Does LGBT Media Have A Future?
January 27, 2019 1:16 PM   Subscribe

"It’s a dark time for media — LGBT media, especially." " What got us here? And how might we survive?" This long article takes a thorough dive into the rich history of LGBT publications, followed by what's going on today and why.
posted by Twang (10 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
when you’re relying on Grindr to keep your publication afloat it’s pretty much game over, I’d imagine.

It’s a shame as I’ve fond teenage memories of Gay Times in the 90’s as a window into a future life, though I don’t think I’ve picked a copy up this side of the millennium.
posted by Middlemarch at 1:59 PM on January 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is why I donate to Autostraddle, which is awesome, and, as noted in the article, is hanging on by a thread.
posted by ITheCosmos at 2:54 PM on January 27, 2019 [11 favorites]


I’m sad and dismayed to hear that Autostraddle is apparently looking to be acquired in order to stay alive, but not super surprised. This seems to sort of miss the point:
Lesbian and queer women's media has particularly struggled when it comes to revenue, in part because lesbians are stereotyped as frumpy shut-ins who don’t care about nightlife or fashion — unlike their glamorous male counterparts — which can dissuade advertisers.
They don’t have any goddamn money. If your target market women, they are not going to be making as much money as men. Now marginalize them further: even less dough. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is if your target market is already less than 5% of the population, and that 5% already makes less money than average, you probably shouldn’t narrow it down any further. And Autostraddle seems firmly targeted at the young queers. So...the ones REALLY not making any money. Like I’m always shocked to remember that Riese Bernard is my age. Everything about that site is permeated by youth culture, all day every day, to the point where it is somewhat alienating. There is not often content there that I want, so...I don’t go there. Like I’m not sure Autostraddle represents wlw culture so much as the culture of the people who run it.

When I think about what opportunities are available in the queer lady space, I think about how all the bars have closed. I think there is a need for community, for regular events and such that aren’t like, *mmph mmph mmph DH AIRHORN* all the time. But I’m not sure those bars ever made any money, either.

Anyway. There are structural problems that I’m not sure how to solve.
posted by schadenfrau at 3:43 PM on January 27, 2019 [11 favorites]


I guess in my experience the queer people I always end up hanging around with just don't fit into "going to a bar". Most of us younger lgbt folks have such a decentralized friend network from being constantly online, and we all make so little money, that having a house party where you can bring your dog and smoke a bong on the deck and pick your own music is just a better, easier, cheaper option. If you get too drunk you sleep on the couch, instead of shelling out $50 for a surge priced Uber at 3am, etc. Plus every bar, club and restaurant is so goddamn loud that nobody can actually have a conversation - there's no space for lgbt folks of all colors and preferences to just exist in the same space with the only goal being to make freinds and relax, so we have to DIY it. To me going to a gay bar means $200 worth of covers, alcohol and cab fare I can't afford, all to be too drunk in a loud dark pit where I can't understand a word said to me and won't remember much of it by morning.
posted by azuresunday at 4:10 PM on January 27, 2019 [8 favorites]


For what is I think is the first time ever, I'm going to be one of those people saying they wished the article had had some more aggressive editing. There's a thread of general media malaise, a thread of assimilation, a thread of being co-opted and a few more. There was this bit early on that felt at odds with the article as a whole:
But is LGBT media really sustainable after all? Now, we can read about ourselves in the Sunday Times and find an online community anywhere from Gay Twitter to Instagram meme account pages. At this point, do we really need to keep prostrating ourselves — proving that LGBT stories are not only valuable, but “safe” — to straight and cis-led corporations and advertisers who want to appear inclusive but not too inclusive? Do we want to be another business’s cool new vanity project until they get tired of us and pull the plug? And perhaps most importantly, are we getting too far away from the reason LGBT media was created in the first place?
Maybe I'm part of the problem, but I'm not interested in most of the ventures discussed because we're being commoditized by the straight and cis-led corporations who want to appear inclusive but not too inclusive. I mean, what is NBC's "queer vertical" but a vanity project meant to profit off us? The Bay Area Reporter and the Windy City Times, or even the Advocate, are very different beasts to that or the Huffington Post or even the latter days of AfterEllen. There's the bit about making media "by us, for everyone" and that's certainly not what I, for one, want.
posted by hoyland at 4:23 PM on January 27, 2019 [4 favorites]


The Sunday Times is a curious choice for that example, given it's recent coverage of transgender issues has been consistently godawful.
posted by eykal at 6:36 AM on January 28, 2019


Plus every bar, club and restaurant is so goddamn loud that nobody can actually have a conversation

Jesus, this. This is why I hate bars as a place to socialize, and alcohol might help or not but the loud music and dark lighting don't, I can't hear anyone and I find myself guessing, and wow it's always been easier to go to one of the online communities because at least I can reliably parse what's going on there and not have to worry about how the hell I'm getting home if I drink too much, given as how I can never afford to make a regular thing of cabbing it.

Or I can make my own space, if I'm feeling that lonely for community in person, as I was when I moved here; or I guess I could have tried the local GSC, except as always it seems to exist for and be run by college undergraduates. Which is not my current life stage, but is the only other offline model for community I've ever experienced without going full DIY.

Which I did.

I run an asexuality meetup every weekend here in town, and we descend upon a local coffee/tea shop explicitly because it's quiet and we can talk to each other and hear one another. Like, that was an explicit thing I considered when I started hosting the damn thing. And I mostly just eat the Meetup.com cost and call it good, to be honest. It's better than the nothing that existed before.

But that isn't an option for everyone, and it relies on there being someone who is willing to run things, and them never getting overwhelmed and breaking down. And I won't be in this town forever. So what then?
posted by sciatrix at 7:18 AM on January 28, 2019 [3 favorites]


note that question is rhetorical; I do have plans for transitioning the org to someone who is not me when I leave, but also that it's a good rhetorical question pointing to broader questions of sustaining broader queer communities, especially in a way that doesn't rely on a single person or persons.
posted by sciatrix at 7:27 AM on January 28, 2019 [3 favorites]


@Hoyland@ because we're being commoditized by the straight and cis-led corporations who want to appear inclusive but not too inclusive.

My sense of the article is that it asks 'how much koolaid did we drink' in that media commodification, mainstream news glowy rush after SSM, the gentrification of our old familiar haunts ....

Many people have adopted the 'clean, buff', images embraced by the mainstream; some comments here (as everywhere) suggest that *a lot* of people don't like/can't afford/don't care for 'the scene', 'the parties'. *Who* says they should?

At the end she asks, "What value does our community place on content by and for queer audiences?" I suspect that was the point of her (highly-qualified) history lesson.

Back in the 1920s, a tiny new gay Chicago newsletter (called Friendship and Freedom no less, by Henry Gerber) was *rubbed out* by authorities. The only copy of that newsletter was found in Europe.

Rubbing out authenticity and community can be so much easier.
posted by Twang at 4:51 PM on January 28, 2019


Oh, god, no, not Autostraddle. I went and bought a T-shirt from them immediately after reading this piece. They're one of my favorite websites.
posted by storytam at 6:38 PM on January 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


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