Online Media - Identity

What opportunities does online media allow queer audiences to express their identity?

David Gauntlett argues that audiences 'pick and mix' identities from media products

Kate Middleton shares cancer diagnosis as she tells those facing the disease 'you are not alone'

• while the story features the cancer diagnosis of a straight woman, there are elements to this narrative which may appeal to gay male audiences, and even allow them to pick and mix certain ideological perspectives
• the 'disappearance' of Kate Middleton promoted widespread moral panic, and the story fuelled many conspiracy theories
• stereotypically, gay men are perceived to enjoy gossip, and there are elements of gay subculture which are based around b*tchiness and gossiping, which therefore may appeal to certain gay audiences
• the target audience are British and working class, therefore generally more aggregable among the gay community
• gay audiences may identify with Middleton, as her life has been scrutinised and there have been many theories as to her true nature and to the nature of her illness
• this unwelcome attention may unfortunately be familiar to many gay audiences, who will therefore identify with Kate Middleton

Representation of Men in Attitude

• while there are still many hypersexualised representation of men in Attitude Online, this content has significantly decreased since even 2019. This was for a number of reasons
• it allows it to appeal to a wider audience
• it shows Stream following wider societal trends, and perhaps shows them responding to criticisms of sexualisation
• it may also be due to competition from specialist pornographic website
• additionally, there are some negative connotations with labelling men 'boys' and the 'boys' tab on the website may have come under scrutiny
• however, when it comes to sexualised representations of men, there is a clear bias and preference to a certain body type in it
• in the article "14 not entirely SFW images of gorgeous guys from BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! volume 7", a certain body type is emphasised over others
• hegemonically attractive, muscular, outwardly confident, tall, nude and universally hypersexualised
• leaning into stereotypes so heavily clearly makes money
• these hypersexualised representations can appeal to queer audiences, and the use of heavy queer coding also informs the audience that these images are for them
• additionally, straightforward stereotypes are easy for queer audiences to understand, and this removes any confusion that this in fact may be a 'straight' website
• the website leans into very traditional stereotypes of masculinity, and repurposes being masculine as being gay
• in heteronormative media, it is unusual to see men being sexualised so heavily
• however, it has often been the case in queer media that men have been hypersexualised
• the image of hypersexualised men has often been used to construct texts as queer
• by positioning the audience as queer and as gay men, Attitude is constructing an inclusive world where men feel welcome and heterosexual people are not invited

Stuart Hall: Stereotypes and inequalities in Attitude

Hall's argument that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits Hall’s argument that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or ‘other’.