#LoveIsLouderThan

by Kyle Holland

Now that we live in a world where mundane complains can be seen by everyone, it’s important to remember to look for the good things, rather than focusing on the bad. Mean Gella, president of S.G.A., organized an event to help people do just that.

“‘#LoveIsLouderThan’ is a movement to take a stand against physical, mental, and sexual abuse,” Gella said. “The event was November 13, so the week leading up to it we had black hears with negative Yik Yak posts from out campus posted around Chartwells and up at Village Hall, and then we had positive posts, which were on gold hearts, written with blue sharpie, and students filled them out and said #LoveIsLouderThan or #LoveIsLouderWith and they wrote what they thought it was louder than. We got some silly ones like ‘Genetics’ and ‘Physics’ and all that stuff, but we got some good ones, too. Love is Louder with Friends. Love is Louder with Family. […] Mine said Puppies. Love is Louder with Puppies.”

Flyers could be seen around campus–a heart with a megaphone that screamed “Love is Louder Than,” drawn by Seth Anderson.

Deanna Ferry came for an event sponsored by S.G.A. and The Blackburn Center for Domestic and Sexual Abuse. a Westmoreland County organization.

“She spoke about what Blackburn has to offer,” Gella said. “She did a sort of interactive activity about relationships and what people thought were abusive and weird characteristics of relationships.” Some students cited “knowing your partner’s password on his or her phone” as an unhealthy characteristic. “But when we had group discussion,” said Gella, “some people said it was OK, like if they wanted to play a game on their partner’s phone, it’s not that big of a deal. It was nice because we just talked about it. And the girl who was involved in the [Senko] incident was actually there, and she came up to me afterwards and told me it was a really good event to have. We’re thinking about making it an annual or semestral event.”