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Dan Savage has offered hundreds of thousands of words of advice since he began his “Savage Love” column two decades ago. But the most important are these three: It gets better.

President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Zachary Quinto, Chris Colfer and Chaz Bono are just a few of the many politicians and celebrities who’ve contributed to the It Gets Better Project with official YouTube videos so far, helping to make it a worldwide movement. Take a look at some of our favorites here.

As a journalist and activist, Savage has earned a reputation as a provocateur (just ask GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum), but “It Gets Better” represents a public-service campaign in the best sense, as well as a calling card for his own MTV series, “Savage U,” premiering this spring.

Some of us have learned more than we thought we’d ever want to know about sex and relationships from Dan Savage’s syndicated column, Savage Love. And even more people may know him as the man who redefined “Santorum” to the politician’s dismay. But, some people may not know that the bawdy writer and activist is the co-founder of the It Gets Better Project aimed at providing hope for LGBT youth.

Efforts such as It Gets Better and the Trevor Project are making a difference, but every LGBT kid’s story is unique. No doubt it helps that all kinds of people, from everyday folks, straight and gay, to political leaders such as President Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to celebrities like Joe Jonas, Adam Levine, Margaret Cho and Joel Madden have taped messages of encouragement and hope for It Gets Better.

Taking its title from the now famous Dan Savage video aimed at LGBT teens that became a phenomenon, “It Gets Better” premieres on MTV and Logo on Tuesday, locally at 9 p.m. The message is familiar but worth repeating, especially considering the LGBT teen suicide rate is four times that of straight teens: Stay alive, fight the bullies, it really does get better.

In 2010 writer Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, started the It Gets Better project in response to the suicides of teens who were bullied because they were gay.

Less than two years later, more than 40,000 “It Gets Better” videos have been posted, and the clips have received more than 50 million views. Many of the videos have been submitted by celebrities, including Margaret Cho, Andy Cohen, Stephen Colbert, the Obamas, George Takei and Katy Perry.

In a matter of days, Shannon Allen — wife to Boston Celtic superstar Ray Allen — will give birth to the couple’s fourth son. And then, the clock starts. In March, she’ll be back on camera, hosting her popular cooking show, “Pre-Game Meal,” where she entertains the region’s most favorite athletes and gets them chopping and cooking all in the name of good health.

The Messenger: Dan Savage
Who he is: A self-described “potty-mouthed sex-advice columnist” (the nationally syndicated Savage Love) turned crusader against gay bullying.

Although best known for his It Gets Better project, an archive of hopeful videos aimed at troubled gay youth, Savage has for 20 years been saying monogamy is harder than we admit and articulating a sexual ethic that he thinks honors the reality, rather than the romantic ideal, of marriage. In Savage Love, his weekly column, he inveighs against the American obsession with strict fidelity. In its place he proposes a sensibility that we might call American Gay Male, after that community’s tolerance for pornography, fetishes and a variety of partnered arrangements, from strict monogamy to wide openness.