#PinkShirtDay has #NoChill

On February 24, #PinkShirtDay is coming around with it’s annual brand of “with us or against us” strongarmery that if you don’t conform to dressing a certain way, you’ll be pressured into doing so. And for the past three years, I’ve found myself standing up to an increasing number of aggressive volunteers and overzealous supporters of this event in an attempt to explain why I’m not wearing a pink shirt and fitting in with their movement. I’m beginning to feel like Kramer at the AIDS walk.

It’s time for Pink Shirt Day to change.

Pink Shirt Day has a very cool origin that traces back to two students in Nova Scotia, who encouraged classmates to wear a pink shirt in support of a student who was bullied — for wearing a pink shirt. This is a sweet, heartwarming story.

The intention is to raise awareness for bullying in schools, which in the past has been a problem that tends to be easier to turn a blind eye to than to deal with. But in addition to a host of other problems, the day suffers from the usual “awareness campaign” issues. What does it even mean to “raise awareness” for bullying? Most of us know what bullying is. Half of us probably were bullied.

And why aren’t these volunteers trained to encourage strangers to wear pink shirts without being actual bullies? It’s enough to make you wonder if the organizers go out of their way to recruit former bullies to their volunteer pool.

Ultimately though, the biggest problem that Pink Shirt Day hasn’t foreseen is the fact that an ad hoc campaign to support a bullied classmate does not scale into an organized nationwide campaign. On a small scale, wearing something different to support a fellow student is powerful. On a large scale, it’s Mean Girls.

Pink Shirt Day has grown in size to the point where it is now pressuring people to join the majority group by donning a pink shirt, essentially giving people a chance to experience what it’s like to be a bully — and to do so with justification that they’re somehow making a difference. If there was ever any doubt that you could be a slacktivist without the internet, here’s confirmation that you can (in brightly-coloured clothing).

Let’s also consider the fact that those people who are bullying others are probably the first to put these shirts on in an effort to blend in and get away with their actions.

“I’ve got my pink shirt on, therefore I’m not a bully. Nothing to see here. Find someone without a shirt to hassle about it.”

#PinkShirtDay: You need to reorganize your campaign. Currently, you walk a pencil-thin line between raising awareness for an issue — one that, quite frankly, does not need the awareness like it used to — and modelling exclusionary behaviour.

Graham Moore, in a moving Best Adapted Screenplay acceptance speech for The Imitation Game at last year’s Oscars , encouraged us to “Stay weird. Stay different.” Why isn’t a highly visible event like Pink Shirt Day teaching both bullies and people who may be bullied that it’s okay to stand out and be yourself?

I’m going to take that advice to heart and propose a #WearWhatYouWant day. It’ll be a day for all the weirdos to bust out that unicorn onesie in their closet and wear it with pride, where we can truly support and celebrate those who are different. No more getting lost in a sea of pink bullies.

Here’s hoping in the meantime, the organizers of Pink Shirt Day will take some time to consider just what they’re trying to accomplish, and figure out a way to serve those purposes in a less shortsighted way.