With more than 320,000 hits on YouTube since being uploaded last Thursday, a University of Wisconsin student’s music video protesting anti-gay bullying has gone viral with the help of an international celebrity.
Last Friday, Lady Gaga posted to her Facebook a music video produced and edited by UW senior Colton Boettcher set to her song “Hair,” touting it as “AMAZING” and writing, “The Choreo! I died!”
Boettcher said he created the video for the It Gets Better Project, which is a web-based support community intended to promote LGBT rights and the idea that after high school and the bullying that often accompanies it, life gets better.
He said receiving recognition from Lady Gaga is hard to put into words.
“It is surreal. I was just watching the video, and I’m thinking, ‘Lady Gaga has watched this.’ I can’t handle it,” Boettcher said. “It’s so exciting, and it is really cool that she loved it. It just doesn’t feel real at all.”
The video, which Boettcher said was funded through his own funds and as part of his own CeeJbee productions, opens with a scene of a gay teen being bullied.
Then, the video cuts to the halls of a high school, where students are dancing to choreography created by one of Boettcher’s friends. Later, the viewer sees a prom-like formal in a high school gym, where a same-sex couple is embracing on the dance floor.
The dancers in the video are made up of UW undergraduates, and the extras are all students from Boettcher’s high school.
Boettcher, who is majoring in communication arts with a focus on television, radio and film, said the idea for the music video came to him when visiting a friend in Canada this summer. He said after the concept came to him, he organized the first meeting about it in September and filmed in November.
According to Boettcher, the video was filmed at his high school with the help of a teacher he had in high school. He said the project was extremely significant to his small hometown school in Bonduel, Wis.
He also said the desire to create the video was driven by his own experience. Growing up in a small town and with a class of about 80 kids, he said he was bullied as the first openly homosexual teen in his class.
Boettcher said although he did endure some bullying for being gay, he generally had a positive coming-out experience since his parents were supportive and gave him more courage to stand up. He acknowledged, however, that the experience is difficult for many.
In addition to encouraging anyone dealing with bullying to reach out for support from peers, he said he wanted to create the video to spread awareness and positivity to the LGBT community.
“That’s why we made this video, to show that things that happen in high school don’t show what your life will entail,” he said. “You’ll leave and make a bunch of new friends and learn that high school isn’t everything.”
