RLSH Awareness & Online Presence

Raven
4 days ago
3 min read

While the RLSH movement has been pretty strong since about 1998 (yes, there have been some heroes before then, but I’m talking in generalities), most average people really haven’t heard of the Real Life Superhero movement. Just to be clear, there has been a reality tv show hosted by Stan Lee that featured a number of important RLSH, several publications and articles by Tea Krulos, newspaper and news segments on RLSH, the “Superheroes” (2011) documentary, some lesser known documentaries featuring RLSH, and Master Legend even had an Amazon tv pilot about him (which didn’t pan out).

Still, average people don’t really pay much attention to the RLSH movement. The lack of attention also means the number of active RLSH are low.

"It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but only a moment to ruin it"

Ben Franklin

Is this a good thing, a bad thing, or something in-between?

The RLSH movement does have HOPE events (article) as often as people can organize them. These are aimed at bringing hope to the homeless and local community by providing handouts to the homeless - but as a huge group of RLSH, instead of just one or two doing it. Any upcoming HOPE events will be listed under “Members > Events” tabs above. This does bring a little awareness to some communities.

How can we boost our in-person RLSH actions on top of doing good deeds like HOPE?

Online presence is also something the RLSH movement needs to start getting a little more on-board with. I have the Herocore website set up where I (usually) regularly blog about RLSH-related topics only. I haven’t had any negative issues and I’m hoping that continues. My goal is to act as a guide for either new RLSH or to bring up discussion points for current/older RLSH. Regular posting also indicates current activity.

I want to give a shout out to my RLSH friend, Skyline. He has a youtube channel he uses to discuss RLSH stuff. I highly recommend it. Skyline is currently working on an RLSH Iceberg series. I have the first video on the right hand side >> so check it out.

There are other places to find RLSH online, BUT due to past actions by a bunch of a-holes, its usually kept a little quiet to prevent trolls, spammers, etc.

If you are really trying to find RLSH community online, you can email me OR you can make an introduction post over in the subreddit. We check it. We're just not super active on reddit.

There is another source to check out is RLSH.net. The RLSH wiki is run from there. It's currently being worked on and we are in need of additional information. If you know some retired RLSH, please ask them to check it out. We could use their input. [Note: I don't run it, but I do help with it.]

Still, after all of that, our real life and online presence is very minimal. What can we do to fix that? Comments, suggestions welcome below.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

Soliciting for news puff-pieces should be avoided.
Always aim for a positive presence.
If you're going to be a hero, you need to look the part.
An increase of active, positive RLSH may help make the world a better place.

This piece was written to get people to think about this aspect of the RLSH movement. Do we need a positive media campaign? Below are some superhero "Got Milk?" campaign ads. What would our message even be?

I'm going to follow this up with a post on public perceptions.

The November "Notes From The Rooftops" will be about "a time you lent a hand" [as an RLSH]. Keep it to roughly 500 words. If you want to contribute (active or retired RLSH only), please send an email to Raven (raven@herocore.online). Currently, these are only coming out once a month.

If there is something you would like to see me discuss here on Herocore, please feel free to contact me.

On an entire other note, if you are an RLSH, please take a moment to fill out this RLSH 2025 Demographics Survey. It's anonymous. Just looking to gather some general information to study (data analysis is just something I like to do). It will end up becoming an article in the future (late-December or early-January).