Watch The Animated Short About Coming Out That's Broken The Internet

Animation shorts are becoming increasingly popular, with Disney, Pixar, and Illumination Entertainment releasing mini sequels and short films with some of our favourite characters. But the short that's broken both the internet and our hearts recently comes from none of those animation giants, but from two students at Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida.

Beth David and Esteban Bravo created In A Heartbeat, a four-minute animation, for their computer animation thesis. The short features a young boy struggling to understand and come to terms with his feelings towards one of his peers. The film is the first of its kind to address the topic of accepting sexuality at such a young age, and shows the reality of growing up as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

The project was entirely crowdfunded via Kickstarter, and they generated nearly fives times the amount of their original estimated costs in order to get the animation made.

Since hitting YouTube, In A Heartbeat has racked up nearly 15million hits. The comments, shares and positive responses towards the animation shows that topics such as sexuality need to be featured more in film, especially those directed towards younger children. Projects like this are also important because it gives LGBTQ+ youth peace of mind, telling them that there's nothing to be afraid of when it comes to embracing their true selves.

You can watch In A Heartbeat here:

I'm not crying, you are.