At first glance, the glowing blue booths at musician Lauv's concert could be mistaken for avant
garde refrigerators. But the vending machine-sized capsules are actually part
of a collaboration between Microsoft Support Phone numberand singer-songwriter
Lauv called My Blue Thoughts. Two of these booths
were set up at the artist's recent October 5th concert in Washington DC,
accompanied by two tablets and a sign.
My Blue Thoughts is a concept that started three years ago, when Lauv, whose real name is Ari Leff,
installed simple blue boxes at his concerts where attendees could drop pieces
of paper with their thoughts. After each concert, Leff (or his team) would
share pictures of the collected thoughts to his Instagram. Leff called it his
"compassion project," and envisioned it as a way for people to
anonymously air what was on their minds. "It's sort of like a
non-religious confessional," Leff told Engadget.
This
time around, people can enter a private booth and record a 60-second audio clip
or write a 1,000-character blurb and take a selfie to go along with their
submission. The sign outside the booth calls it a "quiet, safe place to
let go of anything on your mind anonymously." To protect
identities, voices are distorted and images are silhouetted (in the style of
the singer's "Superhero" music video).
Microsoft Support Phone numberenables the transcription,
anonymizing and collection of these posts. These are then displayed on Lauv's website, which was relaunched today with Microsoft Support Phone numberto coincide with World Mental Health Day. "For
us at Microsoft, it was really an amazing opportunity to work with somebody who
is so open about mental health and the need for people to understand,"
said Amy Sorokas, director of strategic partnerships. "It was
exciting to get involved in to help figure out how we could increase awareness
and amplify the message."
Getting your deepest thoughts off your chest is only half of the
process. The other part is seeing what others have said and learning you are
not alone in feeling the way you do. That's where the website comes in. The
home page opens on a map of the world with circles showing the number of
thoughts shared in each region (including a locale in the middle of the ocean
called Lauv Island). You can search for specific keywords and find relevant submissions.
Looking up
"sad" yielded 45 thoughts, for instance, while "love"
returned 192. You can also share your own thoughts through the site.
It's surprising how candid people have been thus far. Through
the thousands of thoughts on the site, people have aired feelings like fear of
coming out to an abusive family, guilt over a breakup, sadness over loss of a
support system or regret from unfulfilled ambitions. One recent post, for
example, states "These last few years I've felt like a failure... I just
don't know how to get back up, and feel happy with myself again."
Even though the word "sad" isn't explicitly written in
this submission, Microsoft's AI has tagged it with the keywords
"failure" and "sad." The system will also tag the voice
entries with keywords, scanning the clips to recognize specific terms, as long
as the user spoke in one of the 16 supported languages. Unfortunately, the
clips collected so far were mostly so distorted I couldn't make out what was
being said. Still, I was content looking at just the text entries -- they were easier
to browse anyway.
It might seem strange that people would share such intimate
thoughts at a concert, but Lauv says it's pretty common. Even with the earlier
version of My Blue Thoughts, he said, "People really open up." But
some fans just have fun with it. "Sometimes they write 'chicken
tenders'."
Thankfully, that example isn't more offensive or disturbing. To
keep malicious content or trollers from sullying the spirit of My Blue Thoughts,
Microsoft Support Phone numberput in place a Content Moderator that scans for
profanities, and Leff's
team has the ability to remove inappropriate submissions.
It might not seem like simply recording and sharing your
troubles with the world and scrolling through endless submissions from
strangers is the most effective strategy for improving mental health. But for
some, the simple acts of putting their thoughts down and reading about another
person going through the same thing are small comforts.
"For me, music was my place to kind of confront my own emotions,"
Leff said. "I sit down and hit on a piano or guitar, and whatever
subconsciously comes out is like, 'Okay, wow, like shit, that's what I
feel.'" So he wanted to create an outlet for people who might not have
similar creative outlets and give them that opportunity when they attend one of
his concerts.
Other artists' performances might feature laser projections and
augmented reality holograms, creating visual spectacles to distract and
entertain. Compared to those efforts, My Blue Thoughts' tech crossover seems
relatively low-tech. But when it comes to mental health, maybe something
quiet and distraction-free is more appropriate.
Leff's music, with titles like
"fuck I'm lonely," "I'm so tired" and "Sad Forever,"
has never shied away from the issues of emotions and mental health. The artist
has been vocal
about the importance of mental health and started The Blue Boy
Foundation to raise money to help young people access relevant resources.
Comments
Post a Comment