4. “Google Knows Everything”

Abstract

This chapter shows how important alternative media is to the formation of queer cultural scenarios that speak to the sexual subjectivities of the youth of Spectrum. While acknowledging that there are now far more representations of queerness in mainstream media, I challenge the assumption that mainstream media has handily embraced homoeroticism and genderqueerness. The chapter shows how queer media, like erotic fan fiction and anime, have an established history of providing alternatives to the heteronormative mainstream, alternatives that, thanks to the internet, are more and more accessible to young people of all walks of life. In this way, queer media that resists heteronormativity has the power to influence the sexual subjectivity and gender identity formation of young people. Therefore it’s not that mainstream media are becoming less homophobic and shifting cultural norms in the United States but, rather, that young people have access to so much more media outside the mainstream—including self-produced media like fan fiction—which then influences their understanding of themselves and the world they live in.