Producing Queer Youth by Lauren S. Berliner

Author:Lauren S. Berliner [Berliner, Lauren S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies, Gender Studies
ISBN: 9781351816717
Google: cmNgDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-06-14T02:48:01+00:00

Conclusion

Anti-gay-bullying viral video media production has become central to the emergence of the discourse of queer youth empowerment and is bound at the nexus of identity politics and the bloated promises of participatory media. Shares, video clicks, and favorable comments from viewers seemingly affirm one’s worth. Yet it is crucial that we do not assume an equivalency between the perceived value of the spreadable media that queer youth produce about bullying and the ways in which they internalize their own social value through the distribution of their videos. Self-produced video is certainly a useful tool for mediating identity, but its empowering properties must always be understood within the context of its production and distribution.

Whereas pedagogical videos work to fix particular kinds of understandings of what it means to be young and queer, performative videos reflect varied and sometimes even contradictory ways of identifying as queer. The range of video representations produce a diverse set of meanings about what it means to be queer and, in effect, realizes the potential for joy, connection, and social action, often precluded by pedagogical videos that center around violence and oppression. While violence and suicidal ideation are indeed very real concerns for the queer youth population, they are not necessarily central to, or definitive of, the experience of being a young queer person. Performative videos challenge the pedagogical video genre’s ability to speak to and about queer youth. Performative videos position themselves less as a panacea for queer youth pain, but rather as just one of many possible outlets for expression, social cohesion, and perhaps even reflexivity. These videos perform the narrative multiplicity that exists among and between queer youth and, in so doing, encourage us to divest ourselves of the master narrative of oppression-based experience that is proffered by pedagogical videos such as those of the It Gets Better Project.

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