A
AndyRew
A Brave Heart
Imagine you’re 17 years old. You’re surfing the web, procrastinating. You’re just passing the time on YouTube, watching inane videos and knowingly letting yourself rappel down into the rabbit hole of the internet. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, thousands of people are doing the exact same thing you are right at this exact second.
Except, in all likelihood, when you click a video plainly titled “THE WORLD’S UGLIEST WOMAN,” you won’t see your own face looking back at you.
This is what happened to Lizzie Velasquez, now 26 years old. Velasquez has a rare congenital condition, so rare that it doesn’t even have a name. It affects her vision and her immune system, among other things, but its most obvious impact is on her body. Velasquez has zero percent body fat, and is unable to gain weight.
While she’s been bullied by forces seen and unseen — cruel playground taunts, strangers sneering on the sidewalk, commenters on that YouTube video telling her to do unspeakable things and calling her unrepeatable names — instead of retreating into herself, Velasquez has taken full ownership of her own story and turned it into a force for good.
And now, at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival, Velasquez took yet another step forward in her personal journey with the debut of “A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story.” Velasquez is the subject and executive producer of the feature documentary, which chronicles her life and her impact on the world.
As I sat down to chat with Velasquez at the Four Seasons in Austin ahead of a panel she would lead with fellow YouTuber iJustine, we were immediately interrupted by an older man who had seen the premiere of “A Brave Heart” the afternoon before and wanted to congratulate Velasquez and say how much her story inspired him.
It’s an occurrence that’s becoming more common for Velasquez, who said of the standing ovation she received the day before, “I think I’m still speechless from it.”
She wants you to use her pain for your success, it's free so take it, her gift to you..
