Salient

YouTube is my Gay Mother

By Bobby Nairn | 12 May, 2008

I can’t afford any vodka this week. No, not even Red Square. Can’t afford TAB for that matter either. It seems my Sex and the City lifestyle saw a bit too much city over the mid-trimester break, and now I’m getting my comeuppance. So here I am, sitting in my frigid Kelburn flat, resigned to sobriety. And relying solely on the warm glow of my 13th century computer to comfort me, I turn to YouTube.

I’m quite sure that if it wasn’t for YouTube, I’d be far less gay. Sure, it could be a lot worse here in New Zealand, but the fact that queers are vastly underrepresented, even shunned, in most parts of ‘over the counter’ society is something that I abhor. If it weren’t for YouTube, I wouldn’t have a clue about some of the big gay inspirations close to my heart now. People like Margaret Cho, Kathy Griffin, Wanda Sykes, Ellen Degeneres and Chelsea Handler (less so, but she’s still cool). I wouldn’t have such easy access to Kylie videos. And I wouldn’t be able to hear about the inane everyday lives of video bloggers (not you, Morgan), or watch pretty boys dancing to camp music (again, not you, Morgan). And just by the way, I did like Chris Crocker and I thought that queers should have shown more solidarity (to him and Britney, but especially him).

Oh, and you haven’t seen gay until you’ve seen my Bebo. Not just mine though, all of it, its headquarters are in San Francisco after all! Social networking sites, particularly Bebo, bring together a lot of questioning/subversive young queers and give them support through groups and, just like for more established queers, are places to meet new people. I met lots of queers over Bebo, some of whom are now really good friends. I was out before Bebo entered my life, but I hardly knew any queers… and, well, now I’m screaming. Who knew? Yeah, some people just want to ‘cam’ with you, but it’s hardly surprising. Have you noticed how many horny gay guys there are in small town New Zealand?! I guess it’s far easier to be gay in Blenheim over the internet, rather than… I don’t know what the fuck people do in Blenheim.

Truth is, the internet can be a bit of a playground for kiddy fiddling, blog writing, Warcraft playing wierdos. We should all be wary of this, of course. But in a general sense, I feel the internet, in all its global po-mo glory, has really helped to enfranchise some of the voices of us ‘minorities’ through its effortless anonymity. So long as you play your cards right, it’s a passive aggressive way to express yourself, the worst consequence being some conservative religious nutter from Texas replying to your Youtube comment just to tell you you’re going “straight to Hell,” or some bullshit you probably already know. However, getting into internet scuffles really appeals to me. You see, I don’t want to be the bigger person. I like sinking to their level. I like letting them know that even though in ‘society’ heteronormative ideals might be more visible, my voice is just as loud as theirs in this arena and I’ve got plenty of backup.