Queer Representation is Still a White Men’s Club
By: Caitlin Laughney
Tags: Sexuality, LGBTQ, YouTube, Racism, Social Media

YouTube & Queer Representation.

YouTube was founded in 2005 in San Bruno, California, and is now estimated to be worth as much as $300 billion. A list of twenty richest celebrity YouTubers states that queer makeup mogul Jeffree Star ranks number one, with his estimated net worth being $200 million. Other queer YouTubers that make the list are James Charles (an estimated $22 million net worth) and Shane Dawson ($12 million), both of whom are also in the makeup and beauty YouTube industry.

Intersecting Identities.

Jeffree Star identifies as an androgynous cisgender gay male and in an interview for Out magazine Star described himself saying “I’m going to stay a man and look like a girl and everyone’s gonna fuckin’ like it!” Additionally, James Charles identifies as a cisgender gay man and Shane Dawson identifies as a cisgender bisexual man. All three of these beauty influencers are white and Star, Dawson, and Charles have all been embroiled in public controversy regarding racism. All of these particular YouTubers present in ways that are at times feminine or gender-fluid, but they all could be considered prominent “men in makeup.”

Expansion of Queer Representation.

The most notable expansion of queer representation through these prominent YouTubers has been the proliferation of genderqueer and femme presenting identities that have become more widely embraced and supported through massive viewership and online social media fan-bases. Historically, even within the queer community, femme presenting queer people have faced significant marginalization due to heterocentrism and misogyny. However, prominent queer YouTubers such as Star, Dawson, and Charles have utilized their femininity to speak towards a wide market of both heterosexual and queer people who are interested in buying, using, and celebrating makeup.

Continuity of Queer Representation.

Although the expansion of femme genderqueer identities as a powerful cultural and financial source of power is notable, there are significant gaps in queer representation on YouTube. Queer cisgender male whiteness is still the most dominant force in YouTube pop culture representation, and the YouTube beauty world is in many ways a queered cultural replication of a ‘white boys club.’ Internet femme beauty culture and standards, mostly in the form of makeup, is still dominated and primarily shaped by white queer men or people assigned male at birth. Queer representation on YouTube starkly lacks queer-identified cisgender women, trans men, and genderqueer people assigned female at birth who are additionally people of color. The success of Star, Dawson, and Charles is highly tied not only to the usage of makeup but to the rabid consumption of makeup products which all three have directly sold to their audience through makeup-branding deals or even the creation of their own makeup brand. The successful monetizing of femme queerness through commercial products by white queer men has fundamentally led to their mass popularity and accumulation of wealth.

Implications

Ultimately, whether the media platform is YouTube or daytime television, the collective demands of the audience and consumers drive the success of mainstream public figures. The current status quo of capitalist, cisgender, white, and male queer representation is a result of public demand that is not being sufficiently challenged or interrogated. In order to create a more diverse expression of queer representation, the public needs to shift their support to queer content creators and figures that are not currently being launched into the mainstream.

If all of your favorite queer content creators and public figures are starting to look the same, ask yourself why you are only drawn to these creators and who you can also branch out to support. You may just surprise yourself with how much you appreciate the rich content that is derived from people’s diverse perspectives and their creative outlets.