By Dear Gay Men,
Please stop hating on high-profile people! For the benefit of all the confused straight people reading this, high-profile people, also known as ‘high-profilers’, refer to the pseudo-celebrities of the gay community.
While there is no actual criteria set for determining who is considered a high-profiler, high-profilers all enjoy a large social media following, usually attributed to their good looks or loud personalities. They also generally haven’t actually done anything noteworthy, and yet for some inexplicable reason, are incredibly well-known within the gay community. In short, they are pretty much like the Kardashians of the gay community. And just like the Kardashians, ordinary folks tend to hate them with the passion of a thousand burning suns!
Ok maybe a thousand burning suns is a slight exaggeration. A hundred burning suns would probably seem more appropriate for high-profile people. The kind of hate that warrants a thousand burning suns is probably only possible for people like the Kardashians.
So anyway back to the topic, high-profile people tend to attract a lot of haters. And the best example of this phenomenon can be seen during the time when the ‘Secret app’ was still a thing. Not too long ago, the anonymous messaging service ‘Secret’ was dominated by gay men who used it to say the most hateful things that you could possibly say about another human being. Numerous high-profilers had their names dragged through the mud and the cyber-bullying got so bad that the founders of the Secret app eventually chose to shut the app down!
And honestly, it’s quite easy to see why so many gay men hate on high-profile people. Some of the more common reasons for hating on high-profile people are that:
- They are perceived as attention-seeking. After all, most of them didn’t become high-profile by accident.
2. They post too many gratuitous pictures of themselves online.
3. They all seem to have huge egos, which are probably the result of the hundreds of likes that their photos on Instagram attracts.
Thus, it becomes very easy for ordinary folks to justify their hate for them. After all, since they are so desperate for attention, they should understand that gossip and hate is a natural symptom of their fame seeking behaviour right?
Wrong.
Wrong!
Just in case it’s still not clear to you:
First of all, most of you probably don’t know the high-profiler in person. The only thing you know about him is probably just his Instagram username. Even if you believe in the very depths of your soul that he posts too many damn selfies, you need to bear in mind that the high-profiler didn’t post that selfie for you and your eyes only. There are no rules established for how many selfies a day someone should be allowed to post. What you may consider to be too many selfies might be considered to be too little by the high-profiler’s swooning gay groupies. It’s not fair for you to pass judgement on someone that you’ve never met before based solely on their online persona. People need to stop confusing the online personas of high-profilers with their private personalities.
Second of all, whatever rumours and gossip that you’ve heard about them are likely to be spread by parties who are biased against them in the first place. There are always two sides to every story and as an outsider, it’s really not your place to continue spreading such stories around. The gay community would be a lot better off if we spent more time talking to one another rather than talking about one another.
Thirdly, bullying is never right, no matter how justified you feel in making your assertions. What many of you tend to forget is that high-profilers are people too. People with feelings. People whose very lives will be affected by the kind of gossip that you spread. People whose days will be ruined thanks to the hate that you spew. If the gay community wants acceptance and inclusiveness from the heterosexual population, it’s time we start being more accepting and inclusive towards one another.
So if you’re a hater or a gossip monger or an eye-roller, it’s time to stop. Life as a gay person is already hard enough. Let’s not make it any harder than it has to be.
P.S: To to all the high-profilers reading this, keep on doing you. As Taylor Swift would say, just shake it off!
You might also like to read:
Dear Gay Men, Let’s Stop Hating One Another
Out Of The Closet: Dustin Sohn Shares His Story
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