In the Name of Love

March 26, 2009
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If there’s one thing all humans know from the moment we emerge from the womb, it’s that Love is good. It’s as clear and simple at that point in our lives as breathing. Love is our most natural instinct.

As we get older, however, the idea of Love morphs into different things for each of us.

For some, Love turns into a lust for power or sex or money or electronics or religion or politics or…you get the picture. But this post isn’t about your personal definition of Love. It’s about the word Love.

**The idea of the word Love.**

When you consider how much art has been created with the idea of Love as its core concept, we can all agree that this one little word has a pretty huge impact on us. On all of us. Across cultures. Beyond the barriers that separate us.

On April 4, 2009, we conducted a test to see whether Love really could conquer all. We asked people to tweet or status “I love you” in their streams just to see what would happen.

As it turned out, a lot happened. Thousands of people across social media tweeted, posted, and mentioned I Love You. This blog post received more than 80,000 visits, USA Today covered the event, and the #iloveyou hashtag trended on Twitter. But most importantly, this one innocuous yet powerful act changed people’s lives–if only for a day. Don’t believe it? Check the comments at the end of this post.

Once again this April 4, some of us will post “I Love You” in our social media circles. Why? Because with all of the bullshit in the world today, we need to be reminded that there’s a force out there greater than darkness.

We do not seek to own this endeavor in any way. So please, take this concept and run with it. After all, you can’t really copyright Love. The only profit we seek is to look into our social media streams and see hundreds or thousands of people sharing a word that’s attached to an idea that we were all born with–and to remind each other that Love is still the most powerful force on earth.

Among thousands of others, U2 wrote a song about Love for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You see, April 4 is the day Dr. King, who dedicated his life to the power of Love, was assassinated. And that’s why we set out to spread Love on a day that’s historically scarred with hate. We think he’d approve.