who all give advice to their teenage selves.
The purpose of the #DearMe intiative is to inspire and empower young girls everywhere. Since our teenage years are often our most insecure and vulnerable times, it’s wonderful that these YouTube stars — with their huge teenage followings — can help reach out to their fans and help make a difference. Now let’s to turn the YouTubers themselves and see what they have to say.
The main message to their teenage selves? Embrace what makes you different and be who you want to be. The women in this campaign recall the qualities that made them different from their peers at the time. For the Asian YouTubers, it was often their appearance such as Bilingirl’s “coarse black hair” and Shruti Anand’s “color of skin.” While it’s common as a teenager to just want to fit in, the message from all these successful women who’ve lived through these tough teenage years is to forget about the haters and keep forging ahead. And as Michelle Phan says, “The most important thing thing is to just have fun.”
Watch the initial #DearMe campaign video below, as well as the 7 other individual #DearMe videos:
1. Scherry Shroff
2. Bilingirl
3. Shruti Anand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwboP-u_xQE&feature=youtu.be
4. Gigi Chao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ejpn8fntHs&feature=youtu.be
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5. Lilly Singh
6. Magali Vaz
7. Sasaki Asahi
Lastly, YouTube invites everyone to create their own #DearMe gif at this link here. We tried it out and here is the result:
What’s your #DearMe message?
