'00s Bisexual Chic 

An "appendix" video extending the Jennifer's Body segment (10 min) is available to patrons! www.patreon.com/posts/jennifers-body-66914075

The most validating moment for me is when I told a straight guy about my crush on another girl and he just goes « best of luck with your girl, bro, you totally have a chance » and gave me a fist bump.

He is part of the Punk scene, and not Emo, but Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day has been openly bisexual since 1995, and I think people hardly ever talk about it because he was actually serious, and not fetishizing about it.

Gerard Way has actually consistently been an advocate for trans rights (especially during their Hesitant Alien tour). They use he/they pronouns and have spoken about their struggle with gender growing up and how they relate more to trans women than cis men. They also spoke out against the emo attacks and misogyny. Even their stage kisses with Frank were intended as an act of rebellion against the ultra-macho, homophobic culture. One of my favorite quotes by them is this, "Back then, nobody in the normal punk world was wearing black clothes, eyeliner. We'd be in a truckstop bathroom, putting make-up on. We did it because we had one mission -- to polarise, to irritate, to contaminate. It's like, Who's the toughest guy in the club? Us, because we're dressed like fucking cupcakes." Gerard also wrote things like "fairy" on his neck on several occasions as a way to reclaim words that were constantly thrown at him. A lot of their songs also have outright queer lyrics ("Burn Bright" and "You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison" are great examples) and during their recent come-back tour, Gerard consistently wore subversive costumes: a cheerleader outfit, nurses outfit, various skirts and dresses, full Joan of Arc chainmail, even full masc drag. I think a lot of people just see the very surface level face of MCR. The blood, the anger, the messiness. (Even a lot of fans are guilty of this.) But if you know anything about them, especially Gerard, you know that queerness has always been deeply intertwined with their music and image as a whole and those things I previously mentioned are actually a part of that. (Also, I think that they were coming into fame at a time when figuring yourself out wasn't nearly as easy as it is now in regards to information available and public opinion. So, they did make mistakes along the way, they were bound to.) Brendon Urie, on the other hand, can go fuck himself.

MEXICAN HERE , I WAS NOT EXPECTING SOME OF OUR EMO HISTORY TO BE TACKLED 11/10

2000s retrospectives always have me like “how the tf were we living like this?”

So I’m a straight cis dude with long hair and a “girls”name. My parents were 70s hippies. I’ve long had an issue with the standard expectations of masculinity. The emo kids were right to wear their skinny jeans and eyeliner. It’s ok to want to be pretty. Whoever you are.

As a bisexual woman, I still find it hard to come out or participate in pride event as I'm engaged to a man. Bi-erasure is still massive to me.

When I was frequenting swingers club, my bisexuality was always seen has gross or acceptable behind close doors while my wife bisexuality was focused on and fetishized. Both aspect are pretty uncomfortable.

Women being bi is either fetishized or blown off as a phase or queer baiting. Even to the rest of the LGBT community you're either one or the other, one of them or not. I still don't feel like I, or bi women in general, am/are accepted within the community or outside of it. Thank you for addressing "beta male" misogyny though. It's not just the macho men that perpetuate misogyny.

calling Misha “that guy who had to come out as straight” made me laugh so much lmao

The whiplash of finding “I kissed a girl” to seeing the homophobia of “Ur so Gay” by Katy Perry right after as a child. Edit: Unrelated, I didn’t realize tokio hotel was still together as a band.

I am a little mixed on how mcr was handled in this because I think it’s a bit more complicated with them. Like, Gerard Way has said more recently when asked about their sexuality that they don’t like to label it/don’t want to be put in a box with it, so there’s that. Also he uses he/they pronouns and has been open about having a more fem presentation/relating more to women. So while they definitely participated in the “stage gay” antics, I think it’s a bit more complicated with Gerard Way, like we could argue all day if he’s “actually queer” or not, but it’s none of our business and doesn’t take away from how they presented gnc both then and now. (Also the band stopped doing the stage stuff when they felt like fans were getting “too excited” about it.) Overall really thoughtful video tho, I like that you went into the sexism that was super normalized within the subculture, I’m just biased as an mcr fan lol.

I think it's almost worth mentioning that Christina Aguilera actually *is* bisexual and has openly dated at least one woman during her 20+ years as a celebrity (although, of course, there is no one way to be bisexual and it doesn't actually matter whether or not she has dated women, she would still be bisexual). So cutting to Justin and missing Christina and Madonna's kiss feels extra icky to me.

Lady Gaga is interesting because she debuted in an era where a lot of female pop singers were identifying as bisexual for marketing purposes so the media lumped her with the other girls. They then got surprised when she continued to sing about her bisexuality years after the fad had passed. Lady Gaga is a unique case because her bisexuality gets constantly questioned and erased, even though she has a bunch of songs where she sings about women, or about men and women at the same time. Maybe it’s because her aesthetic was so wild that every kiss with a woman, every song about having sex with women and every queer moment just got dismissed as just one more of her many stunts.

I’ve heard the tale so many times: a bi woman is “funny” and “sexy” and teehee exploring her sexuality( but she will totally turn again to dudes, don’t worry🙄) while a bi man is called a slur and pretending “not to be gay”. It’s heinous, tbh.

This is the first time that I see an english speaking youtube channel properly talk about "the mexican emo wars". I don't think many north americans & europeans know of just how serious that situation got to the point where actual human rights organizations had to get involved. And it wasn't just mexico, the issue spread to latin america as a whole. Also, really glad you mentioned the influence that 18 Visions had on the development of the emo aesthetic. Wasn't expecting that at all. It shows that you clearly did a ton of research on the history of the subculture.

For me, all that bisexual chic-ness made it harder for me to realize I'm bi. It felt so performative and at least where I was at made people more biphobic. As much as I did identify with bisexuality, the people around me always talked about it being a "phase." Katy Perry's " I kissed a girl" pissed me off considering she did the song " ur so gay." It felt so performative to the male gaze that it made me question if my own bisexuality was performance too. It's not until I graduated high school that I came to realize I am bi and it would be another decade before I said it out loud. Another amazing video 🤩

Kurt Cobain was the ultimate precursor to emo, imo. He’s said in interviews that he feels feminine and bisexual in spirit, and has even wished he was gay, but is mostly attracted to women. Except he didn’t have an emo subculture to latch onto in the early 90s. He helped inspire that subculture instead :)

ok but without the context i think the concept of gollum being homophobic while everybody else in middle earth is not even aware of the concept of homophobia, is hilarious

i would be fascinated if you did a video essay on the toxicity of bisexual tiktok. the idea of "i'm bisexual but i love women and my attraction to men is awful" is really rampant there. the self-biphobia is terrible but also really interesting.

As an openly bisexual girl in the 2010s going to a Catholic high school and openly having gf’s I had teachers telling me not to hold hands in hallways, male classmates following my gf’s and I around and asking us to kiss, and also having girls interested in me who just wanted to experiment with their sexuality. It left me feeling hollow as a teen. I’m so glad things have slowly been changing.

On top of emo music's misogynist themes, the female love interests in their music videos also seldom looked anything like an emo girl. The love interest was always a femme fatale, peak trad femininity, cheerleader or model type. Emo musicians felt deserving of conventionally attractive women because they were they're Not Like Other Boys, yet they seemed uninterested in women who were participating in the same subversive subculture. Frustratingly, this is pretty common in the media produced in male-dominated scenes like emo, metal, and geek culture, where outcast men want to be loved and accepted for who they are, yet only lust after women who fit societal norms. The reality doesn't always reflect the media, though, and I think most straight men in subcultures are more likely to enjoy the company of their female peers. Unfortunately, media doesn't project that message, and it can be really confusing as a female fan of a subculture.

I always felt like out of the main trio of emo bands mcr always seemed the most genuine about how they deal with the emotion in their music and how they talk about gender and sexuality. Like Gerard even post mcr using he/they and having basically an alien fursona that was non-binary, his acceptance of gender headcannons of characters like party poison and in umbrella academy. Also thinking about how they’re considering selling mcr chest binders now? Idk it’s just interesting how they do things specifically. I also just hate what panic at the disco is now

i think out of all the emo bands mcr, and especially gerard way, were the most sincere in their political statements on queerness and feminism. gerard way has talked about cross-dressing in art school and a few years ago said his pronouns were he/they. lyrics like "i don't know how were just two men as god has made us (...) I'll kiss your lips again" and "you should have raised a baby girl i should have been a better son" are also very clear allusions to queerness. he also had a stage rant at one time about how angry it made him when bands would use their fame to get girls/women to "show their tits", and encouraged his female fans to "spit in their face and say 'fuck you!'". i think it would be a shame to clump them in with bands like fob/patd who were clearly not as progressive as they made themselves out to be at the time.

Gender non conforming people can be straight is something that so many people don't even think about and we end up either accusing them of queerbating or invalidating their gender non conforming side ,calling it performative. Love this point. So many good things in this video. Thank you

I'm from Mexico and, though I was still a child during the "Emo Wars", I clearly remember that my cousin and his emo friends were constantly threatened and chased off public plazas and stuff back then for "having long hair" and "looking gay". It was pretty surprising to even hear you talking about the attacks against emos at all, given that a lot of people I've told about them over here have told me they don't really remember it happening at all.

It took me until my 30s to realise I was bi. Growing up smack bang in the middle of 2000s emo, so many people in my friendship group identified as bi, that I just assumed that it was statistically impossible for me to be bi as well. As I watched most (certainly not all) of the bi emo 14 year olds I knew grow up into straight young adults who laughed about their bicurious phase, I held back year after year - because I was bound to grow out of it in six months time too right?? It's so bizarre and funny and human that I was able to just keep overlooking this fact about myself despite being surrounded by other emo girls WHO WOULD DEFINITELY HAVE MADE OUT WITH ME IF I'D WANTED CONFIRMATION.

People love to shit on other people, but Måneskin's performance in Poland was so powerful especially when you know the context. That it happened like a few days after we were suggested a new homophobic bill. It wasn't on some MTV, where mostly young hip people watch it, it was on one of the 3-4 most popular TV channels in the country, and during the programming that would be watched mostly by boomer, gen x and maybe late millennial audience. It was just after they won the Eurovision and their kisses after they won were cut from all the reruns in a government funded tv. It was huge for me and left me crying for the night

I disagree a little bit with what you’ve said about MCR. They’d stated that kissing onstage and telling their female fans to spit in the face of any dude who tried to exploit them at a concert was intended to challenge the homophobia and misogyny rampant in the punk/hardcore scene at the time and while in retrospect there were better ways to do that, they never exploited it to sell records (if anything, it drove them further into being denigrated by a huge chunk of music fans at the time and led to being bottled at shows). Gerard has spoken about being GNC for years, and had dressed in drag while at college well before starting the band. More recently on Reddit they stated that their preferred pronouns have always been he/they and the way he writes about gender and queerness both in his music and his comics seems to come from a genuine place, not to mention bandmate Ray Toro recording music specifically for young trans fans who were struggling in the years after the breakup.

The "bisexuality is sexy to straight men" trope of many actually straight girls still haunts me as a bi person. When I came out to one friend of mine she assured me a thousand times that it was OK. I was taken aback by this because there was no need to be saying it so many times. We went to the club afterwards and she was asked by a man for her number. Instead of saying that she had a boyfriend of six years, she put her arm around my waist, pulled me close and smiled at him: "I'm sorry. She's my girlfriend." There was no reason to do this. Afterwards, I could feel several men around us staring at us and I felt uncomfortable. I was unsure whether they were ogling us because they found that sexy or because they were an actual danger to us. She seemed completely unaware how wrong that was and even how dangerous queerness could be to me.

as I guess a survivor of the mexican emo wars, I grew up in mexico and considered myself a pansexual emo boy, who is now a pansexual girl. Emo really let me be feminine when nothing else did, i could wear makeup, i could be cute and feminine. Dressing and looking emo, had me get the attention of (older) men, and that feeling was something I didn't recognize until later was very gender euphoric.

"We're here, we're queer. Do you want my f*cking money or not?" One of the many favorite quotes out of this video.

As a teen, I was constantly treated like my bisexuality should be used as a party trick and was accused many times of faking it because so many other people were.i was constantly being pushed to "prove it" by kissing random girls then told "see! If you were bi then you'd do it!" when I'd say no. Meanwhile I was either in a secret relationship with a girl, not into that girl, or simply don't want to be fetishized by the creep trying to push me to do something I dont want to do.

As a bi woman I will personally challenge anyone, who calls Måneskin queer bating, to a fistfight behind a Taco Bell.

I always felt that MCR were kinda the exception of the 'emo trinity'. In general, their sound is less 'pop punk' than the other two (although danger days fits the genre). Everything was so high concept and not entirely focused on women. Their albums told more of a story and looked into dynamics. Sometimes songs had lgbtq themes with references to drag and looking at men. MCR has always been very respectful of women, Gerard especially. He was very focal on men who tried to exploit women and how he designed his comic book characters. His most recent comic depicted a trans woman Kara and didn't make her whole story about her gender. MCR weren't trying to queerbait, they were trying to make homophobes uncomfortable and fans just got into it. Gerard doesn't label himself and didn't want the band being defined as emo as MCR defined itself as its own entity. Emo itself was a safe space for me, I wasn't trying to fit a specific mold of what emo should be, I just enjoyed MCR and elements of the fashion. It evolved to Goth for me but I still enjoy MCR as they really shaped my morals and views.

As a bi woman who came out this year, people ask me what I was so worried about. Thank you for reminding me what highschool was like.

I never got how metalheads, punks and emos got into fights. They’re both so close in styles and makeup and yet so different.

I was in an LGBTQ+ workshop in my last job and someone said bisexuals were just people who hadn't 'grown enough as people' to be pansexual. Like, wtf??? I've heard I'm not gay enough, not straight enough, that I don't exist, but that was a new one!!

God I love that we're getting into more historical analysis of the 00's. This made me reflect on my awkward teen years in a way that feels intellectually fulfilling instead of just cringe 😂

the fact that girls/girls/boys was first started by dallon weekes as an anthem for his wife coming to terms with her sexuality and then brendon urie changed it to fetishise bi women is another reason to stan dallon weekes over brendon urie.

you maybe forgot to mention that gerard way is actually queer, like he may not be bisexual but he's not cis - from the Gerard Way wikipedia article : "There was a time where I was called a girl so often that when I discovered the idea of transgenderism I considered myself to be more of a girl. So I identify with trans people and women a lot because I was a girl to a lot of people growing up." In June 2015, Way tweeted that he uses he and they pronouns."

I'm gonna join my fellow MCR fans in the comments to say that lumping them in with FOB and PATD--especially in terms of misogynistic lyrics--is unfair. But I did really enjoy this video, and I really appreciate the overall nuance.

Imo, MCR is a strange case that shows a lot of what it was like through how they deviated from the rest. On one hand, things like the I'm Not Okay and Blood music videos gives off the very fall out boy esc misogyny, but if you zoom out and see that in the context of their wider work, it seems almost bizzare. With Blood, it was about re-lapsing into destructive behavior and having the people around you encourage it, and I'm Not Okay is a song that's a part of a story line that is symbolic of Gerard's fall into drugs and alcoholism in the wake of his grandmother's death. The point of the song is drawing a line between him and the audience. It's trying to say, "This isn't a fashion thing. We are genuinely self-destructive and it's killing us. You don't want to emulate this," a theme carried over to a song literally called, "It's not a fashion statement, it's a death wish." The homoerotic nature of what they do is made more obvious when the open before singing Honey, This Mirror isn't Big Enough For The Two of Us with, "This song is about sucking d*ck for cocaine." The reality of it is that they were honestly expressing their experiences and that resonated with people. They were a product of tragedy and homophobia so they responded by embracing who they were despite other's hatred of them and that resonated with me and many other people. There was also a rejection of misogyny through their framing. Failing relationships were talked about through a lens of becoming incompatible with someone over time like in I Don't Love You and Early Sunsets. Even ignoring Gerard's solo career in which a lot of his songs are about women who's stories are about things entirely divorced from relationships, the presence of women in the band's music does not frame women as objects or as inferior, but has them as people who's personalities and lives have an effect of them, whether that be in Bullets where it is about a relationship that re-inforces drug use both ways, in Three Cheers which was about Gerard and Mikey's grandmother and their regret that they didn't know her as well as they wish they did, or in The Black Parade where the love interest is symbolic of many things including how the band was affecting the relationship between Gerard and Mikey as brothers. That was a bit long-winded, but I think that there's a reason that MCR is still beloved to this day while PATD and FOB have become almost embarrassing in retrospect. The introspection of MCR was an understanding that their problems were caused by themselves just as much as anyone else that allowed for a respect of women and queer people as individuals rather than objects or symbols.

one thing i think is particularly sad about the stage gay in emo scene is how after that "trend" passed by, some queer artists in it like gerard way are kinda invalidated all the time even inside their own fanbase. in his case specifically it makes me really angry how even after saying that they don't identify as a man and is more feminine aligned, prefers he/they pronouns, does not identify as straight either and literally showing up wearing feminine clothes/makeup pretty often, doing drag on stage or covering himself with nonbinary and trans flags on stage while talking about his relationship with gender for crowds of people in their solo tour all that above only stuff that happend since 2014, not counting 2000's or stuff before mcr even existed, people would say nothing of that rly matters because he's maried to a woman and had a kid . and honestly it's weird to think that no matter what you do or say if you don't fit in their ideas of how a queer person looks like then you're not one, but somehow you would still suffering queerphobhia from the same people.

Harry Styles is an interesting case cause when he was in One Direction, fans were constantly shipping him and one of the band members as if they were in a secret relationship and harassing their gf calling them beards. Now when he’s open to being gender non-conforming and being implied queer, it’s now queer-baiting. People are weird.

With the recent success of Heartstopper, I’m curious to see how the narrative around bisexuality will shift. One of the lead characters is Bi and the first season details his struggle with coming to terms with his sexuality beautifully in my opinion.

'i was too gay to laugh' might be my favourite thing anyone's ever said

You missed one amaizing and key part of the emo attack in México: the ones who stopped one of the mayor ones were a group of Hare Krishna people who literally put hemselves in between the emos and the punks/metal heads, they brought drums, inciense and food I think and this is regarded as a very surreal and awesome date to remember in México. *I was always too punk to get into emo but I really liked the style and my first guess that people could actually be bi was from emo fandoms/online communities. Also Billie Joe Armstrong coming out as bi basically solidified my notion that I could too be bi.

Gerard Way is an Icon. Point, Blank, Period. Just a great person. Gerard did a lot for the Time. Im from a small village and growing up in the 00s in a very heteronormative "masc" environment at the height of NuMetal (quite a masc scene aswell) Emo was just what I needed and getting some of the local "masc" NuMetal Boys into MCR or BMTH did a lot for me back then. You could watch them getting less toxic and more understanding over time. We just liked the music, without being classicaly Emo, and connected over similar taste.

Being a biromantic nonbinary Pole the Måneskin situation's context is indeed crucial. The concert happened around the reelection of party that built it's support around fear mongering against LGBT folks. It's really hard to explain how tense the situation around LGBT rights is here nowadays. So for me that kiss and mini speech was rather heart warming even before starting to listen to the band. It's funny how I never noticed link between LGBT community and emos, but I guess subcultures in Poland are rather timid

I was an emo middle schooler and I’m still getting the “oh you’re marrying a man? So you WERE straight this whole time,” in 2022, so this video was an emotional and academic rollercoaster. Love your work, as always, Verity!

The band Green Day is actually bisexual and the frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong is known to kiss one man before every concert. He has also openly said that he is Bisexual:"I think I've always been bisexual. I mean, it's something that I've always been interested in. I think people are born bisexual, and it's just that our parents and society kind of veer us off into this feeling of "Oh, I can't." They say it's taboo. It's ingrained in our heads that it's bad, when it's not bad at all. It's a very beautiful thing." Billie Joe is a very good role model and accepts people for who they are. He also likes to carry pride flags on stage if someone in the audience has one. Green Day also is very inclusive, posting things online about "be nice to yourself" and other things. Billie, Tre, and Mike of Green Day also kiss each other on occasion. Billie Joe also hates Donald Trump, Facists, KKK, Racists, and Homophobes. Green Day's political views seem pretty liberal, although Billie Joe says he is independant.

The 2000s were so misogynist, I don't miss it! I remember when Adam Lambert kissed his guitarist at the AMAs there was so much outrage and fallout. Although punk was very masculine I think it's worth remembering the queer and feminine presence of many including Debbie Harry, Vivienne Westwood, Wayne/Jayne County, New York Dolls, Patti Smith, etc etc. I always thought Gollum called Dobby a "f*cking f*ck" but was it actually the slur word?

I’m afab non-binary and my cis husband is bisexual; we’ve been together for 14 years, have a 3-year-old, and we STILL get ignorant questions when people find out he’s bi, like, “ohhh! How does THAT work?!” I imagine it works the same way YOUR monogamous marriage works, Karen… just because the goods are out there, doesn’t mean you need to sample them! 🙄

I remember at my school it was OK to be 'bi-curious' but not bisexual. Made things really confusing.

"Bi chic" can be also interpreted as the straight fetishisation of bisexuals. But in terms of trends I feel like the gender-nonconforming / non-binary wave is coming, along with a vicious backlash. I think it's the natural progression of is collectively having a greater understanding of sexual and gender identity - there'll be more people who decide they fit into the "plus" of LGBTQ+.

This is truly educational, because I'd just dismissed emos as just soggy goth knock-offs. I didn't realize people were genuinely demonizing and mistreating them to such a disturbing degree---hell, just like they did to the goths, metalheads, and punks before them!

"Emos contra darketos" in Querétaro is so iconic, and it's just an example of the immense amounts of violence displayed against this people, not only in México, but in all Latinoamérica. Thank you so much for mentioning it, it is the first time i've ever seen it being taken seriously.

I’m so glad I found this channel. Having a channel dedicated to bisexuality is amazing and makes me feel so valid. All my life I’ve been shit on by straight people and sometimes by the gay community too. It’s nice to be reassured like this. Thank you 💜

I want to first say thank you for talking about Emo’s influence within the LGBTQ+ community. While I definitely agree that some of it didn’t necessarily aged well, I feel like the openness of the music was the reason many people still resonate with the music today. Along with being a part of a community that was cool with who you are. I think the other side of the Emo to K-Pop pipeline is how the bigger bands like MCR and FOB helped to bring people to try out genres within the scene that weren’t usually on mainstream radio. Whether it’s Post-Hardcore like Pierce the Veil and Dance Gavin Dance to even Deathcore like Whitechapel and Chelsea Grin.

The delegitimization of bisexual women by lesbians is the reasons why I've never been able to fully experience my own sexuality and I doubt i'm alone in that. Hopefully we're done with that stereotype now.

The 2000's may have been one of the most vocally homophobic decades since the trial of Oscar Wilde. Like, homophobia's always been some level of there, but people just never talked about it. Not great, but at least you can live like a rat in the walls or in a shack in the woods. The 90s started actually showing gay and lesbian characters in sitcoms. Was it good, well rounded representation? No. Not close. But at least it wasn't out and out suppression, right? Post 9/11 made wearing jeans that fit properly enough to brand you as gay and a reason to get your ass kicked. Have a nasally voice? Better do your best Elizabeth Holmes impression so you don't get your teeth broken in. Tell another kid they're dumb? Stern talking to. Tell them to take a chill pill? Detention for promoting drug use. Get called the f slur? Eh. Watch your language. Just a wild time to be alive.

When I first defined my sexuality as bi, I kept asking myself if I was just on the trend train, and unfortunately even now I can't help but ask the same questions despite my bodies reactions.

As a young, bisexual teen in the noughties (in the DEEP south of America), emo gave me a safe-space to experiment with my sexuality and to find out who I am. It isn't an exaggeration to say that the emo scene was full of boys making out - it was - this meant that no one batted an eye when I first made out with another boy. It was liberating and life-changing.

As a bi male who was an emo teen in the 2000s I definitely feel all of this. I think something can be said for a kind of “bisexual coming-out” burnout too, like I’ve recently come to the realization finding out a celebrity I like is queer, or even specifically, bisexual, I don’t really feel anything anymore because I’ve developed a kind of defense mechanism where I try to not tie any positive emotions to it because I expect them to walk it back later.

I'm amazed there isn't more on "Bar-sexuals" in this. That was a really big aspect of the "bisexual chic" in the '00s. I remember there was an entire episode of Tyra Banks' talk show dedicated to it. These girls came in thinking they'd spread some positive message about sexual liberation and got absolutely berated by Tyra and the Audience for an hour straight (pun intended).

New real world head canon: Homophobia comes from the dark lord and the influence of the ring.

Thank you conservative Christian upbringing, gatekeeping lesbian coworkers, and 00's trendy bisexuality for leaving me sexually confused well into my 30's. 👍I've technically tried to come out several times since I was 20 and it wasn't until I was 36 that I FINALLY had someone take me seriously.

i’m literally seeing my chemical romance this weekend and am a raging bi/pansexual who grew up during the late 90s/2000’s. a teenager during the height of this whole thing. this video was made for me and is perfectly timed. it’s actually hella spooky. praise homophobic gollum

before the video premiere: being a 10 years old in 2000 was so wild for me as a bissexual/pansexual. When I first saw tattoo all the things she said I was shocked because meant a lot to me but I was too young to know how to communicate

18:06 stuck out to me so much! i remember so many memes made by emo girls themselves how they weren't like the "school sl*ts that'd give it up for anyone" and cared more about their favorite band/fashion instead. so much internalized misogyny ran rampant

homophobic gollum now lives rent free in my head

I think we should stop policing who gets to use queer aesthetic. Not only can straight people do that for diffrent reasons, but also nobody owes you a coming out. Celebrities are people, not products for us to consume.

Everything you said was spot on. I’m a bisexual 31 year old woman and I’ve been with one woman because I’ve never felt like being bisexual was supported by any community. Thanks for validating this. 💜💅

I understand that it’s outside the scope of this video, but I hope you’d explore the difference between the emo fandom and the current K-Pop fandom. I feel bisexuality is also performative in k-pop but in a different way, as in its intention and marketability.

I was a teenager in the late 90's/00's. A bisexual female. I remember being treated like trash by both sides- the straights and the lgbtq. My girlfriends treated me like I was insane and confused. It was so humiliating. Thanks media. 😂

"The girls could play, as long as they understood the boys were watching" - that's so right lol

Very apt analysis of the misogynistic lyrics. As a trans guy, emo masculinity was one of the things that helped me realize where I fit into being a man. I always knew deep down I was a boy, that it made me happier and just felt right, but as I got older and female puberty hit things got difficult. Emo was basically my coping mechanism, still is in a way due to how important the music is to me and how well I fit the look, being young and androgynous. I started to eat, sleep, and breath emo music all my teen years, fantasizing about myself as the lead, usually adding in the caveat “but as a girl” so I wouldn’t have to think too hard about my gender issues. Unfortunately by thinking of myself as a masculine woman I used it as an excuse for my own misogynistic attitudes towards women and girls, fully buying into narratives about them being vapid and hard to understand because *I* didn’t understand them. (Not that I even tried most of the time) Getting a little older and figuring out my gender made me finally confront the blatant truth of “Oh, maybe reveling in calling women whores is really awful and sexist of me.”

36:49 on your point about how people viewing KPop as homoerotic: I’m Korean American and only got into kpop as an adult. When I realized that people were confusing Korea’s lack of touch-aversion and Western-macho masculinity as homoeroticism, I had a good laugh. Some of the confusion is really genuine but ultimately misplaced

Ironically my bi awakening was Andy Biersack, and Black Veil Brides was definitely one of the most emo bands that I listened to growing up

As a bisexual girl gen z er I'm so glad I didn't grow up in the early 2000s, like this idea that women aren't bi and only do it for male attention is still pervasive today, I can't imagine what it was like. thankfully I haven't heard it as often as I think I would have were I 5 or 10 years older than I am. I announce I'm bi on dating apps and guys comment that it's hot pretty infrequently. I wish I had more insight what it was like for those women a bit older than I

It took a friend of mine, who identifies as bisexual, saying "you've been with more girls than I have" for me to understand that I'm not exactly straight. The 00's really fucked with my mind.

Curious how Gerard Way's reintroduction to the scene with their revival tour changes how we view the stage gay from the early 2000s. Their intentions were clearly stated at the time, being social commentary, support, and rebellion from the establishment towards gay people. Does their newfound onstage gender nonconformity (Wearing dresses and makeup as costume and commentary on popular female figures and iconography in history), in the same way, rebel against the now ever growing disdain for those who are trans and gender non conforming?

0:56, "threw their uniforms to the excited older men in the audience" I wanna fucking vomit.

I think an issue that needs to be talked about in regards to queerbaiting is that real people can't queerbait. Queerbaiting refers to the treatment of characters in media. Real people playing with gender roles or not adhering to strict expectations of sexuality and gender presentation, or simply not disclosing any queer labels, does not qualify as queerbaiting. Real human beings having a real human experience of expression should not be critiqued as being dishonest or pandering. I think of the recent example of people saying Billie Eilish was queerbaiting her fans by not saying whether or not she was gay/bi while exploring her sexual expression. It just feels like an invasion of privacy where people are acting entitled to the knowledge of her sexuality. No one should be forced or expected to come out and that's why it's important that people of all sexualities and genders be allowed to express themselves however they want unconditionally

I see MCR in the background, I really hope nothing bad is going to be said about one of the groups who fought the hardest for queer youth in the 2000s and have queer members. Will update when i'm done watching.

As a bisexual Latinamerican woman who used to be emo, I'm super grateful for this video. Thanks.

God that’s so true. You marry a man? “See I knew you were straight!” You marry a woman and it’s “you finally decided to fully come out!” or some grumbling about having one foot still in the closet. It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

You know, as a bi guy, suddenly it makes sense why I always liked emo boys and the aesthetic that came with it.

it makes no sense to claim that måneskin is queer baiting to me. they are a rock group heavily inspired by glam rock and they have several openly queer members. I'd argue if a majority of a friend group is queer, i would categorize it as a queer friend group regardless of there being straight people in there. to me this translates to bands as well. if at least half of them are queer (if my research is correct) they are not making statements as a straight band, but as a queer one as well. their statements on stage reflect them as a band, not as the individuals. when they perform with kisses on a stage in poland, a country with "lgbt free zones", it's not queer baiting, it's a statement which is probably heartfelt from every member in that group regardless of the sexuality of each individual.

This just brought me so many memories. I was 14, living in Querétaro when the emo wars started, and I was an emo. The backlash because we all “looked the same” was real. I got friends chased on the streets by people, even older men, shouting at them homophobic slurs. My mom banned me from going outside by myself with bangs. Teachers told me to tie my hair because I didn’t “look like a girl”, even banning me to attend if I didn’t look “correctly” (whatever that means). In a sense I’m glad I was an emo so I could present non-binary with an excuse, everything else is just scary now.

I discovered I was bissexual in 2002. I went to a gay club a few times later, and heard a lot of girls making fun of bissexuality. Later, videos of 'would you date a bissexual' with lots of lesbian girls saying they could never. As a result, I passed YEARS being biphobic with myself, I would negate I was bi, would say I was lesbian. Years and years later I had a crush on a dude and that box was opened again. I realized I was bi, but refused for years. Now I say openly I am bi, but sadly, even tho is not as strong as before, biphobia is quite big inside the LGBT community.

Man, what a trip. I definitely grew up in the 00’s bi chic era and while I definitely was attracted to girls when I was young and ‘kissed girls and liked it’ because of the media and cultural landscape at the time I kind of just brushed off all of that as me being a straight girl experimenting or doing it for attention or whatever. Then I met my now husband and have been happily married for 10 years. But over the years I’ve been realizing that I ain’t so straight and most likely am bi/pan. It’s just such a strange situation to be in, because now I wish I’d explored that part of me more when I was single, but at the same time I’m very happy in my relationship. I guess it’s just kind of bittersweet to have this whole part of myself that I’ll never fully get to know, but at the same time I’m incredibly happy to have found myself in an incredibly loving and supportive relationship. I should also note that my husband knows this about my sexuality and is fully supportive about it, there is no ‘dark secret’ or anything like that.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize you were saying the "nauties" referring to to the "-00's" and not just saying the -90's in a weird way😭😭😭

Jrock acts in the '00s were doing this as well- I remember as a goth teen listening to Malice Mizer and Dir en Grey and being obsessed with finding pictures of the band members. Both bands used drag and stage kisses for the benefit of their female audience. Mana, from Malice Mizer, had a very elaborate drag persona and was a huge figure in gothic lolita fashion. Shinya and Toshiya from Dir en Grey did numerous drag photoshoots as promo material. I don't know enough about the goth subculture in Japan at the time to say what their fandom irl was like, but I know that English language online fandoms treated them the same way as MCR and FOB with widespread shipping and fanfiction. I'd love to know the roots of that and what became of that part of the subculture.

I remember being in my uni's lgbt club back in 2006-2010 and being told that bisexuality wasn't a real thing. To the point that 4 of the 5 bi people in there ended up doing a panel discussion talking about the existence of bisexuality and essentially being heckled for it.

Honestly, this video made a lot of sense to me. For a time in my life, I was told by anyone who wasn’t a close friend of mine that I was gay and a “f*g” for being emo in middle and high school. My parents even confronted me for being non gender conforming, asking if I needed to come out to them. I’m a straight man, I just don’t feel attached to masculinity deep down, and I’ve always been alternative and emo to some degree. Thanks for touching on it, twinkled my heartstrings.

I'm a man and I like men and women and have known it since I was 5. Now in my 30s. This is the longest fad I've ever followed.

going from a panic at the disco fan to a maneskin fan is the bisexual pipeline