To the readers, and contributors of The Hysteria Collective,

When Lockdown started, what feels like an eternity ago, I was scared of how we were going to keep up a good and consistent level of content and motivation. Because lets be honest, for me at least, there was a somewhat all consuming feeling of total and utter fear, confusion and social nausea. I was terrified. What if this went on for 6 months? A year? What if the surge in our writers dropped because they, just like me, felt tired, lethargic and creatively stunted? But of course they didn’t. Or even if they did, the content kept coming and we kept having emails asking to create with us. So we decided to create this series as a way to tell a variety of stories, give an outlet creatively to a broad audience and to create a new kind of reflective dialogue. I have loved reading these posts everyday and it has been a pleasure to co-ordinate it.

The Hysteria Collective was built on a foundation of wanting to give people a space, an outlet, and a part of the internet where their emotions, creativity and passions were shared and celebrated, and this series has reached new heights of that. We have written to our mothers, our brothers, our abusers, our bullies, our friends, our pets, our sports, and even our local pub. There has been such gorgeous variety and I wanted to bring the 70 days of posts we have shared together to a conclusion.

But there are many things happening in the world right now, other than just the predatory virus that put us in Lockdown, and brought much of the world to a grinding halt. We have been shown the tragedies of our modern world in the last 70 days, beyond Coronavirus and into the systems in which we reside. We have been shown that to the American government, the lives of their residents mean less than the priorities of big corporations. We have been shown that the British government will act slowly in the situation of a murderous and fatal virus, but will act quickly to defend an aide who undermined their legislation. We have learned that to many, valiant cries of “Black Lives Matter!” will fall on deaf ears as more lives are lost to the virus of anti-black violence rife not only in America, but internationally. We have mourned, we have grieved, we have watched the government tell us things are getting better as the death toll stays high. We have watched our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters face persecution in blood donation yet again. We have watched our world be torn apart by anger, violence and sickness and I am scared.

So, to you, contributors and readers, I want to ask you today, that in spite of this series coming to an end, to please keep writing, sharing emotion, sharing humanity, begging for help and change, and we will continue to give your heart a place here.

We must use our words to do better, sure, but we also must take action. Here are some ways you can take action on the issues I have discussed in this letter:

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/57132

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300403

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300073

https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

We encourage people to generously donate to George Floyd’s family & local orgs that are Black& BIPOC led, @BlackVisionsMN @reclaimtheblock

Please see our full message on our website. #justiceforgeorgefloyd #BlackLivesMatter #FreeThemAll pic.twitter.com/zkU1ZWbqKq

— Minnesota Freedom Fund (@MNFreedomFund) May 31, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/?fbclid=IwAR1HF28qv-LsZbZ0setepx7M57xwoPInwYJukzNKmfKcrDvf9661gLDsoRU

I really do hope everyone is okay, coping and keeping healthy and afloat. I hope we all come out of this and find a way to fix the world we are in. I hope we all still have hope. To my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, happy Pride month. To our BAME friends, we will do better. And to you, keep the faith and keep educating yourself on everything going on in the world right now.

Love always,

Imy

Categories: Letters from Lockdown, Series