A Polish couple have been sent death threats after their beautiful coming out video went viral.
Polish TV presenter and journalist Jakub Hajduk and his partner David, shot the adorable coming out video over 3 days in July at the Baltic Sea.
However, the couple were sent abusive messages online. The couple were told to “cut their throats”, whilst other said that they wanted to “send them to the gas chamber.”
The couple also received private messages on their Facebook accounts with people telling them “your neighbours will come after you” and “you two should be burnt at the stake like witches. Go to hell.”
The couple have been together for seven years and first created the lip sync video with just the intention of showing it to friends and family. However it soon went viral and attracted negativity.
Interestingly, Jakub noticed that the video did not get any negative attention until Polish media outlets wrote about the coming out video. The couple feel the country’s conservative attitude is one of the driving forces behind the abuse.
When looking at the analytics of the video, the couple found that 90% of the negative reaction came from Poland, with the other 10% coming from across the globe.
Jakub Hajduk found out about the abuse when he arrived home one day to find David crying.
His mother looked at the comments on the video daily to make sure nothing negative was posted, and told them when she came across the abuse.
Hajduk described the comments as devastating. “It’s not just homophobia – it’s homo-agression,” he said.
The couple did consider deleting the video after the hateful comments were posted, but they felt the move would be a step backwards.
“We just weren’t ready for all of it.” Hajduk told PinkNews. “But finally we came to the conclusion that if we took it down we would have let them win so we decided not to give up and spread our story all around.”
“It’s not easy, but this situation showed us that is not just a funny video. It showed us how much needs to be done in our country to let gay people in Poland feel really safe and proud of being gay in our country.” he added.
Thankfully, he majority of the response was overwhelmingly good, which made Jakub and David feel “confident and honoured.”
Since the ordeal the couple have reported the comments and surrounded themselves with supportive friends. They feel stronger now and are glad they went through it because it opened their eyes once again to the homophobia that still exists.
Live and Love without fear, be true to your selves.
Whats wrong with bigoted narrow minded people ?
It’s sad that the world this messed up. I would go for japanese style jujitsu incase anything goes down bad.
Everyone should be happy n true to themselves without fear. Sometimes it takes martial arts to protect yourself from getting hurt.
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