Free Hugs Can Be Hard To Give Away
I love hugs. Both giving and receiving them. I've always been intrigued by how the simple act of hugging can improve a persons mood. It doesn't matter if the person is a stranger or not. I've often thought about making a sign, standing in front of a local shopping mall and offering free hugs. Here's the story, taken from Wikipedia, of a man who did that very thing.
The Free Hugs Campaign is a social movement involving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places. The campaign in its present form was started in 2004 by an Australian man known only by the pseudonym "Juan Mann". The campaign became famous internationally in 2006 as the result of a music video on YouTube by the Australian band Sick Puppies. The hugs are meant to be random acts of kindness - purportedly selfless acts performed by a person for the sole reason of making others feel better. International Free Hugs Day is celebrated on the first Saturday of July (on July 4, 2009).
The Free Hugs campaign in its present form was started by Juan Mann on June 30, 2004, when he commenced giving out hugs in the Pitt St Mall in central Sydney. In the months prior to this Mann had been feeling depressed and lonely as a result of numerous personal difficulties. However a random hug from a stranger made an enormous difference, with Mann stating that "...I went out to a party one night and a completely random person came up to me and gave me a hug. I felt like a king! It was greatest thing that ever happened."
Mann carried the now iconic "FREE HUGS" sign from the outset. However on his first attempt in his hometown, where he returned to find that he was the only person he knew, as his friends and family had moved away, so he had to wait fifteen minutes before an elderly lady came up to him and gave him a hug.
Initial distrust of Juan Mann's motives eventually gave way to a gradual increase of people willing to be hugged, with other huggers (male and female) helping distribute them. In October 2004 police told them they must stop, as Mann had not obtained public liability insurance worth $25 million for his actions. Mann and his companions used a petition to attempt to convince authorities that his campaign should be allowed to continue without the insurance. His petition reached 10,000 signatures. He submitted it and was allowed to continue giving free hugs.
Mann befriended Shimon Moore, lead singer for the Sick Puppies, shortly after commencing his campaign, and over a two-month period in late 2004 Moore recorded video footage of Mann and his fellow huggers. Moore and his band moved to Los Angeles in March 2005 and nothing was immediately done with the footage. Meanwhile Mann continued his campaign throughout 2005 and 2006 by appearing in Pitt St Mall in Sydney most Thursday afternoons.
In mid 2006 Mann's grandmother died, and in consolation Moore made the music video using the footage he had shot in 2004 to send to Mann as a gift, stating in an interview that, "I sent it to him on a disc as a present and I wrote down 'This is who you are'." The video was later uploaded onto YouTube where it became a popular video on the site.
On October 30, 2006, Mann was invited by Oprah Winfrey to appear on her show Oprah after her producer's doctor saw the Free Hugs video on YouTube. Juan Mann made an appearance outside her studio that morning, offering free hugs to the crowd waiting to see the taping of that day's episode. Oprah's camera crews caught several people in the audience hugging Mann as the morning progressed.
A website that is generally recognized as the official site of the free hugs campaign, The Official Home of the Free Hugs Campaign, was launched in mid 2007. This site enables those involved in the campaign to better organize themselves and coordinate their efforts. Many initiatives resulted from these efforts. For example, on the websites forum (hosted on Dragon Arts), those involved in the campaign called for an annual International Free Hugs Day. Juan Mann declared that the day would fall on the first Saturday following June 30 each year; this being the first date that Juan ever offered free hugs in Pitt Street Mall, Sydney in 2004. The first International Free Hugs Day was July 7, 2007, the second on July 5, 2008 and the third was on July 4, 2009 (but see above re Valentine's Day).
Check out the t-shirts at the website.
