Site of the Month

.....kind of. 

Yes. Soft White Underbelly has a website, but at a subscription cost of $10/month. I think we all know how cheap I am, so.......that isn't happening.  

The site bills itself as "people who are frequently invisible in society—the unhoused, the sex worker, the chronic drug user, the runaway, the gang member, the poor and the sick".

All (or at the very least, a lot) of the interviews done are on YouTube. 

Jack - the guy to your left - popped up in my YouTube feed and I'm shallow enough (and honest enough) to say his looks are what got me to click play. 

His segment was just called Long Road to Redemption. I had no idea what I was really clicking on. 

What I really had no idea was what rabbit hole it would take me down. 

The "invisible to society" thing goes a lot deeper than what Soft White Underbelly lists in their short bio. It's quite the range and to be frank, not easy to get through some, and some not at all. 

The interviewer, Mark Laita, treats each interviewee with dignity and respect and asks seemingly not so deep questions (most of the time) that elicit some pretty raw and revealing stories. Some are half hour segments, some well over an hour. Some are multi part videos or follow-ups over the years. 

Yes, years.  

There are hundreds of these videos on YouTube (at no monthly charge). 

I feel like I have watched a lot, but I haven't even remotely scraped the surface. Honestly, there are only so many you can watch before needing a break. 

One thing that stands out is what is usually the first question: "what was your childhood like?".

The majority start off by saying {paraphrasing} "it was very normal......" with some additional notes. But then they will tell somethings that are very much not 'normal', but in a way to a lot of these folks, it is their normal - or what they've come to see as normal. 

I am not a psychologist (though I have one!) or sociologist, but in their own way, they are extremely fascinating.  .....just pace yourself.