Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

First, have something pleasant: Nobody expects the catolution. <--- This is a Jared/Misha story by the neighborhood crack dealer. Click. Enjoy.

Now I will be a hypocrite by providing a link I shouldn't:

You know how sometimes your only reaction to something is to want to scream? Ten People Who Need to Come Out This post made me feel like that.

I have some pretty strong feelings about how we as fans lose perspective in our little bubble of reality. We know some many other fans and we have a whole structure around that, and after a while we forget that we *created* this space to fit our needs. Gossip bloggers are fans who get paid (sometimes) to do exactly what the people on my flist do: obsess over famous and not-so-famous people and write about that. Gossip bloggers are BNFs in a way.

In our community, we have assumptions and ways of communicating. We think gay is good, for example (more so than in the wider world, but there is, of course, a limitation to this).

I want to use Zachary Quinto as an example here--

If you read the comments on that post (if you took your pills today), it's pretty obvious that Zachary Quinto is NOT universally acknowledged as a gay. That's because he's a managed brand. That's how things work. He has people who try to keep the pictures of him making out with guys off the internet. He's probably actually smart enough to not do that crap in public even when tanked so that he doesn't risk his career.

Because the fact of the matter is that in reality it doesn't matter if you or I (or Gawker) think ZQ being gay *adds* to his appeal. That is not how the people who employ him see it. Our opinions do not matter. Should they matter? That isn't really in play when discussing objective reality. Do I personally think it should matter? That should be self-evident.

I really hate gossip sites. Obviously, I can be part of the problem since I read that shit to begin with. I try not to be part of the problem by staying away from ontd and Gawker and even qweerty (that on is hard). I don't want to provide click throughs for sites that I think contribute to the cultural acceptance of outting. I feel like there's currently some tipping point happening where outting is coming back into vogue in a big way and it really pisses me the hell off. We all would love it if no one had to lie about who they were, no matter what that meant, but taking away an individual's right to autonomy is just wrong. Sometimes I think people don't believe in a hard line on right and wrong. Outting is wrong.

You have no authority to pick my breakfast cereal, why should you have the authority to tell me what image I want to project to the world? Just because we live in a bubble where gay tends to be a badge of honor (on a limited basis) doesn't mean that the rest of the world functions this way.

An even bigger example of how this is an Us (fans/the gay community) and Them (the rest of the damned world) issue is figure skating. If you even in the laziest of ways tuned in to that during this Olympic year you might have noticed that our male Olympic gold medalist might ping that 'dar, but did you know he has a girlfriend?