MSU students offer free hugs

April 7, 2007

 

As Michigan State University students trudge down Farm Lane through snow in the middle of April, the stress of looming term papers and encroaching final exams may be excruciating, but at least there’s that random stranger to give them a free hug when they really need it. 

 

In November of last year, Brittany Lee Major braved the cold weather armed with a sign that read “FREE HUGS” and offered passing Michigan State University students a friendly embrace.  Five months later, over 500 students have joined the MSU chapter of the Free Hugs Campaign, a movement which is not only growing in East Lansing, but the entire country.

 

“You can’t help but smile when someone hugs you,” May said.  “I’m just trying to brighten people’s day a little bit.”

 

May stood on a busy area of Farm Lane, where people saw her as they came out of class.  Elizabeth Barney, a freshman studying journalism, was one of the students who witnessed May’s gesture and “decided to give it a shot as well.”

 

The chapter grew drastically after a group was created on the popular networking website, www.facebook.com.  The group now compiles over 500 students.  

 

Although Barney states many of the group members are merely supporters of the organization, some including May and Barney have actually experienced the highs and lows of hugging MSU students.

 

“One guy walked past us, and just looked at the sign,” Barney recalls.  “But as he passed he looked over his shoulder, and kept on looking back for the next block.  At the end of the block, he turned around and slowly but surely made his way back towards my friend and I.  He kind of looked down, and then said ‘I really need a hug’, so we both gave him a hug and he walked away with a smile.”

 

May, the first person to offer free hugs at MSU, says she was inspired to bring the Free Hug Campaign to the university after attending a service at Riverview Church in Holt.

 

“The pastor gave a sermon on the meaning of life and showed this video of a man holding the sign on a city street.  He said the guy claimed for one day for a year he was going to go out and give free hugs." 

 

The man in the video is a native Australian, known by the alias Juan Mann, who started the movement in 2004 upon returning to his hometown of Sydney after living in London.  Discouraged because no one had come to meet him at the airport, Mann states on the Free Hugs Campaign website that he “found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft”.  

 

The movement gained international attention when Mann collaborated with the band Sick Puppies to create a video compiling footage of Mann hugging strangers to their music.  The video, which spread through sharing on the You Tube website, has caused the movement to “really catch fire,” according to Mann’s manager, Paul Stepanek.

 

He says MSU is not the only university handing out free hugs. 

 

“Students all across the country from Boston College to the University of California, Berkley have joined the Free Hug Organization,” Stepanek stated in an e-mail.  

 

Gary Stollack, a professor of psychology at MSU, has a theory of why the Free Hugs Campaign is so popular among college students.

 

“College students are generally very, very, very lonely.  If a stranger smiles at them, and they’re attracted to that stranger, they may be very inclined to have that stranger hug them,” he said.

 

According to Stollack the question of whether a student wants to be hugged depends on three different aspects: the level of attraction, the nature of the relationship, and the personality of the student’s life.

 

Stollack has been teaching at MSU since 1966, and feels the Free Hugs Campaign is comparable to the Vietnam protests of the ‘60s and ‘70s in which students handed out flowers and held signs proclaiming “Make love, not war.” 

 

“I found them tremendously insincere,” he said.  “For most people it’s completely irrelevant, just like a hug from a stranger is completely irrelevant.  It’s one more thing that we think has something positive about it.  It’s just silly to not see it as an intentional invasion of privacy.”

 

However, Barney believes the campaign has been so successful with college students because with the stresses of living on their own for the first time, coupled with intense educational pressure, they “could use a little extra love.”

 

“There are a lot of people who need hugs, and sometimes when a day is really getting you down there's nothing better.  Plus it makes people smile and builds a sense of a helping community,” she said.   


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