I am more than honored to host & present this guest post from someone I have immense respect for.
Via Agent Ania:
This is about a film entitled ‘A Billion Lives’.
This is not about who’s right and who’s wrong; this is not about who was included in a film and who wasn’t. It is about exposing governmental and societal systems that are actively working to prevent the spread of a life-saving phenomenon that could save a billion lives in this century. So this is about ‘A Billion Lives’. Get it?
First and foremost, this is about a film made by professionals. Professional writers, professional cinematographers, professional directors, professional producers. It was not created by a philanthropic organization, to be released as a public service announcement. It was created by people who are in a business (as in profit and loss, you know? as in they have a payroll to meet, you know?). In creating this film, they are doing an incredible service, and it is chilling to hear a certain segment of the vaping community suggest they should hand over the fruits of their labors to the world for free..
Unless you’ve spent your life handing over the fruits of your own labors to the world for free, shut up about this. If you can’t be arsed to buy a ticket to see this film, admit it and move on. Just don’t think that because you can’t be arsed to buy a ticket, you’re somehow owed a free viewing. The world doesn’t work that way, bucko.
If you claim to be a ‘big’ vaper and you’re annoyed you weren’t interviewed for the film, get over yourself. I imagine the director had some hard choices to make; you might want to think about whether in your case the choice was, in fact, hard. Hint: Humility is an admirable trait. Personally, I don’t give a damn about your ego. If you are one of *these* ‘big’ ego-bruised vapers, I don’t care about you.
If you are a YouTube product reviewer more interested in viewer count than the future of vaping, I really don’t care about you. Nor do I care about you if you’re a vendor who tweets about cloud-chasing contests and give-a ways and can’t be bothered to tweet about fighting an ideology and regulations that are putting your future business — an entire industry, in fact — in jeopardy.
What I care about is the finished product, the film that is ‘A Billion Lives.’
I care about the world seeing it and about the people who need to know learning from it. I care about the vapers who may be forced back to smoking against their will. I care about future smokers who may not be able to switch to vaping in the future, even though they’d have chosen to. I care about a film that will expose the hateful behemoth that is going to kill people who might have been saved. I especially care about the people who made this film, and the people who are actively supporting the film, who are willing to spend their hard-earned money to buy tickets to the film, who are voluntarily working to spread the word about the film and to get it into theaters nationwide.
If you are one of these people, you are one of a billion lives, and yes, I respect you, I admire you, and I certainly do care about you!
Agent Ania.
Thank you, Agent for your post.
You can find her here: @AgentAnia
The U.S. Premier of A Billion Lives is in
Milwaukee on August 6th.
Tickets are available here.
Find them on their website at: ABillionLives.com
Twitter: @ABillionLives
Thank you again, Agent.
There IS more to come.
Keep ON #Vaping & FIGHTING on.
Kevin