JAFFREY — He wears sunglasses and a leather jacket. Piercings cover his face, tattoos cover his body and his facial hair is died a bright yellow. His name is The Scary Guy.

When he walks into the Pratt Gymnasium on Thursday morning, his mere presence intimidates the assembled Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School student body into absolute silence. But by the end of his presentation, they are lining up to give him hugs.

The Scary Guy’s message is about the spread of hate. People make judgments about others based on the way they look, he says, and they use those judgments to bully.

Early in the presentation, Scary Guy reads news articles and e-mails he has received of some shocking stories. One girl commits suicide following taunts from her peers; a group of juveniles burns a classmate to death.

“This is the world you’re living in right now,” Scary Guy says.

When he walks into a room, Scary Guy knows exactly how people are judging him, pegging him as a biker or a wrestler and a potentially dangerous person. All of this is based on the way he looks.

And until relatively recently, Scary Guy made assumptions about others as often or more often than assumptions were made about him.

“I thought I was a good guy my whole life,” Scary Guy says. “I wasn’t. I was a name-caller and a hater. The truth was I was just like everybody else.”

In fact, Scary Guy was a tattoo artist, and before that he was a computer salesman. Before that, he shot baby portraits for a living.

The change came for him in 1998, when he had his name legally changed to The Scary Guy. He hit the road, sold his tattoo shops and decided it was his mission to teach people how to create love and peace.

Now Scary Guy gives 700 live performances per year dedicated to ending anger, hate, violence and death.

“People become exactly what they see and hear,” Scary Guy says. “The rate of transfer is astounding.”

In residence at Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School for Thursday and Friday, Scary Guy speaks before the entire school, individual classes, a group of teachers and a group of community members. The presentation is hilarious, exposing how ridiculous prejudgment is, but it is also serious about ending hatred.

Throughout his time at the school, Scary Guy teaches that the replication of hateful speech is the same as the replication of hate itself. He says that people need to understand that hateful speech does not characterize the people to whom it is directed, but instead the people who speak it.

“You have to imagine in New York City someone looking like this walking down the street,” Scary Guy says. “They look at me like, ‘There’s another lunatic. What an idiot. Who would want to do that to themselves.’ That’s them; not me.”

The reality of Scary Guy’s physical appearance has everything to do with his presentation. In the world of the Internet and the dissemination of violent images on television and through other media, Scary Guy says, he is able to capture people’s attention.

The middle school students were not captured by his presentation because he is a nice guy with a good message, Scary Guy says. They listened because they were blown away by his image and his message combined.

“I’m an ex tattoo artist; this is what I look like,” Scary Guy says. “I didn’t plan it this way, but I know it is this way, and I use my looks.”

Once he has their attention, however, and he is able to get his message across, the tattoos and the rest of his image melt away. One fact Scary Guy provides during his presentation is that studies show a developing child needs 16 hugs per day to function on a normal emotional level. At the end of the presentation, students and teachers alike hug Scary Guy.

“This is a mission,” Scary Guy says. “I only have so much time. I want to reach as many people as I can before I die. I am dedicating my life to showing people they no longer have to live as victims. If they understand, they will not victimize other people.”

At the end of the school day Thursday, Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School students Tessa Saint Towers, Katie Jenkins and Nick Bellerose all say they liked The Scary Guy’s presentation.

“He delivered the message in a new way,” Jenkins says. “You can’t be mean to people just because they are mean to you.”

Ryan Earley, principal of Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School, says he heard about Scary Guy from health teacher Michelle Durand, who had been trying to bring him to the school for seven years. After some research, Scary Guy was invited to fit a visit to Jaffrey into his busy schedule. He gives presentations around the world to schools, governments, military, law enforcement, corporations, churches and prisons.

“His message is equivalent with what we’re trying to coach in our school with that low level bullying, the level below overt taunts,” Earley says. “It is working on responding appropriately rather than ignoring what is there.”

The program was a success, according to Earley, who stayed in the Pratt for all six of Scary Guy’s sessions.

“I was astounded at the interest by our entire student body,” Earley says. “Scary stated this was the first time that after a performance that audience members made a line to give him a hug goodbye or a kind word.”

That happened with Scary Guy’s presentation to the eighth grade class, which went 45 minutes longer than planned.

“When they started getting into identifying bullying behavior, our students took the bull by the horns and brought up specific instances and various different ways to solve problems,” Earley says.

In addition to the formal sessions, Scary Guy sat down, along with Earley, assistant principal Robert Clark and school behavior specialist Taylor Ratcliffe, with one student identified as an at-risk student.

“The student took from that as much as the student could have,” Earley says. “I think it was very meaningful to show the individual there were three people in the school who cared.

People they usually are in trouble with were there to support them. It was very poignant.”
In the coming weeks, the middle school will incorporate Scary Guy’s message into the curriculum. One of his challenges included refusing to use any hateful speech for seven days.

Earley says the school will also look to bring Scary Guy back regularly every couple of years.

“His message is so prepared and so meaningful that after the first couple of minutes, I didn’t see that tattoos or the piercings,” Earley says. “I just heard meaning coming from him. He connects with every individual because everyone can relate to areas of love and pain and, at the same time, the desire to change the world and empower each other to move past hate.”

For more information on The Scary Guy, visit www.thescaryguy.com.