Emily-Anne Rigal knows a thing or two about bullies; she was so bullied so badly as a child that she transferred schools...where she then became a bully. Luckily, she soon learned that when people feel good about themselves --- flaws and all --- they want others to feel the same. Since her personal experience with both sides of bullying, Emily-Anne went on to create an incredibly popular YouTube channel imparting her message and now, together with Jeanne Demers, she's turned it into a book! Read our Q & A with Emily-Anne below to learn more about her personal story, her book and how you can start loving your flaws, too.
Question: Your book FLAWD is coming out today! Why should people take it off the bookshelf?
[Answer: Yes, FLAWD – How To Stop Hating On Yourself, Others and the Things that Make You Who You Are comes out August 18th and I'm so, so excited. I think people should take it off the bookshelf for many reasons.
First, it is a book that was made with so much love. Second, it’s filled with the voices of my generation, Generation WE ---the flawd and the powerful! The quotes come from the really popular teen-made videos on the YouTube channel WeStopHate.org.
I just randomly flipped to a page and the teen quote I see is, "I chop my leg off. In my mind." We’re talking about how to get good at appreciating what usually gets taken for granted. And we’re talking about it because of what my friend Adorian shared in his video.
“I lost my dad less than six months ago and it's a very sad thing. Especially when it's a month before your senior prom and two months before your graduation. And my dad doesn't see any of that. But the way I look at it is I've become so much stronger of a person. Not only am I tougher, but I'm softer at the same time, by the fact that I appreciate so much more. Like what you have with your family, and just in general how lucky you are to have what you have? When you lose something, that's when you figure out, ‘Wow, that was something I took for granted.’” – AdorianDeck, age 18
Q: The back cover of FLAWD calls the book“an energetic guide to celebrating your flaws as the doorway to something more.” What does that mean?
A: Your flaws can take you through “the doorway” that leads to self-acceptance. So many times well-intentioned people say things like “embrace your flaws” or “be yourself.” But how do you do that? FLAWDreally explores this. Self-acceptance, it turns out, isn’t so much about seeing everything about yourself as “positive”; it’s more about knowing how to be kind to yourself
There are so many awesome drawings in the book, too. Between the quotes and the illustrations and the stories and the guidance and the fun way it’s laid out --- oh, and it's small, which makes you want to hold it and be looking at it --- FLAWD really is a gem of a book.
Q: You say FLAWD comes out WeStopHate. Can you tell me more about the origins of WeStopHate?
A: I was bullied growing up. I was teased and made fun of for being overweight. I ended up having to switch schools because of how traumatic it was. I was so damaged from being a victim of bullying that I ended up becoming a bully myself in my new school.
I thought that putting other people down would make me feel better about myself, but it ended up doing the opposite. The more I made other people feel bad, the more I felt bad, too.
But I made some really great friends who were wonderful influences on me, so I ended up becoming more able to accept myself. Once I started to feel good about myself, I wanted other people to feel the same.That’s the simple idea behind the WeStopHate movement.
When I got to high school, even though I was out of the bullying cycle, I saw others being bullied and I wanted to try to make a positive difference. I loved making YouTube videos so creating a WeStopHate channel made a lot of sense. I had so many friends who were popular online, and I thought if we all came together on one channel we could collaborate and create some positive change.
The videos became really successful really quick --- we’re at over a million video views now! Turning some of that very entertaining teen wisdom into a book so we could share it even more seemed like a good idea. FLAWD isn’t just for our generation though; it’s lessons from teens to the world. So let your parents read it too!
Emily-Anne Rigal’s story as told by Jeanne Demers. Rigal and Demers are co-authors of FLAWD: How To Stop Hating On Yourself, Others and the Things that Make You Who You Are (A Perigee Book, Penguin Random House).
