#tiktok queer community has the same problem except far worse because tumblr at least was a bunch of grassroots queer teens

[daisyachain]

the niche community of queer-via-fandom tumblr is a) very funny b) very annoying and it’s interesting to think about why. first, this is ofc limited by my own experiences, but i say there’s lineage from superwholock (or whatever the thing is that got people on to tumblr and discussing queer themes in the first place) to bi vs pan discourse.

first, tumblr is a blogging platform with a culture of anonymous content creation/sharing that supports a queer community that largely grew/grows out of pop culture fans, specifically slash fans. most of this community is made up of people who went online to seek out/talk about fiction that wasn’t widely popular in their IRL communities. through factors i don’t know and don’t want to try to explain, the fan contingent on tumblr tended towards the afab.

slash content has been a focus of female fan content (for better or worse) from the K/S zines of the 60s through Naruto through (we hate to say it) Superwholock. the proportional importance of m/m relationships in male-dominated fiction combined with the slash goggles of existing female-majority fan communities makes analysis of m/m relationships into an important part of fandom on tumblr immediately post-livejournal. the first generations of kids drifting on to tumblr following fan content for H**** P***** or Naruto or whatever niche childhood obsession made them seek out other people’s opinions, content, etc.

so we have fiction-addict kids and teenagers joining fan spheres focused on interpreting m/m interactions as romantic. again, for better or worse. with that focus on interpretation/subtext in relationships, said first-time fans get saturated with non-heteronormative content and explanations or rationales for how ostensibly hetero people can in fact be gay, or how that might express itself. this broadly applies to multiple types of queerness, but first-gen tumblr was strictly m/m focused.

anyway, as they internalize this framework for interpretation and let it percolate, your average fan tumblr unconsciously starts applying it to their own life. they map their own experiences with non-conformity, isolation, alienation, and discomfort with cisheteronormative expectations on to fictional characters who they interpret as queer. these people are still teens or young adults and have only experienced queerness through fan spheres online in an anonymous environment saturated with queer or at least nominally queer content. because it’s relatively safe, these people are free to and do come out when they realize that they don’t fit cis hetero norms. this has a bit of a snowball effect, and so tumblr becomes known for a large community of queer content creators with interests in fiction and visual arts.

however, Average Queer Tumblr User by this point has been able to explore their queer identity and come out without ever going to an explicitly queer place or meeting explicitly queer people IRL. their entire context for being queer is the shipping-focused fan community that also is a large part of tumblr’s base, and whatever discourse or queer theory happens to slip through into that sphere. because of the danger of the outside world and the isolation of the online world, your Average Queer Tumblr User may or may not know or learn anything about queer history or queer thought, and if they do it’s entirely coincidental. this community didn’t grow out of existing queer communities, if anything it grew out of straight cis female fan communities without real context for queerness as an identity outside of IRL bigotry and without any continuity from the pre-existing queer community.

and so, the tumblr ‘can’t be a lesbian if you’re nb’ ‘pansexality is biphobic and bisexuality is panphobic’ ‘women who aren’t attracted to men are straight’ ‘amab people can’t be nonbinary’ queer community does have a reason for how it reliably produces the worst takes you’ve ever heard--everyone here is figuring things out from scratch and from the few references to queer history sources they’re aware of. tumblr is the cave, fiction is the fire, and we are watching the shadows of queer people on the wall