Shane Koyczan. Poet, spoken word artist and the guy who delivered that amazing performance during the Vancouver Winter Olympics, reciting his poem “We Are More”. In my humble opinion, Shane’s an amazing guy, an inspirational artist, and of course, a profoundly important storyteller.

If you’re unfamiliar with Shane and his work, his recently released short animated film, “To This Day“, is a great introduction to his mountain of talent. To This Day is a powerful telling of his personal experiences as a kid bullied in school. Shane not only sheds light in his own painfully true story, but those of 2 other kids he knew as well, all forced to endure being bullied on a daily basis, in and out of school. Please take a few minutes to catch a glimpse of Shane’s powerful short film, produced with the help of many, many talented artists.

“To This Day” has impacted the internet like a meteorite smacking the surface of the earth; over a million people have viewed the short film in the first two days since it’s dropped online. Incredible, the power of a personal story shared with honesty, tremendous heart, passion and commitment. Sharing Shane’s intent to spread a message of anti bullying, in hope of inspiring other’s to see the problem and confront it, a long list of animation pro’s jumped aboard the effort, utilizing many techniques to illustrate Shane’s spoken word performance. The result is a masterful rendering of a harrowing emotional journey.

Shane explains his motivation for creating “To This Day”:

“My experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout my life but standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways… Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.”  For more on Shane Koyczan and his work, please stop by his website. For a list of the incredibly talented folks who helped with this project, visit Shane’s To This Day post on his site.

Please watch, share with someone you think could benefit seeing this incredible film.

-M