Digital Media Strategy
Digital Media Strategy
15-year-old Claire hates reading. With a capital H.
Every Christmas, Claire would unwrap books from her hopeful, bookworm of a father, but they would remain ultimately untouched throughout the year. Claire’s older sister would tirelessly offer book recommendations, passing down tattered chapter books that she loved when she was Claire’s age.
Claire would try, but she could never bring herself to make it through the novels. She got overwhelmed by long chapters and found each turn of the page to be more and more discouraging. Each time she picked up a new book, she would find herself wishing she was at her dance classes, baking, drawing, or just doing something else.
But then, Claire met Nick and Charlie.
Nick and Charlie are the main characters in a series of graphic novels and novellas by Alice Osman, a British author from Kent, England. Osman began Nick and Charlie’s story as a web comic in 2016, when she was just 22-years-old. Since then, she has written and illustrated 11 books and graphic novels chronicling the couple’s journey. Osman is also the writer and executive producer for Heartstopper, a Netflix original series based on Osman’s graphic novels of the same name.
Claire connects with Osman’s diverse characters. Together with their eclectic friend group, Nick and Charlie deal with coming out, eating disorders, friendship drama, unaccepting or strict parents, bullying, first love, and the pressure that comes with being a little different in a world that tries to fit each person into the same cookie-cutter pattern.
From the surface, a teenager finding peace within the pages of a book seems like every parent’s dream. In the United States, however, conditions are slamming down hard about just what kind of books politicians want their children to read, and this is impacting the rest of the country.
The first book ban happened in 1637 in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts, and it did not stop there. According to The Guardian, from 2021 to April 2023, more than 4,000 books have been banned across the country.
Among these numbers, books featuring LGBTQ+ stories similar to Osman’s books are disproportionally impacted. In fact, according to NBC, over half of the books that were challenged and put up for ban in 2022 were because of content related to the LGBTQ+ community.
Banishing these books and yanking them from the hands of young readers—such as Claire—is harmful for many reasons. It strips youth from the opportunity to connect with both themselves and other people, and it robs them of a chance to build empathy for others, straight or gay alike.
Stories highlighting queer characters are a way for LGBTQ+ readers to see their future. With so much of the world attempting to stifle their identities, it is critical for them to see a world where they can find peace. They aren’t weird. If they are bullied or dealing with the weight of conditional love from a parent or loved one, a book with a character dealing with the same issues is a way for them to see that they aren’t alone and that they are still worthy of love despite the struggles they face.
It is hard to deny that there is a mental health crisis in the United States, especially when looking at our nation’s youth. However, when gender and sexuality is factored into the equation, these percentages skyrocket. According to The Trevor Project, LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely than their straight counterparts to consider or attempt suicide.
In the United States, according to estimates by The Trevor Project, one or more LGBTQ+ individuals (between the age of 13-24) will attempt suicide every 45 seconds.
Regardless of one’s personal views of the LGBTQ+ community, children attempting suicide—especially this frequently—should be a national concern and emergency.
Everyone, especially youth, needs to see these diverse perspectives represented in the stories they consume. For some, it’s about feeling seen and connected. For others, it’s an avenue to a whole new love of reading and self-discovery. It opens a door to creative thinking that we so desperately need in our world if we want any hope of innovation in the future.
According to Harper Collins Publishers, LGBTQ+ youth having access to books with queer characters is critical to their development and allows them to connect with their community.
But it goes even deeper than this. Research shows that reading queer stories and having exposure to the LGBTQ+ community allows even students who are not gay or transgender to have an open mind and build empathy. It gives them an opportunity to learn about people who are different.
Everyone deserves to see themselves represented in the stories they are reading, just as white, straight, cisgender people have from the beginning.
Osman’s books are a prime example of bridging communities and allowing students from different backgrounds to connect over characters they can all relate to for one reason or another.
“I hate reading… hate with a capital H,” says Claire. “But there’s something about these characters that I’m just obsessed with.”
Alice Osman is an expert at weaving inclusivity, acceptance, and the universal experience of being a teenager into her storylines in a way that makes young people feel heard. Her characters give the individuals who always hated reading a method for connecting with stories on a page. It’s powerful. It’s proud.