How Spotify Manufactures Gay Culture 

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My issue with “gay music” is that they really mean gay effeminate men who party a lot. It’s the opposite of what stereotypical lesbian music is. Exactly what the first survey responder said.

One of the most authentically queer things ive found on Spotify is actually an album that I discovered through a user made playlist completely by accident while on a bit of a rabbit hole. Its not representative of most queers, because nothing is, but it's nicheness is so extreme and intentional that it feels like a perfect representation of the nicheness of my favorite queer things. The album is The Whale That Ate Jonah by a very gay, very trans, very Jewish, and quite punk band called Schmekel (which translates to just "penis" in yiddish lol). I still cant believe I found it, and I cherish it like nothing else, even if the songs might not "objectively" be that great.

All songs can be gay if you try hard enough.

Another comment about how this applies in the asexual and aromantic communities: I've seen people asking stuff like "what do aces/aros wear?" since other queer communities have their own styles (eg. bi ppl and doc martens). I always felt that it was kind of inherently exclusionary to suggest that styles of dress correspond to different sexual orientations (especially is they don't develop organically irl), since not everyone is going to like those styles, but I hadn't thought about the classist angle. This was a great eye-opening marxist queer video as always.

🙃🙃I failed at the first examples “Is this song gay” Me: “oh yeah, straight out of a lesbian’s playlist” “Tastes a little heterosexual huh?” Me: “wait what?” “How about this one?” Me: “super straight! Makes me feel like I’m at a party I definitely don’t belong at” “Now that! That tasted like fresh fruit right?” Me: 😐….

"between bisexuals and the Panic at the 1975 Janelle Monae David Bowie" is the most vicious call out I've ever experienced and also why I'm permanently subscribed.

This explains so much of my own experience. As a 60 year old queer-punk - who had been an activist through most of the 80s and 90s - I'd always found that "Gay Music" was something complete opposed to my tastes. Along with what got labelled as gay movies, gay tv shows, and gay books. (So very much of it was created by straight people and centred straight people as the norm and gay people as problems to be understood or solved.) I do think that there's some feedback going on between the public and private modes. The taste-makers push an agenda of 'gayness' as a consumer group since they sincerely believe that this type of incorporation into consumerist culture will be the best of both worlds; we remain distinct in an acceptable way.

love this one. i can say not enjoying mitski has alienated me from the ONLINE LESBIAN EXPERIENCE in a way that sparks the same annoyance as growing up without the means to consume, own or display markers of personality. like my god NO. I DONT LISTEN TO GIRL IN RED.

As an LGBT person in the Midwest I laughed and then cried at your joke about the Midwest being a modern example of the heterosexual institutions.

This is why I have a spotify playlist called "One Person's Queer Culture." It's just stuff I feel is gay based on my taste, the tastes of queer people I know, and my knowledge of queer music history. Maybe not everyone would say the Eurodance EDM of the artist Basshunter is gay, but to me it is.

This was unbelievably fucking interesting! I was always wondering why these company made queer playlists never ever appealed to me as a bi trans guy or my overwhelmingly queer friendgroup! Thanks for making this, very informative! Also the production value is off the charts, such a pretty set! :) Edit: grammar

The "gay music" stuff has always been isolating for me 'cause I haven't heard 99% of the songs that people consider "gay". Throughout this video the only band/artist/etc mentioned or that I saw on screen that I recognized was PATD and that's only because my mom has been listening to them since they released their first album lul. I've always been into niche and weird stuff, at least from a western perspective. My music taste hasn't changed in the past nearly 11 years since I've started listening to VOCALOID music. Watching this actually makes me want to make my own video about VOCALOID and it's appeal to queer people!

Can we just pause and enjoy the absolute beauty that is this video. I mean the backgrounds, the editing and the content. Awesome job Alex :)

I think a big part of what is considered "gay music" is just what drag queens like to perform (I specified queens instead of kings because there isn't a codified music genre associated with them yet due to them not being as mainstream). These are songs that play at gay bars, not what loads of gay people listen to on their own. They're also genres that were popular with POC LGBT+ people decades ago and took time to reach the white LGBT+ tastemakers, so I imagine the average non-tastemaker LGBT+ people have moved on to other genres by now.

I love seeing a video with a title like this and just saying "sure" and laughing to myself before clicking on it. I have no IDEA what this could mean, but it's a great excuse to watch the video anyway

This was an excellent video, and perfectly articulates my feelings about "queer playlists" as a queer POC even if I never understood them myself! Thank you for making this!

I've only seen basically the title of your "the end of are they gay" video, but I have to say. If this is the sort of thing you're hoping to produce more of? These broader anthropological essays with a queer theory lens? I am ecstatic to see it. The simple and down to earth way in which you quickly define your terms in easy to understand ways before moving on is especially impressive. Eg, the use of your white friend to illustrate what you mean by the ability to identify whiteness visually in many cases. I find that remembering to define potentially nebulous concepts is both so important when discussing these subjects, and so hard to do. You make it looks effortless and sound natural, which I imagine is the product of honed skill, but you do many is seem easy. I lack the vocavbulary to compliment the camerawork and visual editting as completely as I would like to, but honestly, that was also spectacular.

You know, I've always felt like folk/opera/indy/jpop was an incoherent set of musical tastes, but I feel validated as an ace to hear that total inconsistency is the mark of my people.

I think a lot of the numerical issues here actually have a lot to do with the fact that there's this identifiably gay-club-associated (usually specifically gay dude-associated) chunk or two out of music, which apparently a lot of people like to gather around, but which isn't actually that many LGBT people's *favorite usual music.* Kind of like a lot of people expect to hear Irish music in Irish pubs, but may not actually listen to it that much outside of that context. In a sense, thisnotion of 'queer music' is kind of centered around the (remaining/perceived) institution of gay dance clubs etc, whereas as individual consumers, we're actually all over the map, variously affiliated with or nostalgic for various subcultures and genres, whatnot. And generally the LGBT clubs still seem to tend to play the gay guy dance music and that's fun once in a while for me, but my usual place to go dancing and stuff was actually the local Goth club, as as it was for lots of other LGBT folks too, and similar with other genres and scenes. Still, if I go on Spotify and search on 'Lesbian music' I have a pretty good idea what's gonna come up, and I don't expect it to be modeled on actual-me, or necessarily any actual person in particular.

I love spotify's algorithmic recommendations. I have discovered so much great music from my weekly generated playlist and from "starting a radio" from a song or artist. But like 75% of their editorial playlists are so bad. I would have called Deserved the "basic" playlist. Gracias Roberto.

in class so I can’t watch but I really hope you bring up the rebranding of the sad girl starter pack playlist to be queer I’ve been wanting to talk about it for WEEKS. your videos are incredible, can’t wait for my lunch period to find out what’s in store for this one!

46:20 was a really interesting point to me because from a closer perspective of being trans and hearing that, it gets me thinking about the isolation of people pre and post surgeries. A lot of the time in trans spaces its considered a requirement to get some kind of surgery/to be on hormones to be properly seen as trans. without it, you get judged, pretty intensely at times. i see it as one of the reasons why trans people will resort to unsafe methods of binding/tucking, not even to present more traditionally to cis people, but to be viewed as more legitimate for other trans people. its a whole different issue with trans people and its super surface level what im saying, but just reminded me of that. Love your video! Glad to see you doing stuff that interests you more closely, very aesthetically pleasing too :)

"Marriage wasn't about romantic love.....it was about exchange of property." My favorite way of playing the sims. Minus the "drowing in the pool" part.

For the asexuals, if I were to hazard a guess, there aren’t many songs in any genre that are “relatable”, given that many songs have sexual undertones. So there’s a lot of genre bouncing. Or maybe it would be better analyzed by romantic attraction than sexual. (Though I assume there would be similar results for aromantics)

As a trans masc bisexual I don’t really find myself ever listening to music catered to gay men which makes me listen to weirdly obscure game music catered towards trans masc bisexuals. It’s strange how a lot of us will gravitate towards the same types of music. Like their are so many playlists and people I have seen that have to music I like to listen to and then will describe it as “gender indusing rage fueled by the gay agenda”

I laughed at your ace joke about not having any musical attraction. I love this breakdown of consumerism as a form of queer expression. Very enlightening.

So excited to watch this, I made my whole gaymosexual discord server take that survey and we were debating it for AGES (with the eventual conclusion that each playlist was gay) ETA stellar vid!! I guess whiteness is just *that* heavily conflated with affluence and influence within the queer community, despite the fact that many lgbtqs are in fact lower class white people, and many others of significant status are not white. Association of wealth and power with just one specific race is continually proven to be an imperfect supposition, but it is very difficult to avoid. 🤔 Just for fun, here's some quotes from our server discussion, lol: "for the first one there are so many artists on there that are like For The Gays it almost feels like a setup lmao but also looks like a playlist several ppl i know would make" "both of these playlists are unpleasant tho tbh" "Gay playlist: Just 'Fast Car' and nothing else" "I have shape of you in my very large shuffle playlist because it makes me think of a Sportacus/Robbie Rotten video I saw once and nearly choked to death watching." "I think any music that speaks to the impoverished and the downtrodden is, in a sense, gay" Interesting stuff. Oh, also, the lighting in this vid was gorgeous. Loved the shimmering drapery

this is wild because i was recommended their “Obsessed” playlist the other day which led me to “Deserved” and i immediately knew who they were targeting but was disappointed (but not surprised) that the Deserved playlist had so little POC representation. so excited to hear your thoughts on this whole thing!!

I think I'm actually gonna like your new direction better. I like fun characters theories but I am a nut for historical recounts and company retrospectives. Or anything you can make an video about. I'm hyped for where this is going!

i, a bi, do like punk. but i wondered what the connection is between that and rap, my favorite genre. both are rhythm centered and anti-oppression. maybe we listen to them because we are angry about trying to fit ourselves into the het mold? amazing video!! all the gorgeous sets

Excellent video!!! When you put up the stat about Bisexuals liking pop punk I felt so called out. Glad I could contribute to that statistic, lmao

Hey, Alex! This video was absolutely fantastic. I loved it the whole way through. I found your channel through the "Encanto" video, and I gotta say, you're shaping up to be one of the best video essayists on the platform today. I reeeeeally missed the more theory-oriented videos after the post-pandemic 'commentary' boom which recentered video essay from the 2018-2020 "Left Tube" phase into a new, media criticism-oriented wave. I also relate to you _a lot,_ as I'm also a male bisexual Latino (though, white -- I'm Brazilian) social sciences major and musician who's working on an album. I fully support this new phase of your channel (having watched your "The end of AreTheyGay" video), especially considered since that's exactly the type of video I first subscribed for. I'm also considering donating to your Patreon soon, though I don't have money to spare _right now_ All that said, I have a question for you. The one thing that completely sold your RU-vid project to me was your citing "Hegemony and Socialist Strategy" by Laclau and Mouffe in the "Encanto" video, and actually exploring the concept of 'subject position' in a way that left me very satisfied. See, I've been working on Laclau and especially Mouffe's work since 2019, and they're definitely my favorite social theorists, and seeing their work being actually used in a video essay got me jumping in excitement in my room. The only other video essayist I've seen mentioning them was Abi Thorn from Philosophy Tube, in her Steve Bannon video, who positively cited, though in passing, Mouffe's recent work on left populism. The question is: having positively cited their work in a previous video, I think you read and liked at least the core of their theory (labeled post-Marxist, and later renamed "discourse theory"), but you also seem to cite more 'orthodox' Marxist theory a lot (vis-à-vis your "Communist Manifesto" joke in this video, which I liked a lot; but also the general class-centering of this video's thesis -- with which, don't get me wrong, I fully agree). So I'd be curious if you'd be able to expand a bit on your views concerning Laclau and Mouffe's work? Do you also agree with the first two chapters of their book as well (that is, their critique of class reductionism and economism), or do you find their theory to be only a useful tool in a toolbox which centers other types of analysis? Would be really glad if you replied! Also, _very much_ looking forward to your next videos, the work you've been doing with these well-researched and highly intellectual but also gorgeous and highly produced video essays is _sooo_ invaluable, you're exactly the kind of content creator RU-vid need right now! Thank you so much!

as a bi woman who most listens to music in the metal-rock-punk sector I feel seen by these statistics

I've been watching you since the 'are they gay videos' and at that time they were the only comfort for me as I was surrounded only by heterosexuals telling me I was sick and weird for thinking some tv characters could ever be gay. I'm so happy to see the direction your channel is taking and I absolutely loved this video, the format the humour the depth of the research and the way you say Bourdieu lmao

I can honestly say that watching this has reignited my passion for queer theory and sociology. I've been putting off planning my dissertation but this has inspired me :)

I’ve never been a huge fan of music that stereotypically is associated and enjoyed by people of my demographic: that being teenage lesbians. I think this might be considered blasphemy but I cannot stand Girl In Red’s music. I think that associating certain interests or tastes with any culture leads to nothing but a feeling of deep alienation and eventual separation, which I would say defines my opinion of the LGBTQ community pretty well. While personally I have a good paying job where I work myself half to death and could probably afford to dress and consume the media that people of my demographic are supposed to be into, I simply do not want to. I don’t relate to the wider culture of queer people my age, as much as used to wish I did, because the wider canon of “gay interests” is just a whole array of things I am absolutely not interested in. These kinds of algorithms seem like the capitalist incarnation of the social alienation that I used to feel, back when I thought forcing myself to have similar interests with queer people my age would give me a sense of belonging and community.

Great video! Very interesting. One important thing to add in the creation of playlists (and culture) is MONEY. Certain artists from certain major labels will earn a higher spot on curated playlists for the right price. At the same time, marketing campaigns also heavily influence what society considers "gay music"

As an asexual, I laughed at that "musical attraction" joke xD But yeah, the results there definitely fit me! It's because I can never decide to pick a genre and stick with it ^^'

I am here for the chaotic good energy this man brings with each and every one of his fantastic and well researched videos 💜💜💜

This video almost single-handedly changed my entire outlook on culture, how it works and why it is the way it is. This is truly one of the most insightful videos I have ever watched, AMAZING JOB!!!

I searched “gay music by gay people” in google and I got a list of “gay anthems” with some gay artist but not 100%gay artists.

This was fascinating Alex! I love when your sociology background shows up to shine a light on a topic all with data collection and statistics too!!!

I guess to provide my stats: I am queer on the MLM end of the spectrum; that playlist is definitely something I would have called "gay"; very little of it is music I would ever turn on and I would likely skip if I was in control, although I would be ambivalent if it was playing and I didn't have the option to skip; and the only person I know who'd like it is a straight male colleague that everyone jokes is gay for his taste in music and-- my dad. Well, my dad's playlist would have artists from 20 years ago - but his favourite albums/CDs growing up were compilations of female vocalists who sung rock/power ballads. I remember some (paraphrase) "Powerful Women in 80s/90s Music" album being on repeat in his car for years (with songs from the likes of Tatu, Texas, Pink! and Dido).

I have so many comments to make, I feel like I need a whole conversation with you! This video was so good!! As one of those three sociology graduates in this audience, I very much appreciate the research aspect and the time you took to look into the literature. This is such an interesting and in-depth take on culture and basically cultural hegemony. Culture was my weakest subject to teach when I taught an Intro to Soc class, and I feel like you made it so interesting to learn more about it!

I love these videos because it feels like you are bringing the sociology to bear... a lot of what I learn from you could be applied to many subcultures. I'm definitely not a minority (being old, white, cis, straight and male... heck, I'm even from the midwest). Consciously, I view myself as an ally of other races, genders, sexualities, etc, but do catch that institutional bias creeping in at times, and videos like this help me understand how to be aware of and guard against those subconscious stereotypes. Thank you for helping me resist the slide into "Boomerdom."

Serious question, why are Nirivana not considered queer? They weren't actually queer themselves afaik (although I've heard speculation about this) were very open about their ally-ship, at a time when it was far less popular, even occasionally wearing dresses on stage to piss off homophobes (the early 90s were a very different and strange time.

the WHIPLASH of the first minute of this video is perfect. thank you aretheygay for yet another banger

I'm so upset with myself for letting this sit in my Watch Later for so long. Everything is so brilliant-- the editing, the research, the shots, the Mitski references, everything!!

i guess it all makes sense now that i don't listen to curated playlists on spotify and also picked the second playlist as the gayer one (though i barely knew any songs in either playlist). but yeah, especially the last part of the video really got me thinking... i never realized the consumption part of "queer culture" or how inaccessible this is to a lot of people

As a statistic-loving person, I can't thank you enough for both the coding method AND the many comments about how certain variables affected the likeliness of a result. Thank you thank you thank you!!! (evidently I do love data and am not bored yet.)

It's always been incredibly invalidating to my experience that "gay music" isn't sad folk punk. I hope all y'all more conventional bottom tastemakers can live with the fact that you made me feel alone among straights for my best twink years. You WILL hear from my lawyers.

I'm staring my sociology degree soon and I'd like to thank you for being such an inspiration for this life choice ! You make each video interesting, exiting and educational in a way that's eye opening. I hope one day I am as perceptive as yourself!

Ah! My curiosity about the surveys is now satisfied! This was a beautiful video - the sets were amazing!

My jaw dropped several times while watching! This was extremely informative, the research the DATA the history are so on point! also the settings, the props, the bottom jokes and the tying it back to your album *cheff's kiss*

Nice to have something to watch while I’m waiting out a medical flare up under a tree.

As a queer person, even my most "queer" playlist doesn't give me enough of the same vibe as the Deserved playlist Spotify made (supposedly) with queer people in mind. Even though our playlists have similarities (both Spotify's and my playlists include pop & uk pop into our playlists), we don't share the same artists. albums, or songs.

I’m so happy about the new direction ur channel is taking I love listening to u talk this is so interesting and the production value is so high and beautiful thank u so much for ur work and mind

I love how you saw a playlist on Spotify and just decided to make a sociological dissertation about it

I love this style of video because I'm getting LGBTQ+ content and topics while also learning sociology

It's only recently that I came across your channel and saw you break down the queer nuances of the Dead Poets Society. I must tell you, as a queer person who seems to incessantly scan for homosexual subtext, it was immensely liberating to find - and here comes the phrase - that I'm not alone. I adore the fact that you provide a socio-philosophical basis for your content because it helps me reframe queerness as something that doesn't only concern my own (individual) self-perception, but which is so packed with social influence. I can't thank you enough for the distinction made between queer integration into heteronormative social order vs. the restructuring and reshaping of the social order - it gives so much perspective. Sociology articulates the queer condition so succintly and beautifully, doesn't it? Again, I can't thank you enough, for both the content you produce and its inspiring logistics and conclusions :)

I love this channel so much. The videos are insightful, informative, and incredibly funny. Queer culture and history is such a fascinating topic, and unfortunately there aren’t that many people dedicated to discussing it. Keep up the great work!

As an aromantic-asexual person, I really liked this for a lot of reasons. The history part with the two different ways queer culture could exist was interesting to me, because even if most gay people I know don’t like ideas of community as much, I didn’t know they used to. Nowadays the idea of physical queer communities is what a lot of aromantic want (without wanting a spouse, a nuclear family unit is far from ideal) because society deems romance as the best human connection. So when aros don’t have that, community and friendship seem very appealing. Also, as most of queer culture is geared towards allo queer people, it’s easy to feel isolated form it. Like queer anthems don’t resonate with me much. Better than straight, but not close to my experience as a queer person.

This video is soooo good! Your research is top notch, really. Are you a scholar? I would love to read your takes on the matter on a few papers (or maybe a dissertation?). Congrats!

Would also like to add that their where and continue to be 2 spirit/queer/LGBTQIA+ communities within indigenous communities around the world since time and millennia. While there is a totally different structure and life way; it’s important to talk about this because many folks (especially yt queers) have no idea about this!

I’m so happy to see a new video. Also, all the best for your future endeavours!

I've been here since the beginning and I'm so damn proud of you and happy FOR you that the channel is evolving. Your approach is so fascinating and I've truly felt honored to watch you blossom and become ever more confident in your content and film making capabilities!

Good stuff, I like the set design !! I do subscribe to a music streaming platform but the idea of listening to a playlist curated to fit someone else's conception of what my identity may be is pretty repulsive to me. I mostly just listen to own playlists and favourite albums.

This might be my favourite video yet! I have never heard my alienation from the queer community explained so beautifully before! For a cute example: I could not afford Doc Martins until I started working a full time office job. So until that time, how was everyone supposed to know I'm bisexual if I couldn't wear Doc Martins? A single flannel or tucked in t-shirt doesn't always cut it. An over simplification of course, but I think the access to signifiers of "queer identity" or simply access to "queer culture" had some impact on my and others' willingness to come out.

Mr. Avila, this was a very entertaining and educational video; I'm glad I watched it. Great delivery of a lot of information. I particularly liked the changing of sets as you moved through your presentation. The "banana joke" brought a smile to my face.

FINALLY i've been looking for the language to describe the way gaydar&queer culture work for SO LONG ThANK YOU and thank you for the theory of cultural capital

I'm a little surprised niche genres such as hyperpop or breakcore didn't come up. They seem very gay to me, but in the online community sense, rather than the popular media sense.

Any song is gay if I can imagine James McAvoy dancing to it...

im a stem guy myself but i just love sociological data analysis! please talk more about how sample sizes, the visibility of your link, the demographic that watches your video affects data! i just lov e dataahuıasdhakj

13:10 sort of like how popular kids at school get to decide what is and isn’t popular- they aren’t actually choosing for everyone, but enough of us follow what they say, so the trends they want get popularity.

It took me way too long to finally start watching this, but WOW. Ths is wonderful Alexander, the visuals are amazing and you had me hooked on every single sophisticated word! Great Job on this, I hope we get to see more of this format.

38:31 hey happy and sad transhets exist (me). I completely fall into the pop + musical theater + anime mismash of a stereotypical trans girl.

I thought I was going to miss 'Are they gay'. But no.. I am gonna miss these detailed essays! Don't leave us hanging for long.. Always here to support you as much I can! Thanks for the wonderful work

This video is an incredible companion piece to CJ The X's "Subjectivity in Art" video (i just watched it again last night and i have so many brain worms)

gurl the amount of effort we can appreciate in this video. you're great and your work is underrated, you deserve the best we love u sweetie

2 minutes in but damn i'm really appreciating the production behind this video

My worldview has completely changed because of this video. My brain just rewired. I feel so free now and i love it. Thank you so much for this video. Instant sub ❤️

can we appreciate how absolutely stunning are the backgrounds

this video essay was rly awesome and well crafted, if i could give one piece of advice: maybe invest in better quality microphones and reduce the sensitivity? maybe just add a noise gate filter? there seems to be a lot of white noise in the back and it distracts me

Thank you for another incredible video. The way you make these complex and academic ideas accessible, fun, and easy to understand is amazing, and I really appreciate all the work you do.

for the entirety of the first half of the video i was thinking to myself "none of these songs on this playlist appeal to me, i'm more of a punk rock type of person" and i was expecting to not relate to the results of your second survey, and then you went on to say bisexuals were more likely to like punk rock! i feel validated and called out, lol. this was a fantastic video, i love your insight and the new direction in content!

all my gay friends listen to they might be giants and oingo boingo and those only have the common link of "someone's gonna make fun of you if you say you like this"

Thank you for your hard work Alex, this video is very insightful and informative. This topics about taste, music and class have always been in the back of my mind and I can't quite describe it, your video helps me to conceptualize them perfectly. This must take you a lot of research to be done and also the effort going into the background is stunning! Keep up the great work man!

incredible video, im excited for the direction that your channel is heading!

the production quality and points made in this video are EXCELLENT. well done!

Two things you said stood out. 1. Marriage was formerly about property, not love. 2. Lower class people are less likely to identify as LGBT. I have no doubt that lower class queer people feel alienated from the "tastemaking culture" you have described. However, is it additionally possible that lower class people are still more socialized to see romantic relationships in terms of economics? For example, finding a rich man as a provider so you don't have to work as much/ can ascend the class hierarchy easier. Or finding a beautiful woman as a marker of status. If this attitude towards traditional gender norms has a subconscious class element that is more materially important to lower class people who dream of upward mobility it's probably on a subconscious level so not sure how much it would affect the numbers. Just food for thought.

The overall effort put into this video is so outstanding, thank you for making this!!!

I appreciate you. I am sitting here, early in the morning at a café, drinking a latte and planning out the next few weeks until I have to hand in my masters thesis. This is giving me some high key high quality nostalgia from my first year on the masters where one of my classes was basically: 'Apply Bourdieu to high society Hellenistic Greece' and I was like thanks, I hate it here, and now I miss it so much! (It is not that I hate my thesis (I am not a big fan of the hype people have for it, but I digress) but the whole process ... In a fit of queer coded drama (and an over-abundance of personal cultural capital that sadly translates to no social capital what so ever with my friend group) I spend one of my breaks yesterday, rewriting 'I dreamed a dream' from Les Mis and renamed it 'lament of a thesis writer'. Fin fact about the voice thing, new studies seem to indicate that women's voices are deeper in societies with more equality. Also, lastly, the idea of a society where social capital is also measured by your heritage is fascinating and strange to listen to. As a scandinavian person, I am as white as they come but I have never seen a 'white people' meme that fits the society I live in. Or a 'black people' meme that might fit black people I know here either for that matter. From my perspective, queer culture is American. It was made there, exported from there and very little input has really been able to break through from other societies. Even the 'ingo' is mostly in English.

Great video! If I have one criticism though, it's that this video seems to focus on queerness as sexuality (especially in the survey as it did not ask any questions about transness), and while this video is studying a type of music I typically associate with cis gay men, the exclusion of transness as a factor does erase a large part of the community that while foundational is often overlooked.

It's so interesting! I always concluded that these editorial playlists were made in part with the algorithm? (I'm not that tech savvy lol) But knowing that these playlist are made by actual people makes a lot of more sense now. It's interesting how Spotify decides to sorta push that detail to the shadows? I mean we as an audience do not have info on the editors. We don't have that natural moment of drawing a conclusion as when we see the picture of an editor-in-chief of a magazine or read the about the author part of a book.

This video well very well calculated and healthfully manufactured. I applaud you for your hard work. It was fun participating in and I will happily support you on the upcoming album Thank you for teaching me the world of gay.

About the asexuals not having a music preference: there was a post on the asexual subreddit asking aces what type of music we like and the overwhelming majority said "metal." I don't know why, maybe it's because aces who are on reddit are more likely to like metal or something? I don't really like metal myself, but if anyone who is asexual and likes metal music could offer an explanation to this that would be great.

Would of been good to here some interrogation of the idea that cultural intermediaries play a dominant role in shaping culture, since it seems to so obviously not be true. Analysing the impact of Spotify on music culture by looking at its playlist editors strikes me as like analysing the impact of FM radio by looking at specific hosts. Missing the wood from the trees.

okay but asexuals having no real preference is very on brand.

OMG the first video without the old name I'm a little sad but at the same time excited for this new era of yours♥️🌈✨