CAMDEN, ME -
photo: Brian Elliot
There’s MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and soon, Friendfactor. But, Friendfactor has a twist. The idea is for gay individuals to post their profiles then ask their straight friends to join, not to support a cause, but to support their gay friends in their fight for equality. When a straight person supports one of their gay friends, they automatically send a digital alert to the page’s owner — the same kind of social feedback as “liking” a Facebook status update.
At a recent PopTech conference, Brian Elliot, 29, founder of Friendfactor said that straight people might not understand gay rights but they do understand friendships. He said that the site will tell people that, in these times of anti-gay bullying and gay suicide, the site strips away the issues and focuses on people.
Elliot explained that the reinforcement tells gay people they’re not alone at a time when gay suicides are making headlines. It also repositions the gay rights movement, stripping away most of the issues and focusing on people, just as other online networks have done successfully.
“Gay friends are so much more important than gay rights,” he said in an interview at the PopTech conference, an event dedicated to social change and technology.
Friendfactor will go live in coming weeks, although no specific launch date has been set. The two nonprofit groups that support Friendfactor have donated $500,000 in funding to get the site up and running and both Democrats and Republicans
sit on his board.
Elliot said he “didn’t expect to become a professional gay,” but he thought the gay rights movement was missing a crucial component: straight people.