by Samantha Hunt
One day, I was perusing some Myspace bulletins and came across one posted by Project Runway winner Christian Siriano. The bulletin had a link to an article his boyfriend wrote about Urban Outfitters banning a line of T-shirts that said "I support same-sex marriage."
This got me thinking about how many companies out there actually do things like this: Either underhandedly or straight out disrespect the LGBT community and their rights. Luckily, a new site called GayWallet.com started thinking far before I did.
GayWallet.com was officially launched on November 21, 2008. It is a social network, much like Myspace or Facebook, which focuses on supporting companies that support the LGBT community and boycotting the ones that do not.
At more than 600 members and growing, the site is building a strong following, and they hope to continue. "We want to build or membership up to 10,000 LGBT and LGBT-friendly people," said Genia Stevens, launcher of GayWallet.com and editor of its sister site, SistersTalk. "From there, we plan to actively promote the boycotting of anti-gay companies and full support of gay-friendly companies. Our goal is to have all 10,000 members emailing everyone they know and promoting boycotts of various anti-gay companies."
Upon first glance of GayWallet.com, one will notice the incredible organization. Navigating the site is simple, and information is easy to find. Everything is put into its own box: Forum posts in one, recent activities in another, popular groups in yet another.
Once a new user joins the site, a little green box appears on the front page to tell you about all the neat things you can do, like post pictures or videos or start a new forum discussion. Another very cool thing about the site is that the advertisements to the right are really only half advertisements. The rest of the links take the user to the boycott blogs and other parts of the site regarding LGBT rights.
Being a social networking site at its core, GayWallet.com has had to face the music: With Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and a plethora of other sites, it is difficult to break into the social networking scene. "There are a lot of niche social networks out there so people are feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the requests to join one more social network," Stevens said. "Our membership drive has had a few challenges, but we're less than a month old and we have about 600 people signed up so far."
So, why start a social networking site dedicated to updating the LGBT community on which companies should be boycotted? Why not simply send out emails or start a Myspace account? GayWallet.com is a revolutionary Web site and it is supporting a very important cause. Creating a Web site specifically for these updates is much better than simply starting a mailing list.
"I believe the larger LGBT organizations have done a poor job of building an alliance between the LGBT community and heterosexuals who are LGBT-friendly. In addition, I believe that money is power," Strevens said. "If we refuse to spend our money with anti-gay companies ( and we convince our straight allies to do the same ) , we can convince anti-gay companies that being gay-friendly is good for their bottom line. "
While GayWallet's main goal is to bring their cause to as many people as possible, the Web site is not all business. User blogs, forums, photo and video uploads and general discussion make the Web site a fun and interesting place to meet new people.
The sites most popular feature is their photo uploading. "People love posting pictures of their significant others, their children, and their pets," said Stevens.
It does not matter if you are gay or straight; everyone has a penchant for getting addicted to social networking sites and GayWallet.com does not discriminate. People from all walks of life join the site. A thread in the forum is for the discussion of tattoos as an art form, while another was started by a young woman asking for advice on how to handle the close-minded people in her life.
The discussions on GayWallet.com are never boring to read, whether you are interested in politics, the latest episode of The L Word or getting people to add you on Twitter. GayWallet.com does an amazing job of combining people's interests with the important issues affecting the LGBT community. This is important nowadays, especially considering how many more people are not watching the news or picking up a newspaper.
The new generation has definitely turned to technology to keep them updated and GayWallet.com is doing a great job of keeping up. The key to getting any sort of information to the masses lately is keeping them interested, and it is nearly impossible to not find something interesting on this site. It is free and easy to join, and once you get started you will never want to stop!
