Interactive Annual 19:
social
NoHomophobes
“Words are the strongest things we put out in the universe and they live forever online‐and in life. This site makes you think before you speak or tweet.” —Perry Fair
“A powerful and effective way to convey a very important message.” —Scott Prindle
Many of today's youth believe it's OK to use homophobic language as long as they don't intend for it to be mean-spirited or offensive. This project holds up a social mirror to show how frequently and casually this audience uses hurtful language. Using Twitter's API, tweets featuring "so gay," "no homo," "faggot" and "dyke" were pulled, tracked and displayed in real time on nohomophobes.com. Visitors can pause the real-time stream and click on any of the tweets to be directed to the originating Twitter profile and interact with the tweeter, if they chose to do so.
- • The hashtag was trending on Twitter within a few hours of launch and the site had over 100,000 unique visits within 24 hours.
- • The site displays daily, weekly and all-time stats.
- • The site made the front page of Reddit and was covered online by the Economist, the Huffington Post and the Guardian.
Comments by Pierre Chan
“NoHomophobes shows the reality of the situation and not simply as an advertisement. Anti-homophobia campaigns that have preceded this one simply tell people to think before speaking; conversely, this project shows them what they actually say before thinking. It allows the audience to see exactly how, and how often, their peers are using this specific language and judge for themselves whether or not it should be acceptable.’”
“We couldn't simply pull every tweet that featured homophobic terms; we had to filter out positive tweets, as well as those that used the words in a way that had nothing to do with our subject matter. A lot of research and testing was conducted to determine which words and phrases to capture, as well as what parameters the tweets had to follow in order to be funneled onto the site.”
Credits
Nicola Pringle/Brandon Stephenson, art directors
Pierre Chan, writer
Chris Allen, creative director
Josh Dunford/Jeff McLean, executive creative directors
Adam Rozenhart, strategic planner
Jason Funk, developer
Jeff Greenberg, information architect
Frank Calder/Alysia Lambertus/Kayla Panizzon/Josli Rockafella, project managers
Burnkit/Calder Bateman, project design and development
Burnkit, development partner
Calder Bateman (Edmonton, Canada), ad agency
Institute of Sexual Minority Studies and Services, client
