The day Roe v. Wade was overturned—ending the country's constitutional right to abortion—was the day ROE v. BROS was born. Realizing the hypocrisy of how little ‘bros’ know about the female reproductive system (despite bros making up half the voting population and the vast majority of the political system behind laws centered around women's health and rights), we knew there was a truth ripe and ready to be exposed.
Our objective was to inspire people to vote in the 2022 midterm elections to ‘make up’ for all the uninformed bros voting and to be funny and entertaining enough that everyone couldn't help but learn more about women’s bodies and sex education.
Armed with a purple suit, a microphone, and a box of tampons, we took to the streets of NYC on a whim to find out just how much men knew about women’s bodies.
Our execution approach was using 'Woman on the street' humor to take the awkward out of sex ed with a fun, game show-style format that boosts women’s rights while giving bros all the answers to the questions they never thought to ask.
Launching one week before election day, we posted daily videos on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, amassing a huge following with our first episode getting over 50M views combined, attracting global attention and hopefully helping make a difference in voter turnout.
Some challenges we faced were funding everything ourselves, finding free time outside of our full-time jobs, finding a host and production assistants willing to volunteer, and not more than a couple of days of planning how to make it all happen. We just had a gut feeling about the timing and social relevance of the idea. Quickly scrambled everything together, people met the day of, and it all came together on one magical afternoon in Union Square Park, NY.
While we only hoped to make a small difference in voter turnout, our unaffiliated, unbacked, non-promoted, on a shoestring, whim of an idea for a social media video series now has over 120 MILLION completely organic views. We also raised awareness of the need for better sex education in this country on the way to instigating a healthy discourse of 100’s of thousands of comments.
We were shared globally by news, media, and celebrity platforms. Media attention included: Yahoo News, The NY Post, USA Today News, People, iHeartRADIO NewsTalk 1010, Huffpost France, HypeBae, Motherly, SheKnows, Bust, Comic Sands, and more. Celebrity attention included: Reposts from Sarah Silverman, Monica Lewinsky, Candace Parker, Phillipa Soo, Mama Doctor Jones, and Jena Friedman, among others.
After our initial splash during the Midterm Elections, we took our momentum to Atlanta for the Georgia runoff and helped move the needle in a crucial election for human rights – as Georgia voters had an all-time high voter turnout. In both instances, people voted in favor of women maintaining their right to choose how their life unfolds.
What we thought was going to be a one-time video release is now on episode 23 and counting. We've covered various topics such as contraception, infertility, female anatomy, abortion care, childbirth, pregnancy, STDs, UTIs, and others. ROE v BROS has also collaborated with brands such as Prime Video, August Period Care, Reproductive Medicine Associates (RMA), and nonprofits such as Moms First – founded by leading activist Reshma Saujani.
