Pride 2018 By Miguel Discart (cc)

With more LGBT representations in television and films today than ever before, it may seem as though today’s youth in 2019 would have a good understanding of the queer experience. However, feminist scholar Suzanna Walters argues that LGBTQ visibility in the media means that we are more widely seen but not necessarily better known (Walters 2001).

It’s through social media websites like Tik Tok, young LGBTQ people can express their identity completely, authentically and therefore connect with their peers through shared experiences and truly feel, seen and heard. On the surface, these videos may seem performative, but for queer youth and young people of colour, it is actually an opportunity to express an identity that often feels unwanted, ignored or rejected in the ‘real world’.

Judieth Halberstam (2005) explains how queer realness is not exactly performance, not exactly an imitation; it is the way that people, minorities, excluded from the domain of the real, appropriate the real and its effects…the term realness offsets any implications of inauthenticity…realness actually describes less of an act of will and more of a desire to flaunt the unpredictability of social gendering.” We can see this demonstrated today through the many male identifying youth on Tik Tok, posting videos of what can seem like, elaborate make up looks. The majority of the comments tare from supporitive peers, within and outside of the LGBT community. A simple Tik Tok video of a young male identifying boy posting his make up, can actually be an example of queer realness, an ability to reject social conventions and perform their identity authentically. And with reports of the social media application, limiting and blocking LGBT content (techdirt, 2019), it is even an act of political resistance.

For some LGBT youth, who live in rural communities or countries where same sex marriage is still far from being legal, these social media apps may be the only accessible platform where they can connect with others who share their experience and completely express their identity.