#again. correct me if I'm way off base here I'm just a baby phannie at the end of the day

[purpurussy]

hi. once you mentioned your thoughts on the take that phil stayed in the closet for dan. could you share it again with the class again. sorry

⚠️ Dan and Phil DNI⚠️

dsfhjjkl I fear I'm not well-educated enough on the lore to have an accurate take. and it's really the notion that he "went back in the closet" for dan that bothers me. but I'll try to explain how I see it and people can feel free to link me to the vitally important receipts that I'm missing here which change the whole narrative lmao

the thing is I don't think it was 100% because of dan. i do think phil would have come out sooner if dan had been in a better headspace with everything, but imo it's not entirely accurate to say that phil would have been out and proud on youtube the entire time otherwise because as far as I can tell, he wasn't ever in that position 😭 would an out and proud man have made snokoplasm.

I think phil was referring to himself as bi on myspace but so was dan back in the day. and I think id'ing as bi in a setting where you don't expect that many people to see it beyond your personal network is a very different kettle of fish from being completely vulnerable and honest about your identity as a full-on celebrity. Phil has also told anecdotes that make me feel like he had 1 foot in the closet and 1 foot out in some ways (eg auditioning for big brother and then being terrified that they'd post his audition tape bc he said he was gay and then instantly regretted it, getting outed to his family by a friend when he was in college and having an awful time with that whole situation) and I certainly haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe he was ever really out as gay (and proud) on youtube at any point before 2019. Phil has also alluded to experiencing internalized homophobia/feeling like there was something wrong with him for being gay, and I feel like people gloss over that since it wasn't as severe as Dan's experiences.

so I don't think it's entirely accurate to say phil "went back in the closet" for dan firstly because I don't think he was ever fully out of the closet until 2019. he was certainly not out and proud with 0 caveats. like he never said it with his whole chest until coty.

then there's the fact that there can be real-world consequences to coming out which can be hard to predict or manage. things are a little different now but I can imagine it would have been tough trying to do a risk-benefit analysis of coming out when they were working with the BBC, trying to get things like world tours and book deals off the ground, and also I think they were probably not hugely financially secure back then (especially very early on/around the time they moved to London). like this is pure conjecture, but I can imagine it could have been tough to come out as gay, not knowing if you'd be inadvertently tanking a career opportunity because oh never mind we already have an openly gay radio presenter on this show and we don't need 2 more, or oh no don't do that because then we'll have to cancel the shows in Russia and Malaysia or whatever ykwim? (I assumed this was also part of the reason why dan had a breakdown about wanting to come out before II started but again that's based on nothing lmao)

now that I'm thinking about nick grimshaw coming out as gay in 2012 and co-hosting the radio show with them I feel like I'm connecting some dots but again this is just me yapping. I remember finding out he was gay back then and I vaguely remember people posting about feeling "betrayed" or being otherwise homophobic towards him but I can't remember whether the general reaction was positive or negative at the time. I also feel like there's something to be said for the fact that a lot of actors/people in situations like this feel like they're competing against other members of their marginalized community, because they can't both be hired for 2 different important roles because there can only be 1 token gay/poc or whatever. anyway food for thought I guess

I also think it's easy to assume Phil was just chilling the entire time since he plays his cards a lot closer to his chest than Dan. he doesn't like to talk about stuff like this as openly as dan and i think that results in us focusing a lot more on Dan's experiences (which makes sense since that's the information we have to work with, but still). he's hinted that it was rough for him to deal with the speculation about them and their relationship back in the day as well, and while I'm the last person to encourage people to start self-flagellating for the demon era, I do think it's worth considering that it can't have been easy for Phil either (I mean it was his face and words in the v-day video. I would have probably been institutionalized if that happened to me I'm just saying. the factors that led to dans no homo era can't have been easy for Phil to deal with either)

point is I think there were a lot of factors that kept them both in the closet. I do agree of course that Phil would've come out sooner if it weren't for dan needing to work through his issues before he was ready to come out (Phil has certainly said as much) but I don't think it's the only reason. I think it was certainly a show of the trust and respect he has for dan that he waited for Dan to be ready in the end, but I also think it's inaccurate when people talk as though dan singlehandedly kept Phil in no homo jail for 10 years and he would've been out and proud the entire time if Dan hadn't had a mountain of trauma and internalized homophobia to work through before he was ready to come out (which as dan himself has said, may have been a lot sooner than 2019, but there were other factors that kept him from being able to do that first)