ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Shane Koyczan - Poet
Shane Koyczan makes spoken-word poetry and music. His poem "To This Day" is a powerful story of bullying and survival, illustrated by animators from around the world.

Why you should listen

Shane Koyczan is a poet, author and performer. He performed at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, where  an audience of more than 1 billion people worldwide heard his piece “We Are More.”

He has published three booksStickboyOur Deathbeds Will Be Thirsty and Visiting Hours, selected by both the Guardian and the Globe and Mail for their Best Books of the Year lists.

In 2012, he released a  full-length album with his band Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long. The album includes the viral hit “To This Day,”  which explores the anguish of anyone who grew up feeling different or just a little bit alone. To bring visual life to this image-rich poem, Koyczan invited artists from around the world to contribute 20-second segments of animation to the project. Posted on YouTube on February 19, 2013, by the close of the month the video had been viewed 6 million times.

More profile about the speaker
Shane Koyczan | Speaker | TED.com
TED2013

Shane Koyczan: To This Day ... for the bullied and beautiful

Filmed:
6,792,663 views

By turn hilarious and haunting, poet Shane Koyczan puts his finger on the pulse of what it's like to be young and … different. "To This Day," his spoken-word poem about bullying, captivated millions as a viral video (created, crowd-source style, by 80 animators). Here, he gives a glorious, live reprise with backstory and violin accompaniment by Hannah Epperson.
- Poet
Shane Koyczan makes spoken-word poetry and music. His poem "To This Day" is a powerful story of bullying and survival, illustrated by animators from around the world. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:21
There's so many of you.
0
5662
6605
00:28
When I was a kid,
1
12267
2605
00:30
I hid my heart under the bed, because my mother said,
2
14872
2726
00:33
"If you're not careful, someday someone's going to break it."
3
17598
3642
00:37
Take it from me. Under the bed is not a good hiding spot.
4
21240
3488
00:40
I know because I've been shot down so many times
5
24728
2344
00:42
I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.
6
27072
3856
00:46
But that's what we were told.
7
30928
2280
00:49
Stand up for yourself.
8
33208
2440
00:51
And that's hard to do if you don't know who you are.
9
35648
2776
00:54
We were expected to define ourselves at such an early age,
10
38424
3461
00:57
and if we didn't do it, others did it for us.
11
41885
3879
01:01
Geek. Fatty. Slut. Fag.
12
45764
4396
01:06
And at the same time we were being told what we were,
13
50160
3063
01:09
we were being asked,
14
53223
1777
01:10
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
15
55000
2834
01:13
I always thought that was an unfair question.
16
57834
1673
01:15
It presupposes that we can't be what we already are.
17
59507
3774
01:19
We were kids.
18
63281
1743
01:20
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a man.
19
65024
3223
01:24
I wanted a registered retirement savings plan
20
68247
2311
01:26
that would keep me in candy long enough to make old age sweet.
21
70558
4118
01:30
When I was a kid, I wanted to shave.
22
74676
2590
01:33
Now, not so much.
23
77266
3570
01:36
When I was eight, I wanted to be a marine biologist.
24
80836
3675
01:40
When I was nine, I saw the movie "Jaws,"
25
84511
1762
01:42
and thought to myself, "No, thank you."
26
86273
3115
01:45
And when I was 10, I was told that my parents left because they didn't want me.
27
89388
3814
01:49
When I was 11, I wanted to be left alone.
28
93202
1591
01:50
When I was 12, I wanted to die. When I was 13, I wanted to kill a kid.
29
94793
4175
01:54
When I was 14, I was asked to seriously consider a career path.
30
98968
3894
01:58
I said, "I'd like to be a writer."
31
102862
2661
02:01
And they said, "Choose something realistic."
32
105523
3132
02:04
So I said, "Professional wrestler."
33
108655
3456
02:08
And they said, "Don't be stupid."
34
112111
2328
02:10
See, they asked me what I wanted to be,
35
114439
2619
02:12
then told me what not to be.
36
117058
2592
02:15
And I wasn't the only one.
37
119650
1995
02:17
We were being told that we somehow must become
38
121645
2205
02:19
what we are not, sacrificing what we are
39
123850
2088
02:21
to inherit the masquerade of what we will be.
40
125938
2784
02:24
I was being told to accept the identity
41
128722
2145
02:26
that others will give me.
42
130867
2615
02:29
And I wondered, what made my dreams so easy to dismiss?
43
133482
3780
02:33
Granted, my dreams are shy,
44
137262
3516
02:36
because they're Canadian. (Laughter)
45
140778
4858
02:41
My dreams are self-conscious and overly apologetic.
46
145636
3622
02:45
They're standing alone at the high school dance,
47
149258
2095
02:47
and they've never been kissed.
48
151353
2718
02:49
See, my dreams got called names too.
49
154071
2824
02:52
Silly. Foolish. Impossible.
50
156895
3899
02:56
But I kept dreaming.
51
160794
1623
02:58
I was going to be a wrestler. I had it all figured out.
52
162417
1835
03:00
I was going to be The Garbage Man.
53
164252
3314
03:03
My finishing move was going to be The Trash Compactor.
54
167566
3720
03:07
My saying was going to be, "I'm taking out the trash!"
55
171286
4184
03:11
(Laughter) (Applause)
56
175470
5259
03:16
And then this guy, Duke "The Dumpster" Droese,
57
180729
4826
03:21
stole my entire shtick.
58
185555
3616
03:25
I was crushed, as if by a trash compactor.
59
189171
5948
03:31
I thought to myself, "What now? Where do I turn?"
60
195119
3823
03:34
Poetry.
61
198942
3136
03:37
Like a boomerang, the thing I loved came back to me.
62
202078
3564
03:41
One of the first lines of poetry I can remember writing
63
205642
2300
03:43
was in response to a world that demanded I hate myself.
64
207942
2562
03:46
From age 15 to 18, I hated myself
65
210504
2823
03:49
for becoming the thing that I loathed: a bully.
66
213327
4233
03:53
When I was 19, I wrote,
67
217560
2606
03:56
"I will love myself despite the ease with which
68
220166
2899
03:58
I lean toward the opposite."
69
223065
2958
04:01
Standing up for yourself doesn't have to mean
70
226023
3128
04:05
embracing violence.
71
229151
2711
04:07
When I was a kid,
72
231862
1503
04:09
I traded in homework assignments for friendship,
73
233365
2922
04:12
then gave each friend a late slip for never showing up on time,
74
236287
2696
04:14
and in most cases not at all.
75
238983
2160
04:17
I gave myself a hall pass to get through each broken promise.
76
241143
2984
04:20
And I remember this plan, born out of frustration
77
244127
2288
04:22
from a kid who kept calling me "Yogi,"
78
246415
2432
04:24
then pointed at my tummy and said, "Too many picnic baskets."
79
248847
3609
04:28
Turns out it's not that hard to trick someone,
80
252456
2578
04:30
and one day before class, I said,
81
255034
1243
04:32
"Yeah, you can copy my homework,"
82
256277
2165
04:34
and I gave him all the wrong answers
83
258442
1902
04:36
that I'd written down the night before.
84
260344
2101
04:38
He got his paper back expecting a near-perfect score,
85
262445
2492
04:40
and couldn't believe it when he looked across the room at me and held up a zero.
86
264937
3599
04:44
I knew I didn't have to hold up my paper of 28 out of 30,
87
268536
3243
04:47
but my satisfaction was complete when he looked at me, puzzled,
88
271779
3078
04:50
and I thought to myself, "Smarter than the average bear, motherfucker."
89
274857
3766
04:54
(Laughter) (Applause)
90
278623
7496
05:02
This is who I am.
91
286119
3240
05:05
This is how I stand up for myself.
92
289359
3924
05:09
When I was a kid,
93
293283
2100
05:11
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops were the same thing.
94
295383
4455
05:15
I thought they were both pork chops.
95
299838
2777
05:18
And because my grandmother thought it was cute,
96
302615
1591
05:20
and because they were my favorite, she let me keep doing it.
97
304206
2929
05:23
Not really a big deal.
98
307135
1569
05:24
One day, before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees,
99
308704
3783
05:28
I fell out of a tree and bruised the right side of my body.
100
312487
3178
05:31
I didn't want to tell my grandmother about it
101
315665
1875
05:33
because I was scared I'd get in trouble for playing somewhere I shouldn't have been.
102
317540
3362
05:36
A few days later, the gym teacher noticed the bruise,
103
320902
2038
05:38
and I got sent to the principal's office.
104
322940
2227
05:41
From there, I was sent to another small room
105
325167
1710
05:42
with a really nice lady who asked me all kinds of questions about my life at home.
106
326877
5396
05:48
I saw no reason to lie.
107
332273
1942
05:50
As far as I was concerned, life was pretty good.
108
334215
2520
05:52
I told her, whenever I'm sad, my grandmother gives me karate chops.
109
336735
4149
05:56
(Laughter)
110
340884
7653
06:04
This led to a full-scale investigation,
111
348537
4200
06:08
and I was removed from the house for three days,
112
352737
2674
06:11
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises.
113
355411
3870
06:15
News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school,
114
359281
2633
06:17
and I earned my first nickname:
115
361914
2808
06:20
Porkchop.
116
364722
1940
06:22
To this day, I hate pork chops.
117
366662
6590
06:29
I'm not the only kid who grew up this way,
118
373252
2765
06:31
surrounded by people who used to say that rhyme
119
376017
2648
06:34
about sticks and stones,
120
378665
2513
06:37
as if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called,
121
381178
2640
06:39
and we got called them all.
122
383818
2248
06:41
So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us,
123
386066
3584
06:45
that we'd be lonely forever,
124
389650
2216
06:47
that we'd never meet someone to make us feel like the sun
125
391866
2241
06:50
was something they built for us in their toolshed.
126
394107
2462
06:52
So broken heartstrings bled the blues, and we tried to empty ourselves so we'd feel nothing.
127
396569
4049
06:56
Don't tell me that hurt less than a broken bone,
128
400618
2407
06:58
that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away,
129
403025
2594
07:01
that there's no way for it to metastasize; it does.
130
405619
3202
07:04
She was eight years old,
131
408821
1775
07:06
our first day of grade three when she got called ugly.
132
410596
3493
07:09
We both got moved to the back of class
133
414089
2024
07:12
so we would stop getting bombarded by spitballs.
134
416113
2857
07:14
But the school halls were a battleground.
135
418970
1866
07:16
We found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day.
136
420836
2565
07:19
We used to stay inside for recess, because outside was worse.
137
423401
3544
07:22
Outside, we'd have to rehearse running away,
138
426945
2081
07:24
or learn to stay still like statues, giving no clues that we were there.
139
429026
3127
07:28
In grade five, they taped a sign to the front of her desk
140
432153
3187
07:31
that read, "Beware of dog."
141
435340
2630
07:33
To this day, despite a loving husband, she doesn't think she's beautiful
142
437970
4884
07:38
because of a birthmark that takes up a little less than half her face.
143
442854
3764
07:42
Kids used to say, "She looks like a wrong answer
144
446618
2151
07:44
that someone tried to erase, but couldn't quite get the job done."
145
448769
3296
07:47
And they'll never understand that she's raising two kids
146
452065
2961
07:50
whose definition of beauty begins with the word "Mom,"
147
455026
4135
07:55
because they see her heart before they see her skin,
148
459161
2354
07:57
because she's only ever always been amazing.
149
461515
1572
07:58
He was a broken branch grafted onto a different family tree,
150
463087
5395
08:04
adopted,
151
468482
1828
08:06
not because his parents opted for a different destiny.
152
470310
4155
08:10
He was three when he became a mixed drink
153
474465
1836
08:12
of one part left alone and two parts tragedy,
154
476301
3245
08:15
started therapy in eighth grade,
155
479546
2177
08:17
had a personality made up of tests and pills,
156
481723
3046
08:20
lived like the uphills were mountains and the downhills were cliffs,
157
484769
3792
08:24
four fifths suicidal, a tidal wave of antidepressants,
158
488561
3408
08:27
and an adolescence being called "Popper,"
159
491969
2910
08:30
one part because of the pills,
160
494879
1921
08:32
99 parts because of the cruelty.
161
496800
2831
08:35
He tried to kill himself in grade 10
162
499631
2496
08:38
when a kid who could still go home to Mom and Dad
163
502127
2600
08:40
had the audacity to tell him, "Get over it."
164
504727
3452
08:44
As if depression is something that could be remedied
165
508179
2483
08:46
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit.
166
510662
2796
08:49
To this day, he is a stick of TNT lit from both ends,
167
513458
3600
08:52
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
168
517058
2471
08:55
in the moment before it's about to fall,
169
519529
1921
08:57
and despite an army of friends who all call him an inspiration,
170
521450
2782
09:00
he remains a conversation piece between people who can't understand
171
524232
3400
09:03
sometimes being drug-free has less to do with addiction
172
527632
3248
09:06
and more to do with sanity.
173
530880
3039
09:09
We weren't the only kids who grew up this way.
174
533919
2961
09:12
To this day, kids are still being called names.
175
536880
3572
09:16
The classics were, "Hey stupid," "Hey spaz."
176
540452
4915
09:21
Seems like every school has an arsenal of names
177
545367
2873
09:24
getting updated every year,
178
548240
2547
09:26
and if a kid breaks in a school and no one around chooses to hear,
179
550787
2552
09:29
do they make a sound?
180
553339
2141
09:31
Are they just background noise from a soundtrack stuck
181
555480
2288
09:33
on repeat when people say things like, "Kids can be cruel."
182
557768
4760
09:38
Every school was a big top circus tent,
183
562528
2961
09:41
and the pecking order went from acrobats to lion tamers,
184
565489
2903
09:44
from clowns to carnies, all of these miles ahead of who we were.
185
568392
3296
09:47
We were freaks -- lobster claw boys and bearded ladies,
186
571688
4064
09:51
oddities juggling depression and loneliness,
187
575752
2414
09:54
playing solitaire, spin the bottle,
188
578166
1753
09:55
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal,
189
579919
2501
09:58
but at night, while the others slept,
190
582420
2764
10:01
we kept walking the tightrope.
191
585184
2456
10:03
It was practice, and yes, some of us fell.
192
587640
3256
10:06
But I want to tell them that all of this
193
590896
3368
10:10
is just debris left over when we finally decide to smash
194
594264
4559
10:14
all the things we thought we used to be,
195
598823
2609
10:17
and if you can't see anything beautiful about yourself,
196
601432
3552
10:20
get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little longer,
197
604984
4571
10:25
because there's something inside you that made you keep trying
198
609555
2661
10:28
despite everyone who told you to quit.
199
612216
2408
10:30
You built a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself.
200
614624
2334
10:32
You signed it, "They were wrong."
201
616958
1961
10:34
Because maybe you didn't belong to a group or a clique.
202
618919
2788
10:37
Maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything.
203
621707
3081
10:40
Maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth to show-and-tell, but never told,
204
624788
3742
10:44
because how can you hold your ground
205
628530
1447
10:45
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it?
206
629977
1990
10:47
You have to believe that they were wrong.
207
631967
4323
10:52
They have to be wrong.
208
636290
2583
10:54
Why else would we still be here?
209
638873
3599
10:58
We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
210
642472
2641
11:01
because we see ourselves in them.
211
645113
2581
11:03
We stem from a root planted in the belief
212
647694
2305
11:05
that we are not what we were called.
213
649999
2725
11:08
We are not abandoned cars stalled out
214
652724
1755
11:10
and sitting empty on some highway,
215
654479
2558
11:12
and if in some way we are, don't worry.
216
657037
1521
11:14
We only got out to walk and get gas.
217
658558
2016
11:16
We are graduating members from the class of We Made It,
218
660574
3702
11:20
not the faded echoes of voices crying out,
219
664276
1937
11:22
"Names will never hurt me."
220
666213
4631
11:26
Of course they did.
221
670844
4428
11:31
But our lives will only ever always
222
675272
2122
11:33
continue to be a balancing act
223
677394
2944
11:36
that has less to do with pain
224
680338
2607
11:38
and more to do with beauty.
225
682945
3935
11:42
(Applause)
226
686880
4000
Translated by Joseph Geni
Reviewed by Morton Bast

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Shane Koyczan - Poet
Shane Koyczan makes spoken-word poetry and music. His poem "To This Day" is a powerful story of bullying and survival, illustrated by animators from around the world.

Why you should listen

Shane Koyczan is a poet, author and performer. He performed at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, where  an audience of more than 1 billion people worldwide heard his piece “We Are More.”

He has published three booksStickboyOur Deathbeds Will Be Thirsty and Visiting Hours, selected by both the Guardian and the Globe and Mail for their Best Books of the Year lists.

In 2012, he released a  full-length album with his band Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long. The album includes the viral hit “To This Day,”  which explores the anguish of anyone who grew up feeling different or just a little bit alone. To bring visual life to this image-rich poem, Koyczan invited artists from around the world to contribute 20-second segments of animation to the project. Posted on YouTube on February 19, 2013, by the close of the month the video had been viewed 6 million times.

More profile about the speaker
Shane Koyczan | Speaker | TED.com