#also the mythical fandom concept of queerbaiting did NOT exist in the 70s

[thebreakfastgenie]

tbh reading the actual context behind Mike Farrell being nicknamed "queerbait" in high school made me feel a lot less comfortable with using the term "queerbaiting" in a fandom context at all. like I wasn't really aware of how it was used back then before but now I'm like... hm.

a straight teenager's friends calling him "bait" because he was frequently picked up by gay men while hitchhiking is not a heartwarming tale (and somehow I doubt all of his friends were as pro-gay as Mike ended up being).

it's not exactly the same, but younger people using "queerbait" on tumblr reminds me a bit of the way younger people try to use "gay panic" to mean "a sudden, expected questioning of sexuality upon meeting a hot person" or "losing composure and reasoning in the presence of a gay crush" when it has an established history as a violently homophobic legal defense.

I don't know if it's reasonable to expect young people to be aware of "queerbait" or not because it's not really in use that way now, while the gay panic defense is still a thing, but I'm not a fan of it. and I'm really, really not a fan of people acting like the "queerbait" nickname had anything to do with fandom stuff just because the word happens to be the same.