#homophobia --//

[hawkins-batman]

The Noah Schnapp Situation Going Into S5

With Stranger Things Season 5 coming out this year, we are unfortunately going to see a revival of the debacle around Noah, even though by then it will be an almost 2 year old subject. So, I thought I would get ahead of that with some of my thoughts based on what I've seen these last few weeks and more broadly over the last 6 or more months I've been on this scene.

Spoiler Alert: This is going to be a long one. It'll probably be my new pinned post.

Why Still Talk About It?

Frankly? Because it's still going on. Keep in mind, Liam Payne died in October 2024 (just three months ago), right around Noah's birthday, and THIS is how Twitter responded to that.

And just in case anyone thinks I had to dig back a whole 3 months to find Noah-hate-content on Twitter, here was just random things I grabbed from the last week:

Which brings me to the next point.

Why Do You Even Care?

"Noah doesn't know you." "He's not your pookie."

I know that. The funny thing is, from what little I know about Noah, I'm pretty sure if he DID know me beyond the ONE DM conversation we've had, he'd probably tell me to chill. Dude is very non-confrontational and nice. So, why do it?

Because I think the online movement in favor of Palestinian self-determination has been hijacked by teenagers and performative leftists who care more about looking good for their peers than practicing what they preach.

Because (as you can see above and in screenshots like the one below), people who claim to hold my liberal/progressive/left-leaning values have used this as an opportunity to be openly homophobic and antisemitic towards a then-19-year old who had JUST come out of the closet.

Proponents of the hate campaign against Noah have said that they are just "holding him accountable" or "criticizing him" in the hopes he "learns something."

Look up. Point to me which image is accountability. Point to me the valid criticisms.

There are none. There is just flagrant homophobia. And then there are posts like this one, coming from the same crowd:

This behavior is wrong on its face.

It is violent. It is bullying (which doesn't seem like strong enough of a word) and it's bigoted.

Wanna see more? Look up @noah_schnapp on Twitter/X. See what they've done to his account.

Inevitably, some of the people participating in this will see this blog post. If you've made it this far, this is for you:

This behavior discredits your activism. It makes you look performative and fake to say in one breath that you are a "Leftist" who cares about Palestinian lives as well as the lives of minority groups worldwide, and then to turn around and talk like this about a Jewish person and a gay KID. Because he WAS a kid when this started. Furthermore, it makes it clear to those of us who actually hold the beliefs we claim, that you are vapid enough to use Palestinian suffering for your own personal vendettas. That the APPEARANCE of goodness is more important than goodness itself. And that you will shuck solidarity with minority groups the MOMENT one of them steps out of the lines you have drawn around them.

Not to mention...

It's Based Mostly On Lies

As a reminder, this is what Noah Schnapp actually said shortly after October 7, 2023:

Read that again.

"...we will hope and pray for safety, justice, liberation, and self-determination in Palestine." That was part of the very first thing he ever said about the issue.

And then this happened:

This was the image he was crucified for.

Stickers that weren't even his. That he wasn't holding up or making. He was in a cafe, someone else came up to him with them, and he was videoed with that person.

That's it. That's all. All those tweets you saw above? The fake stories made up about him like this one?

All of that was supposedly "accountability."

The harassment of his family. Murder threats. Rape threats. All for stickers that weren't even his.

There's even a paid Stranger Things author on this very site, styling herself as a Byler shipper, who has contributed to the lies that have further added to the hate campaign I've described.

As an aside, Noah wasn't the only one in that video. The influencers that actually posted the video and HAD THE STICKERS?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

And just to be clear - I don't think they should get hate. I think non-Jewish online Leftists appropriated a term from Jewish culture, redefined it, and are weaponizing it to beat down Jews all over the internet—which is par for the course for this charcuterie board of performative activism.

Yet the point stands. Noah was specifically targeted; and the homophobia that IMMEDIATELY came from the Left suggests to me that it was his sexuality and cultural/religious identity that motivated the attacks.

Again, I'll say, this is wrong.

Noah Has Since Responded

It hasn't stopped the bullying.

Didn't stop him from withdrawing from spaces he loved. From needing therapy from what we've learned from his now-deleted second TikTok.

And that really says something, does it? He cleared up his point. He tried to clarify and even apologize.

They didn't accept it. Not because it wasn't good enough. Not because it was "too late." Because this was the point. They wanted to keep doing it. They get sick joy from it.

Which is why...

I'm Not Shutting Up About This

This post doesn't even nearly cover the whole situation. The Byler fans who try to replace Noah's image in fan art and fan fiction. Who fan cast themselves as Will instead of Noah. The stalking and doxxing on Twitter. People reporting to GIANT hate accounts his location and when he's alone, PRAYING for him to be hurt.

I wish I could cover it all.

We have to stand up to this. On tumblr, on TikTok, on Threads, Twitter/X—everywhere we see it.

For our gay and Jewish siblings who see how Noah was attacked and feel less safe in their online spaces as a result, we have to speak up and say something.

And yeah. We have to say something for Noah, too.

The person who replied to me like this:

Him?

He did it because he needed to see a show of love from his fans. Doesn't mean he's perfect. Doesn't mean he won't mess up or do something in the future.

And no. Standing up for Noah, or for Jewish people, or other gay folks does not make you a genocide supporter or apologist. It doesn't mean you want any innocent people harmed. Don't give them the power to talk down to you like that. It's bullshit. You know it, and I know it.

All standing up to this vile shit is is an acknowledgement that Noah is a living, breathing person, as some of these people tend to forget.

And he didn't deserve this.

Any of it.

[leotheloaf]

Hi, y’all, in the coming years it is more important than EVER that we have a strong queer community.

What we ARENT gonna be doing, is forming separatist movements, or rekindling old ones, or dogpiling each other over who “gets the right to speak” about their own oppression. We ARENT gonna be throwing the most “unpalatable” queers under the bus to try to appeal to cis/het/allo people. We ARENT gonna be abandoning our trans and nonbinary siblings. We ARENT gonna be abandoning our intersex siblings, and we A R E going to be INCLUDING them in our activism. Respectability politics gets us nowhere. Infighting gets us nowhere. Separatism gets us NOWHERE. Shape tf up y’all

[transmasc-punpun]

finding out a fairly popular artist i like is actually cringe about queer men is so sad. it should be illegal to be good at art but have cringe takes.

[crossdreamers]

Facebook, Threads and Instagram open the gates to anti-LGBTQ haters

Facebook, Instsgram and Threads now give transphobic and homophobic haters close to free reign on their platforms.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Threads and Instagram, has announced a significant shift in its content moderation strategy by ending its third-party fact-checking program and introducing a community-based model similar to X's Community Notes.

Meta is using anti-trans terms

The company will also allow users to invalidate trans and gay people using mental illness narratives.

A Meta representative said:

“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”

In other words: Meta will now allow for hateful content targeting both trans and gay people. Note also the use of the term "transgenderism". No one, expect, transphobic TERFs and right wingers, use the term "transgenderism".

Meta will also end its policy of downplaying political content in its algorithms, ensuring that more anti-LGBTQ propaganda will be visible in the feeds of users. And with no fact-checking, we would guess anything can get through.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that this change aims to "get back to our roots around free expression," emphasizing a reduction in censorship and errors associated with previous moderation efforts.

A moral collapse

Zuckerberg is now down on his knees worshipping Trump and the MAGA-movement. This represents a complete ethical collapse on his part.

Critics argue that relying on community-driven moderation may lead to the spread of misinformation, as the effectiveness of such systems in accurately assessing content is still under scrutiny.

Sure, but the main takeaway her us that Meta now signals to the world that the company thinks it is OK for transphobes and homophobes to harass and invalidate LGBTQ people, their sexualities, their identities and their safety on these platforms.

This will also, for most LGBTQ people, mean that they will have to use these platforms without any defense against haters. It is not that they were not filled with hate speech already. The point here is that LGBTQ-people could always try to use the codes of conduct to reign in the most active bullies. No more.

It seems to us that the only main social media platforms that tries to protect LGBTQ people are Bluesky and Mastodon.

See also: Meta's moderation rollback sparks celebration and despair Meta Now Lets Users Say Gay and Trans People Have 'Mental Illness' (Archived here) Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook & Instagram will be more like X in 2nd Trump term Meta’s New Policies Fuel Concerns Over Transgender Harassment

[srslylini]

my hot take is that certain shows do need to understand that oppression isn't solely poor and rich but goes deeper.

"Our piece of media doesn't have bigoted views like homophobia, misogyny, etc."

ok but do you understand how delicately those work together in oppression? how it is connected?

I am not saying every piece of media needs this kind of deepness and I also want to be able to engage without having to see ugly shit. but I fear if you want your media to be about classism and oppression like Arcane does and try to say how well you did it, and how deep it is and yet you only do surface level shit??? yeah you failed.

my second hot take is that Arcane needed to add stuff like this, say what you want.

My last hot take is Arcane season 2 failed because they didn't understand how oppression and class actually works, did they ever hear of the word intersectionality or is that news for them? The fact that they never reached deeper than "rich and poor" is a red flag I do not care.

[shinra-makonoid]

Okay I don't specifically agree with OP's post but???

This is just homophobia. Most gay people don't look at two hetero kissing and feel like they're watching tomatoes rotting, and they're still very gay. Having an adverse reaction to two people kissing isn't a sexuality, it's a phobia. You were never used to as a child seeing two guys kissing, you might have had a specific conditioning that led you to think it's bad/gross, and so now you feel that. Most gay people have been conditioned to see hetero kissing, it's the norm, and therefore don't really see any problem with that.

Yes, most men are raised to be homophobic. That's not a sexuality. I get extremely distressed and grossed out when I see mushrooms, because I am phobic of them. Normal people don't feel that way towards mushrooms. Normal people don't feel that way towards men kissing.

Sexuality is being sexually aroused by people. It has nothing to do with distaste/phobia, which is probably cultural in majority. If you're not sexually aroused by men, you're not attracted to men.

The post itself says:

The study even uses the word "stress" and talks about socialized disgust:

so strange to me that some people aren't bisexual

[fox-bright]

As predicted, they're coming for Obergefell.

Idaho has, today--01/01/2025--asked the US Supreme Court to revoke Obergefell v. Hodges, and strike down the legality of gay marriage.

[prokopetz]

Honestly, part of why it irritates me when people act performatively shocked at the homophobia in 2000s media is it wasn't just media. "Can you believe this aired in 2008" buddy, in 2008 I was having shit thrown at me from moving cars for having long hair, and you wanna get worked up about sitcoms?

[animentality]

[fixomnia-scribble]

There are very very few people to whose demise I would respond thusly, but BYEEEEE.

[charlesoberonn]

[shiftingwithmars]

Fuck off🖕

[kropotkindersurprise]

June 21, 2024 - Namibia's high court has declared the "sodomy law" that criminalised gay sex unconstitutional!

Namibia inherited the apartheid-era law banning “sodomy” and “unnatural offences” when it gained independence from South Africa in 1990. [link]

[thestarlightforge]

Love how much of the reporting is completely missing the point as well. It’s being cast as a debate about how to protect kids online when that’s 90% a red herring to collect archives of hugely sensitive information, even more so than advertisers already do, with little acknowledgment of how said information could be retributively applied towards punishing law-abiding adults who face intersectional oppression

fuckin wild that the government has straight up blocked internet porn in florida unless you submit your government ID and NOBODY'S talking about it

[draconym]

Seeing tumblr users tag their blorboposts with "gay panic" is making me insane. This term does not mean what you all think it means.