Defining the Gay Experience One Tweet at a Time
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The gay experience: always vibrant, often hilarious, wholly undefinable. Yet we, as gay folks, can often determinatively say when a certain situation makes sense for our lifestyle and when it feels a little too — dare I say it? — hetero.
Specific circumstances, just like cuffed jeans, iced coffee, and Carly Rae Jepsen, belong to the gays. They are a part of gay culture, we have already claimed them as such, and there’s no going back anymore.
The gay experience can’t be defined. Still, we know what the gay experience is not, because we can recognize heterosexuality from a mile away.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this. They are so right pic.twitter.com/SOhP0kZp8f
— michael vincent (@mvddm) November 11, 2020
As TikTok user lynnspiracy so accurately explains, “Heterosexuality is such a potent and indistinguishable energy. It fills the room like a fart. Not everyone dealt it … but everyone smelt it.” In contrast, “Queerness is so mysterious and unknowable only a mere mortal ensconced by hubris could think they could know what queerness is at any time.”
Just like Twitter user @mvddm, we can’t stop thinking about this either. An absence of straightness that is so deeply ingrained into our very being. Into watching 15 seasons of a bad CW show for the sheer possibility of queer on-screen representation. Into listening to Mitski on repeat. Into wearing a denim jacket no matter how hot it is outside. These experiences boast of their lack of heteronormativity. They are ours. They belong to the Culture™.
We can observe other examples of the gay experience, well-documented by the trusty queer community of Twitter:
Like hoarding plants to fix all our life’s problems:
Gay people be like "*buys swiss cheese plant* maybe this will make me feel better"
— squid's all the bad guys (@squidias) November 14, 2020
Getting overly invested in our tabletop RPG characters:
gay people be like “what if we talked about our dnd characters in depth together and then talked about their dynamics. hypothetically what if they held hands,”
— quinn 🙂 (@gilearfaeth) November 13, 2020
Not being able to sit:
gay people be like: *sits incorrectly in chair*
— ☆ kyle/toby ☆ (@kitkaturatwat) November 11, 2020
Playing video games however we choose to play video games:
In hindsight this was a gay experience
— Joe Johnson (@JoeJohnsonIce) November 24, 2020
Falling in love with your best friend:
Fellas is it gay to marry your best friend? pic.twitter.com/8cX4U1xwea
— The Short One (@QXtopher) November 21, 2020
it comes with the gay experience
— bun . oli 💿 (@1rlkurom1) November 17, 2020
And my personal favorite… putting too much investment into astrology:
queer culture is exchanging date and time of birth before going on a date to see if it’s even worth the investment
— TS Butch Queen ⚧️ (@ThatBoyYouLike) July 22, 2019
There may be no such thing as a “universal” gay experience, but there is just something about queer culture that makes you recognize it when you see it.
What situations would you define as being part of the gay experience?
