#Basically I'm Gay

[mostlycorrectdipandpip]

this hits something different in this post BIG, post WAD, post TIT world 🥺

[bottomsonlybar]

reposting this old meme that i made that kinda flopped on twitter for the BIG anniversary

[reunitedinterlude]

june 13, 2019

happy 5 years to basically i'm gay <3

[antiadvil]

Dan loves to make up reasons to credit Phil on his projects. What the fuck is "remote crisis management." Why did Why I Quit YouTube need an "archive historian." What "production assistance" did Phil provide on BIG. Explain yourself Daniel

[serendipnpipity]

Thank you for living your truth, @danielhowell. You've helped me live mine, too.

Image Description under the cut:

[illustrated YouTube notification: “Daniel Howell uploaded ‘Basically I’m Gay’”]

Five years ago today, I was lying on the couch in my family home, watching the words of a person I had grown to find pieces of myself in as he bared his soul to the world just to make somebody like me feel a little less alone. 

[girl lying on her stomach on the couch, looking at phone]

He said something at the end of that video,

[Illustrated video screenshot of Dan saying “You are valid. It gets so much better.”]

And I’ll never forget hearing those words. Never forget drying my tears, quickly, before my parents came back. 

[Three panels: girl wiping tears from face, putting phone down, silhouette walking through front door]

See, the girl on that couch was planning far, far away futures. She couldn’t believe his words just yet, but now she could hope to. 

[open shoebox with rainbow flag inside]

Five years later, today, I wish I could tell her:

You don’t have to move halfway across the country to set a flag out on your desk. 

[school building and stack of books]

Your parents are coming over tomorrow to help bring you home for the summer. (They’re only an hour’s car ride away.)

[cartoon sun and car]

And see that?

[rainbow flag in a mug with a cat whiskers design]

Yeah, that’s the one decoration you haven’t packed yet. 

And that something he said at the end of the video, I still quote it to this day. 

[computer playing the Dan birthday livestream with "Misty" on a Zoom call in the corner]

Better yet, I believe it now. 

[same girl, older and with shorter hair, holding mug with flag and looking back at someone off-camera that’s saying “Ready to go home?”]

Happy five years of Basically, I’m Gay!

[ahappyphjl]

Basically I'm Gay — June 13th 2019

happy 5 years!! thank u @danielhowell for telling your story, you’ve changed countless lives - mine included. we love u so incredibly much 🫶🏻🏳️‍🌈

[natigail]

"I think, as you may have clocked in the show, from a period of time when I was feeling a certain way. It was towards the end of 2021, early 2022, where I was a bit, like, I need to do something. I have been on this hiatus, there has been a literal pandemic, the vibes are not amazing, and so I very much was like, I want to... Look. With Basically I'm Gay, I wrote myself out of the closet. Right? I used the hell that my career has trapped me in as an obligatory way to force my hand to rip the plaster off and confront my sexuality. Which was a good thing! Without all of you, without the internet, who knows? I might be in the closet, being a sad lawyer right now. Legitimately. And it was kind of the same thing here. I was, like, I want to just start creating a piece of entertainment and then maybe I'll entertain myself out of a hole. And if I go on a tour, then I'll get to touch grass. I'll get to smell the fresh air of Chicago, Illinois and wherever the fuck. I guess Helsinki had fresh air. Shout out to Europe. Ehm, and yeah. It was literally like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? It was like writing the show and doing the show was the thing that I needed and here we are!" - Dan Howell, post-live premiere of we’re all doomed, 25th of February 2024

BIG and WAD are both such incredible things and I am emotional about the fact that he can sort out something so complex and private through sharing it with his audience.

Quotes from Dan (150/?)

[phanyaoi]

fun phact: phil is like the only other person named in "basically im gay"

[danrifics]

5 years 🏳️‍🌈

@danielhowell Thank you for showing me how important it is to be myself, thank you for being there for me while i was growing up, thank you for all the happiness you bring me. thank you for making me laugh, cry and smile.

You changed my life with this video and I'll never be able to thank you enough.

-Bethanie

[pinofdnp]

happy 5 years since coming out, dan <3 !!

[saturnisfallingdown]

THE STAR: Renewed hope, healing, and self-development

My first piece for @dnptarot!!! The Star has always been my favorite card, and I thought a Basically I'm Gay theme fit the meaning well enough :]

[ID: Digital art of Daniel Howell, as an interpretation of the tarot card The Star. He wears the outfit from Basically I'm Gay, the sequin jacket fading into a star-filled view of space. He's surrounded by twelve larger white stars, and his expression is calm and happy. Faint rainbows from lens flare and lighting surround the piece. End ID]

[chemicalarospec]

tbh I DO think that Dan expected people to just run with what he said in Basically I'm Gay as "phan is real!!!!!" proof, and ever since people instead reacted like "well we can't be SURE-sure", dan and phil have been playing a game of seeing how far they can get schrodinger's hard-launching

[yonpote]

ok ok everyone please, ignore for a moment that this is a clip of The Quote. please just ignore the words and look at dans body language cuz its killing me LMAOOOO

[sandinmybed]

god 'basically i'm gay' destroys me for all the obvious reasons but i'm thinking specifically about the phrasing "and obviously, we were more than friends" and basically not elaborating past that. dan simply said, obviously. like; you knew. we knew you knew. we hid it and you still knew and you made it very clear. and it was in a scary intense invasive way, especially for a guy who was deeply closeted, but i'm also thinking about how he's said since then that without the community of fans that had formed from this, he might never have had the courage to come out and would still to this day probably be a miserable straight lawyer. except for how obviously they were together. and i'm just wondering how that must feel for him. if they hadn't been so obvious people might not have figured it out, but without this terrifying state of being perceived he might never have been able to be his true self.

im giving myself a migraine

[reunitedinterlude]

dan and phil appreciation week

day six: favourite solo video - dan version

[tentacle-therapissed]

Dan and Phil still refusing to outright acknowledge that they are in a relationship while clearly being in a relationship is a little bit funny but tbh if my fanbase spread a video about my most intimate and personal moments with my significant other for years and years after it was accidentally leaked all while I was still not out to my own family, I would also do everything in my power to keep as much of my love life away from them as humanly possible for the rest of my life