When you have a strong point of view, you’re not going to be right for everyone.
Last summer, our oldest campers in Georgia made a video for our social media based on a popular trend where you say two things about the outfit you’re wearing. They spun it into dark grief humor as they cheerfully recited “dead dad and a Lulu bag” and “dead mom and a cute little top” in unison.
I didn’t get it.
“But they’re so proud of it!” I was told. “It’s going viral!”. And it was. Within the hour, the likes and views on the post were multiplying exponentially.
I scanned the comments, quickly scrolling past the ALL CAPS laughter and heart emojis and zeroing in on the disapproving, disrespected, and confused.
“This isn’t healing. This is avoidance. This post is insensitive…” “This is cringe. Especially the organization that posted this.”
These comments seemed to confirm my fears. We had gone too far. We were hurting people and risking our reputation.
But I kept scrolling and read through the other comments – the ones that far outnumbered the skeptics. The ones that applauded our vibe. The ones who celebrated their right to laugh. The ones who “got it”.
“My 9-year-old daughter just laughed at this. Not because it’s funny but because her dad died when she was five. She said, ‘They’re like me mom, they’re okay.’” “As a member of the dead dad’s club, if I didn’t laugh, I would’ve never gotten out of bed. I would’ve loved to have had friends to make silly songs together.”
The post was gaining traction, and I was torn. Should we play it safe and take it down, or continue to make space for the dark, twisty parts of grief that aren’t always accepted in polite society?
We left it up.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one for us. Experience Camps isn’t about making grief palatable for everyone else—it’s about creating spaces where grieving kids can be exactly who they are.
The reality is that grief doesn’t follow a script. It’s messy, sometimes inappropriate, and deeply personal. For some, it’s crying in private. For others, it’s making TikToks about their dead parents while wearing Lululemon. Both are valid. Both are real. Both deserve space.
It turns out that when you’re doing meaningful work, you can’t please everyone. And maybe you shouldn’t try. By attempting to make our message acceptable to everyone, we risk diluting it until it helps no one at all.
So, yes, we probably lost some followers, and yes, we made some people uncomfortable (including me). But we also gained thousands of new followers and showed grieving kids (and former kids) that they’re not alone in their dark, twisty, grief-coping humor.
When you have a strong point of view, you won’t be right for everyone. But you’ll be exactly right for the people who need you most.
Sara Deren is the founder and CEO of Experience Camps. Under her leadership, Experience Camps has conducted original research on the state of grief and launched a national network of programs and platforms for grieving kids and teens. She received her MBA from Columbia, and blends her background of 12 years in finance and business with her passion for the mission. In 2020, she received an award for “Best Entrepreneurial, Scaling” from Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards, and was named a “Patriots Difference Maker” by The Krafts Family and Patriots Foundation. Sara was named by Causeartist one of 32 nonprofit leaders who will impact the world in 2022 and was a 2023 mentor at the SXSW festival.
