We Define Labels...They Do Not Define Us

                YouTube is the greatest invention ever gifted to man. I, like so many, was looking at a funny video on this glorious site. As I was looking through my favorite Alx James’, hilarious YouTube extraordinaire, videos I ran across an old youtuber. He’s not old years, but he is someone I have watched since I was a confused junior high student. His name is Shane Dawson. He is also a comedian by trade.

This video caught my eye though because it was titled “I Am Bisexual.” It was not something I expected from him since all his videos were comedy based. I wondered if it was supposed to be funny, which would have aggravated me, but I decided to check it out anyway. It was a coming out video for him. He was doing something similar to what I do here. He was using it as an outlet to express his feelings, so that they were no longer inside of him. More on that in a minuet.

 In his video he mentioned being depressed. This is something I understand. There are so many more levels to depression than just being sad. A lot of the time is feeling anxious, and disliking an aspect of your personality or life. You have all of these feelings of self-hatred and self-doubt that you don’t know what to do with. They build up until you don’t know if you will survive the sadness or the fear. I just really want you to understand why this blog is important to me, and why Shane’s videos are important to him.

Now, back on topic. In the video he further describes  why he isn’t either 100% gay or 100% straight. In essence he said that we are not defined by labels. He is so right. He is SO RIGHT it hurts, and he is not the first person to say it. My best friend, who is also in the middle of the spectrum of sexuality, spoke very similar words to me over the summer. Words don’t give us meaning, but we do give them meaning. We are the ones that assign weight to labels. WE give them meaning. He chose to not let these words decide his fate. All he wanted to do was share this part of himself with the world without fear of rejection. I understand that more and more people are more accepting toward those who are not heterosexual. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t still people out there that are hurtful with labels, and they are not always understanding to diversity. He was brave to trust us with this part of his life.

The lesson I desperately hope you take away from this: we define labels. This can go two ways. Either I want you not to use labels to define other people, or I want you not to use labels to define yourself. I suffer from depression, but I am not defined by it. Shane happens to be bisexual, but he isn’t only that. He really spoke to me by saying that we aren’t what other people see in us, or even what we see in ourselves.