By Scott King
Bridging the gap between gay life before and after the internet
Hello, my name is Scott and I am NOT a Millennial.
Hi, Scott!
Don’t get me wrong. I truly wish a blessing of the hearts on all your lot. Everyone from Lena Dunham to Childish Gambino. You’re doing a great job representing humanity. Hugs and kisses to you all.
However, I’m not one of you. Even though scientists on the internet have officially moved the start date of the Millennial generation to 1981—the year Britney Spears and I were born—we are not Millennials.
Here’s why. Britney Spears and I both remember a time when, to tell someone that you were gay (in fact, to tell someone anything), you had a limited number of options. You could quite literally walk up to them and say, “Hey Rachel, just so you know, I’m gay.”
“That’s awesome!” Rachel would say. “That makes me feel like giving you a big hug.” And we did. That really happened. Believe it or not, that was the easiest way. There were a couple of other options. You could tell someone on the telephone. No, I do not mean a smart phone or cellular phone. I mean a phone attached to a wall or sitting on a desk, dresser, or maybe even the floor if you were bohemian like that. But we knew instinctively back then that telephone conversations sometimes missed the nuance of body language, facial expressions, and general vibe. Of course, that was sometimes the point.
I’m guessing a lot of people told their parents over the phone. “Mom? Dad? You know my roommate, Jeremy? He’s not my roommate. He’s my lover. So … anyway. How’s Aunt Linda doing?” That’s the way people talked back then. Then there was the good old U.S. Postal Service. Rain, sleet, snow, hail, gay, straight, bi, trans. It’s all good. We’ll get you there.
You could put pen to paper—or maybe type it on a computer, then print it out —and write someone a letter telling them about your gay-ass life. Or send a postcard from Provincetown saying, “Guess what I’m doing this week. Definitely wish you weren’t here!”
Then came the internet. Before social media, the internet was still social, but it was mostly organized around commerce and communities. There was this thing called web rings. Google them. They’re fascinating. The ubiquitous presence of the internet in our lives has changed coming out in many ways, some obvious and concrete, others more subtle and insidious.
First, there’s social media. On these platforms there is often a box to check for gender or sexual orientation. But honestly, the box is almost beside the point. Even if you never check it, there are the pictures. The boyfriend standing next to you at a wedding. The anniversary post. The vacation photos. The six hundred little breadcrumbs that make up the cake of a modern life. (If you haven’t yet noticed, dear reader, I am quite keen on dessert-based metaphors.)
The bigger change isn’t that people reveal more information. It’s that we’ve all become much better at reading it. When I was growing up, if you wanted to know whether somebody was gay, you usually had to be told. Either by the person themselves or by somebody who knew them. Information traveled through conversation. Rumor, gossip, direct statement, confession. Whatever.
Today information travels through context. We’ve all become amateur anthropologists online. We can scroll through someone’s social media and make educated guesses about not just their sexual orientation but also their politics, religion, hobbies, social class, favorite coffee order, and approximately which neighborhood they complain about, or brag about, living in.
Sexual orientation is no exception. Part of this comes from the internet itself. Part comes from decades of social progress. Gay people are simply more visible than they used to be. The activism, the television shows, the movies, the online communities—all of it helped teach the broader culture who we are and how to recognize us. It also told us how to identify ourselves without a word.
The result is that many people today don’t really “come out” in the way my generation understood the term. Life simply reveals itself. A boyfriend appears in a photograph. A spouse starts showing up at family functions. A relationship becomes visible one post at a time until eventually nobody is announcing anything. Everybody already knows. And honestly, that’s probably better. Coming out was often stressful, awkward, terrifying, and occasionally catastrophic. If social progress and technology have spared some people that experience, I’m not about to complain.
Still, something has changed. Not because the old way was better. It wasn’t. But it was bigger. For many of us, coming out was one of the defining events of our lives. We spent years thinking about it, worrying about it, rehearsing it, postponing it, and eventually doing it.
There was a before and an after. The moment carried so much weight because the culture placed so much weight upon it. Today that weight is often distributed across hundreds of smaller moments. A photo here. A post there. A casual introduction somewhere in between.
That’s probably healthier. It’s certainly more efficient. If you’ll notice, across this series of articles, I’m not particularly concerned with labeling before or after the internet as better in relationship to any particular aspect of being gay. Coming out is an exception.
I think coming out now is a much better deal. However, if it went well, coming out before the internet was definitely followed by more of a reward. A hug from a friend. A rush of endorphins and dopamine. The indescribably liberating feeling that I experienced at the age of 15 of talking with another person for the first time about not just being gay but about which boys were cute and which boys I had a crush on. Just imagine! I didn’t shut up about it for at least 2 years. My friends were very gracious.
There was something undeniably powerful about finally saying the words out loud and watching your life continue anyway. Nowadays you actually don’t have to say the words “I’m gay” for people to know that you are. But you definitely can if you want to. And if you do, I’ll be there waiting, with a big hug.