âźď¸ This is kinda gonna be a long ass rant basically saying how I hate how weird the Byler community is around how they view Mikeâs queerness â
The byler community is really weird and homophobic to closeted people. Ever since the s5 ending dropped, Iâve felt unsafe as a closeted queer teenager in the community because of all the weird jokes and insults people make, and I know so many other closeted people have expressed feeling the same way, not that any have ever been taken seriously or listened to. This was at its worst in January but itâs still an issue now.
People spent ages raving about how numerous queer people outright came out the closet out of fear at Mikeâs ending, and yet immediately get cognitive dissonance at the idea of closeted people being affected by things relating to the queer reading of him in any other way. Specifically people who perceive/interpret Mikes character as ending up too scared or depressed to come out the closet in the end, and then use that to make a bunch of weird jokes about closeted people. Like calling them âDLsâ in a degrading way, saying how itâs cowardly, saying how itâs embarrassing and shameful, saying how theyâre glad heâll be miserable if he stays in the closet forever. Along with making fanfic situations of the other characters being angry at Mike for not coming out fast enough and doing things to force or pressure him out, and those AUs being very popular.
Especially considering Mike in the show has republican parents and is in a small 1980s Reagan town, so if they are viewing him as queer itâs utterly nonsensical how theyâd still act like itâs so shameful to be closeted in that situation. Of course Mikes fictional so he could never be affected by people making these jokes regardless of his circumstances, but the main idea of âbeing closeted is embarrassing and something to ridicule even in situations where it would very likely be unsafe to come outâ is insensitive to the centuries of struggles real queer people have gone through and the reasons theyâve had to hide their identities.
And the issue is that when they say this stuff, it impacts the feelings of real closeted people who should feel safe in the byler community, but have to read that being closeted is embarrassing and laughable and should be ridiculed. People argue that âwell Mikeâs not canonically queer, so itâs not like weâre making fun of actual queerness, itâs a non-issueâ but that feels like a logical fallacy of sorts and just a lack of literacy and comprehension around what people are actually saying. Mike Wheelerâs not a real person so even if his character was confirmed queer Mike himself wouldnât be affected by it.
The issue was never the feelings of Mikes character, itâs the way these jokes and rhetoric impact real closeted people, because the character youâre saying it about isnât the issue, the weird and cruel mindset to those who havenât come out yet is the issue. Hell, him being queer coded doesnât even really matter. You could literally headcanon Jim Hopper or the Demogorgon as closeted and then make the same jokes about them and itâd still be bad.
The overarching issue of treating being closeted as a moral failure and something to be punished is still there, and thatâs the actual problem. It doesnât matter whether youâre making the joke about a real person or a character because it still affects that group that exists in real life regardless.
I remember my mutual on Twitter (who iirc is closeted themselves and was being extremely vulnerable here and talking about something that personally affected them), made a thread on this where they vented their frustrations and honestly said a lot of valuable things, and they just got clowned and dogpiled and attacked to oblivion to the point they had to private for days. People essentially watered it down to âyouâre mad people are being mean to Mikeâ when thatâs not even close to what anyone is saying. (The mutual in question who made this thread wasnât even a Mike stan btw lol they were a Will-centric account and had alway had him as their fav, itâs really interesting to me how all the Will stans thought the idea of another Will stan calling out homophobia to closeted people was incomprehensible).
The complaint is the fandom framing it as âbeing in the closet = cowardly, embarrassing, something people can justifiably be angry atâ. That is a perfectly valid thing to have issues with, and this being such a common mindset in the Byler community should be questioned.
Or people will just use whataboutism and say âwell we should solely focus on the homophobic jokes about Will, the character confirmed as queer, theyâre the real issue!â. Of course those are absolutely horrible and every single one of them should be called out and treated seriously, and I agree theyâre much more wide spread and a larger issue than the closeted Mike ones, specifically not really within the Byler fandom itself but because of the GA making really awful viral videos mocking Willâs queerness around when the season had just came out â but saying this the ONLY issue that can be focused on is: A) plain stupid because a community is always gonna talk about a wide array of issues or discourses that vary in importance which is perfectly fine and normal for a fandom, and I know damn well the people who say this will then go and make another tweet whining about someone saying they like bottom Mike as if thatâs an important issue, and B) just feels like disregarding the feelings of closeted people as being lesser than and unimportant.
The character youâre joking about quite literally doesnât matter because the issue isnât the fictional character that has no feelings or ability to be impacted, the issue is always the REAL people who your jokes and insults also apply to, and who absolutely can be affected. This goes for jokes about marginalised people of any shape or form. Countless closeted people have been expressing discomfort in the way the fandom is for months and people simply belittle it, get angry at closeted people for feeling that way, or brush it off. Itâs so frustrating and a big part of why I distanced myself from the Byler fandom post-S5.
