Alexander Avila

Alexander Avila (born: ), also known as AreTheyGay, is an American YouTuber who makes commentary videos, usually focused around queer-coding in media or - more recently - general social analysis with a specific focus towards the LGBTQ+. He created his channel on November 27 2013, with his first video posted on December 19, 2015.
==History==
Alexander Avila is a commentary YouTuber who was originally known as AreTheyGay. During his tenure as AreTheyGay, Avila focused on queer-coding in a variety of popular shows and movies. The oldest of these is an analysis into 'K/S' or 'Spirk' - the ship between James T. Kirk and Spock from Star Trek - agreed to be one of the oldest slash ships by many in the community. His most popular video as of March 2024 is a video of the 'Bubbline' ship from Adventure Time, sitting at 2.7 million views.
During this time, he would use a voice mod to make his voice sound masculine, as he was not fully comfortable with his voice at that time. 
===Rebranding===
Overtime, Avila's videos would begin to branch more into social analysis over queer-coding and shipping-discussion videos. On the 27th August 2022, Avila would release a video called 'The End of AreTheyGay...' where he would discuss the new direction of his channel and his intention to end the original series his channel name derived from. This also served as a rebranding event, where he would change over to his actual name (over his pseudonym) for future videos.
===Coming Out===
On June 1st, 2023, Alexander Avila would post a video and a X (formerly Twitter) post coming out as transgender. His video on the topic 'I was a transgender child.' talked about his own life experience, the difficulties in life as a transgender person in general, and how gender-affirming care helped transgender people flourish.
===James Somerton Saga===
On the 3rd of July, 2020, former queer commentary YouTuber - James Somerton - uploaded a video known as 'Unrequited: The History of Queer Baiting'. In this video, James Somerton was found to have plagiarized from Avila's BBC Merlin, Teen Wolf and BBC Sherlock videos, most obviously with the video sequences and talking points associated, including Avila's views on the show. Despite Avila reaching out to Somerton in an attempt to rectify the issue, their subsequent conversation ended with Somerton only removing the BBC Merlin section and re-uploading the video with vague messaging over what had occurred. Somerton would later dodge any questions about the plagiarism, making up a new story that he "took a highlight reel in 2020, from a highlight video, that happened to be from a video from a YouTube channel."
Avila was approached by Hbomberguy - who performed voice overs in 'This Video Isn't Just About Taylor Swift. It's About You.' - sometime during late 2023 about the situation. Avila, in turn, granted Hbomberguy screenshots of the exchange with James Somerton, and later commented that he had not been unblocked or even contacted when James Somerton released his second apology.
==Personal Life==
Alexander Avila was raised within California, originally as a girl. At a young age, he would question how he felt about himself, and would later transition during his teens. He did choir and theatre during high school, though he was not satisfied with his voice at the time. He started testosterone at the age of 17. 
Avila would graduated from Brown University in late May of 2023 with a Bachelor's Degree in Social Sciences: Anthropology & Cultural Studies (which he had won an award in the previous year). He now works on his channel full-time.
==Subscriber Milestones==
==Trivia==
*The two former names of his channel were 'Alexwantsyoursoup' (pre-uploads) and 'FromTheBottom' (after 'Are They Gay? - Kirk and Spock' released).
*Avila came out as a transgender male on June 1st, 2023.
**He is also bisexual and neurodivergent.
*Avila was raised in California, USA, and is ethnically Hispanic & Latino(specifically, Venezuelan and Mexican).
*He is a former Libertarian.
==References==
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:LGBT YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2013