The news in brief:
“Free Hugs!” Unless you’ve spent the last few years living
under a rock, or spend all of your time on websites with words like ‘bang,’ ‘co-ed’
or ‘amateur’ in their URLs, you’ve probably seen or heard someone on a street
corner offering free hugs. Sometimes they have tee-shirts that say ‘free hugs’
or placards that offer hugs, for free, so it’s pretty clear what they are
offering: free hugs.
If you’re anything like The
news in brief, you’ve probably thought to yourself ‘who are these presumably
jobless hippies and what unwashed, tofu-fuelled agenda are they pushing?’
But, instead of making wild, unfounded speculation about
other sentient human beings (like some other, more successful news outlets I
could mention,) we thought we’d do some actual journalism. So we walked up to
one of them, note pad in hand and asked some questions…
First of all – they were a mix of ages, genders and
socio-economical statuses. Free hugs are not just for the great unwashed and
hair-cut dodgers. All the people I spoke to were intelligent, articulate and
had a clear mission objective in mind.
Secondly, they asked not to be celebrated – which is why
there are no photographs or links back to their Facebook page. They don’t want
glory or kudos or a massive following. They want what they do to grow
organically; people choosing to join in because it’s something they believe in
and not just because everyone else was doing it.
So what is it they do? Well, they give out free hug. Pretty
sure we covered that already?! But why do they do it? Well that’s an easy
question with a very straight forward answer: they do it to make the world a
slightly better place.
It might sound peculiar, but there is a very simple, but undeniable
logic to their actions:
We live in an increasingly isolated world. ATMs,
self-service checkouts, automated barriers at the metro, automated phone lines,
internet shopping… we can go days without any meaningful interaction with
another human being and we are increasingly (but these are The news in brief’s words, not theirs) a race of self-absorbed,
entitled horsefuckers who have forgotten how to person.
But something as simple as a hug can make a world of
difference: the laughter and the bright smiles of the surprised and often bemused
recipients - the teasing, the gentle nudging of friends, the delighted children
and the endless cheer of the people doling out these tiny injections of
goodwill.
Just for a moment or two, the free hugs make people feel
better. And maybe that’s worthless in the grand scheme of things, but The news in brief begs to differ.
Because maybe those people go onto speak nicely to some put-upon customer
service guy, busting his ass in a thankless call centre job. Maybe they go on
to do an act of kindness to somebody else – like a charitable donation or a
helping hand. They make the human race a little bit less unbearable and that is
priceless.
They are brave people too: not only were they making
complete buffoons of themselves in the name of goodwill – in the hour I sat and
watched there were a group of lads leering at one of the girls and making
smart-arsed remarks about what they would like to take from her for free. Whilst
The news in brief tries to steer
clear of scaremongering, terrible things do happen to people (just not as often
as that tabloids would have you believe) but she was unwavering and carried on
doling out free hugs to anyone who consented.
Just thought we’d share something wonderful and positive for
a change…
