Part of gay survival, simply put, is the chameleonic ability to change according to our surroundings. This likely stems from the necessary adaptation to a largely heterosexual world, but its result is a community that is all too ready to change their identity in a moment’s notice. In its place, for many, is a feeling of identitylessness. Who are we when we are not performing for straight culture?
This trait is not even exclusive to gay people, as there is an element of shifting one’s personality necessary in many different instances, for many kinds of people. I imagine the closest cipher to this adaption is seen and felt by young women. Our world is constantly asking women to change and be new to them, while still operating within a strict and confining system of expectations. This is likely why America Ferrera’s rousing speech in Barbie affected so many, and why so many Alan’s in the audience were yas-queen-ing her from their seats.
There is something almost comforting in knowing that everyone feels they need to be something to someone, and that perhaps all of us are searching for what it truly means to be ourselves.
The gay people I know are particularly adept at recalibrating their personalities as it is necessitated. This idea of “code-switching” can be as slight as omitting the name of their partner as to not out themselves, or in the case of many, an entirely different wardrobe and persona in their office. This hiding of one’s self is more pernicious than merely finding and adhering to work-appropriate attire, it is the continued and seemingly never-ending effort to assimilate. Gay people, are especially good at this fine-tuning, as transformation is inherent to our experience. (If one is to believe the “experience” could ever be considered somehow monolithic.) As a community, we are constantly revealing parts of ourselves, trying on different identities like costumes, all while asking, “Is this ok?”
As I reflect on these different personas, I find myself wondering, who exactly am I, and often more importantly— who am I trying to be? Somewhere between the you you present and the you you aim to be must be the Truth.
I know that I am not the only person trying to quantify their own identity through the near constant ever-saturating niche-aesthetics one finds online such as the office siren or eclectic grandpa. Surely I cannot be the only person who has been influenced by internet personalities who’s entire life’s work is to sell the latest Drunk Elephant bronzing drops. Being a young person on the internet has always felt more like a branding challenge a la Drag Race, or an arms race for SEO-searchability. Having an easily understood micro-niche to prescribe to is often just as, if not more, important than discovering your own identity.
The closest word to how it often feels is curation. Like collecting the necessary talismans for a self-diagnosis. Kanken backpack, Copic markers, Birkenstock sandals — you’re an art hoe. Septum ring, Doc Martens, denim jacket — you’re soft grunge. Olaplex, jade roller, loungewear set from Alo— you’re a clean girl. It does not go unnoticed that the majority of these identities are dependent on the things you own rather than the things you do or things that you love. It’s almost as if capitalism is the only system that will steal your humanity and then try to sell it back to you. But that’s probably nothing.
There is comfort in having a title, there’s a sense of ease in being safely understood. If you look at me and can’t tell I’m wearing a mask, you may never ask to see my real face. In other words, the most effective disguise stops being a costume and starts serving as reality.
Through it all, the goal is to be understood.
This is just what is to be young. You spend so much of your youth in the cause of self-exploration. And this is good and this is natural. It is fine to stumble along the journey of discovering yourself. At least this is what I tell myself in the mirror as I follow a male makeup tutorial from TikTok that is meant to make me look more “old money.” I’m actually quite sure one of the lesser-known Erikson stages of development is discovering if you identify as more cottage-core or night-core for this very reason.
When I was a little boy I was so preoccupied with being seen as good in the eyes of the adults in my life. I had realized fairly quickly that other young people would never hand over their approval so easily, at least not without the co-sign of a more respected elder. So I looked for my worth in the legacy media of the “grown-ups.” I set myself to winning over older cousins, uncles, teachers, and parents of the friends I so desperately wanted. During this time I was precocious, and often described as a “little adult.” I wore this like a mark of honor, until it was no longer cool to be the teacher’s favorite. There was no social cache to be gained by being a good child.
As I developed more of my own identity, cultivating a sense of humor that largely relied on self-deprivation, I found that I could be the funny one. I might not be able to convincingly play the role of someone actually likable, but I could be an effective clown. During this time I pulled faces and made myself the butt of every joke. I was performative, effusive, and most strikingly— loud. Was I comfortable being the center of attention? Not necessarily. But there is safety in the distance an actor keeps from his audience. As long as I kept dancing, as long as I kept being entertaining, I had some worth.
This was right around the time social media really started to take off, and more personally also when it became strikingly important to protect the truth of my sexuality. Interestingly this is also when I tried to curate my persona more expressly, clearly influenced by the mores of early-Tumblr. During this time, I was “straight” yet referred to myself as a self-proclaimed pop-punk princess. It was highly convincing. Especially since to me, pop-punk meant listening to Marina and the Diamonds and the Broadway cast recording of Next to Normal. (To this day the thought of Aaron Tveit in those loose-fitting boxer shorts still does things to me.)
People close to me grew dissatisfied with my online persona during this time. They found the scheduling and planning of my posts based on an arbitrary aesthetic extremely disingenuous. What I still struggle with is just how much of this critique was actually true? I knew that finding beauty in little things in my life — like a basket of peaches or a stack of thrifted books did bring me some sense of joy. I knew I liked collecting these images and editing them, I knew I like creating a fanciful version of my own life, I knew I liked much of this process— but also knew the extreme anxiety that came with this level of curation. If I slipped up, posted the wrong thing, showed the wrong prism of my identity— then I might lose it all. People might see the real me, and that was not a risk I could afford to take.
High school brought with it more aesthetic shifts and so too did college. Now I was trying to cultivate a version of myself that was not only authentic, funny, interesting, and cool but most importantly fuckable. I look back at many of these images and the correlating era in my life with a sense of humor that can only come with the distance of time, and enough sexual partners to realize that none of this actually matters.
We spend a lot of time talking about cringe. The things that send a cold shiver down our spine or often cause us physical pain and embarrassment. Looking through one’s own eras can elicit this feeling. However, I am trying, as fruitlessly as it seems, to look at my past self with some sense of empathy. I might not know who that boy is, or who he was trying to be. But I also know that he was just as lost and confused as I am now.
Perhaps that is the one thing that never changes and always stays the same. Through it all— from trying to appear more fashionable, more musical, more straight, more anything but myself, one thing has always remained. As hard as it is to see, that boy has always been the same person.
In another five years will I look back at this chapter in my life with disdain? Will I think back to the things I posted, the things I wore, the men I loved and be embarrassed? Will I feel shame for the things I am doing right now? Unless I make an effort to change, this cycle may never end. There’s already so many people who dislike the things I do— who hate who I am and who I’ve become, and quite honestly I’m tired of being one of them.
I see more and more young people following in this same path. They wipe their Instagrams of all their photos, and present a version of themselves that has been crafted specifically for a desired outcome. I’ve watched my gay friends live inauthentically and feel unable to show up as themselves— jarring uncomfortably between who they can be IRL and who they can be online. I recognize this urge, I know this fear intimately, it has driven the majority of my decisions for much of my life. We are all working out what it means to be ourselves, and though I’m likely to change my identity a thousand more times, I see no benefit in worshipping and tailoring myself to one specific aesthetic anymore.
To divorce oneself from influence is no easy task, and naturally, these trends will always reverberate through culture. This of course, is the very nature of trends and popular culture. The new goal, I think, is to strike a healthier balance, ping-ponging less rapidly through these micro-trends and more thoughtfully existing in an identity rather than feeling the need to create or put one on.
I once wrote, “how many iterations of self can one withstand?” while in a particularly wistful mood. I wanted it to be a gut-punch poem ending clincher. And though I can recognize with painful clarity just how melodramatic a line like that reads, emotionally I think it still finds some resonance. There is something to be said of the exhaustive feeling of remodeling your own metaphorical clay or of overworking the dough of your own life. At some point, after enough prodding and reshaping, all that is left is a hard mound of flesh unsuitable for much more than a paperweight.
Unless of course, you’re striving for paperweight-core, in which case go right ahead.
*Here is my aforementioned poem referenced in the essay.