Casey House redoes ‘Friends’ and ‘The Office’ to fight the stigma of HIV, increase empathy

With regular medication, someone with HIV/AIDS can live a full life with few to no health complications. The hardest part of living with HIV/AIDS, though, is the stigma—lost friendships and workplace strife—that for many, can feel harsher than the disease itself.

As one of the largest purpose-built HIV/AIDS hospitals in the world, Casey House wanted to continue its multi-year campaign to smash stigma, educate the public about transmission and help people relate to the experience of living with HIV.

A survey by Casey House found that 65 million North Americans fear being shunned by friends, family and co-workers if they revealed they were HIV+. The survey also revealed that seeing their favorite character on a show like “Friends” or “The Office” deal with an HIV+ diagnosis would help more than half of North Americans empathize with a friend dealing with the same thing. The team searched 236 episodes of “Friends” and 203 episodes of “The Office” to find scenes that could be re-edited and re-ordered.

Voice impersonators replaced dialogue and look-alikes were hired for each actor, allowing Casey House to create new episodes featuring iconic TV characters dealing with HIV+ and facing the isolation of stigma.