We were bopping around SXSW when we stumbled across a weird fact: Upworthy, the site with progressive videos and head-scratchingly vague headlines, owes some of its success to Zach Wahls.
Zach, you may recall, is the Iowa teenager whose video about his lesbian moms went crazy-viral a couple of years ago. Millions of people saw the video. He later wrote a book about his family and appeared on The Daily Show.
We sat in on a panel that the Upworthy folks presented, and they explained how the Whales stories became the vision for the inspirational digital magazine.
The site didn’t exist when Zach made his famous speech. Back in 2011, his video went viral the old-fashioned way: LGBT nerds passed it around on Facebook. Then MoveOn.org discovered it months later and reposted it. Their addition: the headline “Two Lesbians Raised a Baby and This is What They Got.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
It’s a familiar format: a little bit of risqué and just enough ambiguity to pique the curiosity. Today, that headline formula is so overused (by lots of sites) that it’s become annoying, completely devoid of useful content. But back then, it was an intriguing way of luring readers.
Before MoveOn’s headline trick, the video was just shy of two million views. Afterwards, it topped 17 million. Okay!
Shortly after MoveOn posted the hit video, executive director Eli Pariser co-founded Upworthy with The Onion‘s Peter Koechley, and the rest is history. Zach and his two moms are international heroes, and Upworthy is one of the most widely read blogs in the world, with tens of millions of unique visitors every month.
Alan down in Florida
Young men like Zach are changing the world for the LGBT community even while not being gay themselves. He is the perfect example of why there should not be all of the ally bashing that I continually read here in Queerty posts.
Sure I wish he played for our team but I wish Kevin Durant played for the Miami Heat. Whatcha gonna do?
hotshot70
He is cute. Wish I could meet him. lol
hyhybt
That’s why I hate Upworthy. You expect me to watch your videos when you won’t even say what they are? No.