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I’m pretty obviously a homosexual person on all social media. I present as a cis male in public, and on social media and et cetera. So it’s not necessarily a secret, but it’s not something that’s, like advertised, either. On social media that is private, or is a service where you have to, like, add someone specifically... I interact with LGBTQ people more often. So, like, I don’t think I follow any straight people on Twitter and I don’t think any straight people follow me. Uh, no, lots of straight people follow me, I’m sure.
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Do you think your experience on social media has changed at all since you were 12?
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On the one hand, there’s, you know, nine years later, being able to better discern media. I think a lot of times when you’re 12, like, you just see what you see and you don’t really know how to interpret it. Now I’m, like, 20, almost 21, it’s okay, I know what kind of media I like to interact with and see and I know, like, how to make sure I see what I want to, do you know what I’m saying? Like you figure out how to cultivate your own experience, I guess. And when you’re 12,
you don’t really know how to do that. And also just being an adult and having, like, a more defined sense of self, I guess, makes that easier.
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If you could change anything about how the people you interact with typically use social media, would you change anything?
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Like, don’t debate the existence of people’s livelihoods on, like, positivity posts. I don’t even, like, follow that many trans
Instagrammers but, oh my god, sometimes the comments on those.
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I don’t know if this is really within the scope of your project, but, um, I guess just personally as somebody who has been living at home for the past year, and hasn’t really been able to interact with people outside my household given COVID, I wish people would stop posting so many pictures with other people.
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Because, you know, people aren’t going to know the story and I don’t want to make people feel bad or isolated for, like, not seeing people during COVID. And so, um, yeah. I guess I wish people would maybe stop pretending like life is normal or, like, if they’re going to do things with other people, maybe don’t rub it in so
much, I guess. Like, there’s a bragging element that I don’t care for.
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Do you ever see things that you would consider to be on those lines — like, having a bragging element — but aren’t necessarily COVID-related?
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I mean, it’s a thin line. I can’t really say. You know, I think, on the one hand I understand why people post life updates, like, ‘oh I got a new job,’ or like, ‘oh I’m moving to a new state’ or something, and I don’t have a problem with that so long as people aren’t being, like, ‘oh, haha, I’m,' you know — it’s one thing to share something good that happened to you versus, like, make other people feel bad because something good happened to you.