Today's high schoolers have grown up in a unique environment. We have all experienced a pandemic, and - partly as a result - we have grown up closer to and more involved with social media than any kids before us. These things have affected all of us, but especially the queer community. While many are fearful of the role of social media in kids’ lives, queer people are grateful for it.
The umbrella term of queer is a reclaimed slur. As it is currently understood among most queer people, it is a word for all sexual, romantic, and gender related minorities.
Ouray is largely a supportive place where, while we teenagers interact with some queer individuals in the community, they have always been just that, individuals. It is more often through social media, especially in formats like instagram, or TikTok, where queer teens find insight into other queer people’s lives.
This is different from how television worked for previous generations. Creators don’t have to have large budgets or lead time to release content. This means that they can quickly create more informal content, and it will still be seen by many people.
For a long time, queer people have struggled to find themselves in popular media like tv shows or movies. If there is a queer character in a show, they are typically the only one, seldom the protagonist, and more likely than not a middle class white gay man. This leads to stereotypes and narrow views of who queer people are.
Senior Nate Kissingford appreciates social media for its more inclusive representation. “I think it can give us, especially rural queers, or queers living in a bubble of straightness, a window into how other people live their lives. Getting to see that, we can see the similarities to how we want to live ours, see that it is possible and not aberrant.”
Being in a minority can feel lonely and sometimes isolating, but to see others living that life can be inspiring. Before social media, sophomore Chloe Kiparsky said she “didn’t really have any queer role models that I could talk to.” After becoming more involved with social media, seeing other queers was “really comforting” for her.
This representation is in large part made possible by algorithms that social media sites use in order to serve people personalized content. “It shows you what you want to see,” Chloe said. Because there are queer creators making content, the algorithm ensures that queer youth has access to this content.
This brings its own complexities. For instance, social media gives young adolescents ways to think about identity that they might not otherwise have access to. Freshman Hadley Choate had that experience. It helped her to explore who she is. It was, however, not an incredibly straightforward process. Her experimentation with ideas about her sexuality was, at some points, more an effort to “fit in” to available labels, she said, rather than a “genuine acceptance” of who she really is.
While social media gave Nate the “language to explain something I have always known from a young age,” Hadley said that for her the process was not a definition of already clear feelings. Instead, it seemed to her more of a wandering exploration. In the end, she said, “now I know myself way better. I know my identity. The whole process was somewhat toxic, but somewhat helping.”
Most interviewees agreed that labels are occasionally a helpful step in self-definition, but many question their centrality. Hadley does not want to be defined by stereotypes. “I like who I like, and whatever happens is just what happens,” she said. “I don't want that really specific identity.”
Chloe added that “a lot of kids feel like they have to rush to figure out who they are, which can be really detrimental.” There is plenty of support to come out and validation of people’s identity, she said, but “also it can be negative in that kids and anyone can’t explore the full extent of their identity without social pressure to just choose.” This choice becomes so difficult because in the end, queer identities are not a choice, but merely language to describe particular facts about oneself.
For many teens, though, it would be hard to hold on to those facts without the affirmation of social media. “There are gender non conforming people that I follow on Instagram that just seeing them living their lives day to day and having successful careers and being true to themselves is really inspiring to me,” said Nate. “That keeps me from falling into my doubts about whether I can live a whole and successful life in our society while also living unapologetically in my queerness.”