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Ximena Medina
Professor Rodrick
Queer Studies 115
September 25,2016
Social Media and the Queer Community
According to smallbiztrends.com, the first social media webpage was created in 1997
which was sixdegrees.com. Two years later blogging became well liked, which made social
media as popular as it is today. Since then, we have let social media shape our lives because its
our way to communicate with others. It helps us identify with others and create a community.
One of the most popular communities today is the LGBTQ community. Social media and the
internet has been there to bring their community together to help others come out of the closet
and accept themselves , while they also help those who are not part of the community understand
and accept them as well.
Throughout the years that social media has been around, people have felt that this is the
place where they can show others who they really are without actually having to face a crowd. In
the article, Queer Identity Management and Political Self-Expression on Social Networking
Sites: A Co-Cultural Approach to the Spiral of Silence, according to Fox, Jesse and Warber,
Katie M. These accordances gave the LGBT+ individuals new opportunities to develop
relationships by identifying similar others and self-disclosing (Altman & Taylor, 1973) in ways
they may not have been able to accomplish online (Campbell, 2004; Wakeford, 2002). Other
online accordances, such as asynchronicity and the ability to selectively edit ones selfpresentation, also promote relationship development as users feel more secure and self-disclosure
is less inhibited (Fox, Warber, & Makstaller, 2013; Walther, 1996). (Fox and Warber 2) Fox and

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Warbers point is that with social media it is easier to identify yourself online and find others like
you than in real life. The picture above is a video about a YouTuber of coming out. YouTube
makes it easier for him to express himself in front of a camera without instant opinions. He may
not have been the first to post a video like this on YouTube, but creates a ripple effect. More and
more people feel more comfortable in expressing
themselves. Because of this, more people speak up
to homophobic people without actually having to
face them physically.
Social Media has shaped our lives and we
see the things that are very popular today like the LGBT community. We are more aware of them
and are more accepting of their community, because of social media and the internet. Even
though we are more accepting of them, people tend to stereotype them. For example, it is said
that most gay men carry an STI with them; that is not always the case. Though public health has
mediated through social media and the internet so that other people wont instantly stereotype the
queer community. They have felt that the most effective way to get the message through, about
STIs in the queer community, has been through social media. In the article Queer as F**k:
Reaching and Engaging Gay Men in Sexual Health Promotion through Social Networking
Sites, by Alisa Pedrana, she agrees when she writes, The advent of social media and Web 2.0
applications like social networking sites (SNS), blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, and online
support groups have revolutionized Internet use and dramatically changed the nature of online
engagement and the cumulative time individuals spend communicating, interacting, and
accessing information. Eager to capitalize on this potential, many organizations have developed
online health interventions for a variety of health issues and clinical outcomes [1,4-6], including

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for HIV prevention to gay men [7-9] with some reporting positive outcomes [10-12]. (Pedrana
2) In other words, Pedrana believes that we need to support the LGBT community by informing
them about the dangers of unprotected sex. She feels that the most effective way in doing so, is
the internet because most people spend their time on the internet. That is the reason for creating
the webisodes. If the queer community feels accepted by those who arent queer, they are bound
to accept themselves without always feeling judged by others. This web series was viewed by
many on Facebook and YouTube (mostly men). This inspired many to spread the word on
preventing STIs. Not only did it spread prevention, but it also spread acceptance of oneself. More
people felt confident about their identity because this web series demonstrated them that they are
not the only ones going through what theyre going through. Things like this makes the
community more aware of whats going on with their people.
The acceptance of the LGBT community is very common nowadays, although not all
places accept queer people . Most places like India, Iran and Pakistan people will violently go
against things that they dont think is right. In the past people have killed queer people because
of religion thinking that it is a sin because god made us to pair up with people of the opposite
sex. Bloggers have written cases around the world to make people aware of the bad and good
things humans do. According to the article by Mitra Rahul, Resisting the Spectacle of Pride:
Queer Indian Bloggers as Interpretive Communities QueerMediaWatch
(http://qmediawatch.wordpress.com) is operated by an off- shoot of Orinam.net, a bilingual
Tamil-English website that features information on alternate sexualities/genders, and contact
numbers for support groups based in south India. The blog does not feature original entries, but
boasts an up-to-date library of queer references in the mainstream media (both English and
vernacular), fulfilling a kind of watchdog role. Its tagline is: Towards a fair, inclusive Indian

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media. QueerMediaWatch had eight posts related to the marches, between June 27 and July 7,
and these were examined along with the About Us, Pride MarchesNews Coverage and
Section 377 Watch pages.(Rahul 7) The blogger writes about the pride marches in India to
show people that they dont want war, they just want to be happy and be accepted by their
country. Though this hinders the acceptance of queer identity, it can be seen as something that
helps it because people all over the world are seeing this and it is most likely that other people
will help them to be free and love whoever they want. I see it as something that could unite the
whole human race to be able to have world peace. We should have a world where were free to
be who want and be what we want without the judgement of others. Social media has helped us
somehow be who we want and what we want. The internet has helped us be more aware of the
hardships of other people and makes us more accepting of those people.
Throughout all the years that the social media has been around, it has made us aware of
people who we didnt think that we could relate to whether it is good or bad. We also get to know
different people. Since weve seen all different types of people all over the internet, we are more
accepting of all these different people. We sometimes look up to them because they are not afraid
to express their true selves in real life and on the internet. The LGBT community are free spirits.
They will do a lot to have equal rights as everyone else because they are human too. They have
used the internet and social media to their advantage. They see it as a place where they can truly
be themselves and let everyone know about them and their community. In todays society, it is
very rare to see someone who is against the queer community.
The internet and social media helps out the queer community because we have seen it so
much that we see it as something normal. There are some people that dont agree with same sex
relationships because they dont understand these people. On social media the LGBT community

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gives us that chance to get to know them better as people and as a united community through
videos and blogs. They show us how united they really are outside of the internet. They influence
people to be more united with other because thats how great things are accomplished.

References
http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/the-complete-history-of-social-media-infographic.html
Fox, Jesse, and Katie Warber. "Queer Identity Management and Political SelfExpression on
Social Networking Sites: A CoCultural Approach to the Spiral of Silence." Journal of
Communication, 65.1 (2015): 79-100.
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=WYodBfRxKWI
Pedrana, Alisa, Margaret Hellard, Judy Gold, Nadine Ata, Shanton Chang, Steve Howard, Jason
Asselin, Olivia Ilic, Colin Batrouney, and Mark Stoove. "Queer as F**k: Reaching and Engaging
Gay Men in Sexual Health Promotion Through Social Networking Sites." Journal of Medical
Internet Research, 15.2 (2013): e25.

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Mitra, Rahul. Resisting the Spectacle of Pride: Queer Indian Bloggers as Interpretive
Communities. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media Jan2010, Vol. 54 Issue 1, p163178. 16p.