I'm Moe and this is my blog

UGHHHH here we go. 

The Dan and Phil Sexuality Post:

Before I begin, I would just like to state that everything that is about to be explained is my own opinion of the events that have taken place. My knowledge of things comes from my studies at university as well as my own life experiences. Anyone who reads this is welcome to disagree with me. I really have no desire to write posts like this as I feel it causes drama and drama makes me want to vomit and leave the phandom forever – so oh well fuck it – LETS GO.  (please keep an open mind while reading this)

First, I’m going to start with sexuality itself – aside from Dan and Phil. Sexuality is fluid. Meaning it can take many shapes, and can change. Does this mean that someone can change their sexuality? No. It just means that it has the possibility of change – especially during periods of adolescence into adulthood. And that is because, as we discover the world and the people in it, those life experiences not only have an effect on our emotional development, but on our sexual nature.

Adolescence, especially between the ages of 12 – 18, discover sexuality for the first time, and explore that sexuality. Do I like girls? Do I like boys? Do I like both? Do I like neither? Do I like only specific people? How often do I find that I like someone? And how? What is the pattern?

It is not uncommon for people to believe one thing true about themselves while in adolescence while another thing in later their 20’s. This is because the brain is typically fully developed by the age of 25, with the prefrontal cortex (which is responsible for reasoning and decision-making) being the last part of the brain to finish developing.

With this in mind, I proceed on to my second part – which is to bring in Dan and Phil.

Back before Dan started making youtube videos, Phil was the one man show. Back in the day, British youtube Culture was prominently gay or bisexual guys (Or at least those claiming to be such). It was the cool thing, it was the in thing – although people at that time didn’t call it shipping (as it was seen as more of an underground fanfiction.net type thing (oh my god…those Harry Potter fan fictions…..) the idea of two men (especially effeminate ones) was highly appealing. On youtube, however, many of the british youtubers were all about the LGBTQ scene. Dan, from what we know of his life before youtube, was not. He was just a regular guy with a girlfriend who mainly watched American youtubers who played Rockband. (As evident if you were around to capture his twitter history before he deleted it. Counterphan has part of the timeline that most people seem to miss and also has it captured how many times he tweeted Phil, the context, everything. She was very through with the pre-youtube context of the situation that K took bits and pieces of to make the PhanDirectory aka: the phan bible).

It was only when Dan broke into you youtube scene and became friends with phil that the flirtiness and claims to bisexuality were made. Before Dan, there was Charlieskies. They too, were full of the cute pictures and the flirting – so much so that people thought (and still think) they were dating. To which Charlie has clarified that they never did and that phil wouldn’t do that http://phanantiproof.tumblr.com/post/89317289011/phantiblog-x .

Back then, when the claims to Bisexuality were made, you can see in the comments that people went along with the idea that Dan and Phil were sort of “made for each other”. Friends of theirs promoted the ship and the idea of bisexualness (mainly because that was the in thing to do – these can be seen in most of comments of the Daily booths.)

It’s possible Dan went along with this just to fit into that community and was also doing it for the attention (after all, he was rewarding people with naked Dailybooths every time he hit a follower milestone – what makes you think he wouldn’t also stoop to changing his sexuality for attention too?) This does seem to fit the claim he made in a live show that all of the answers on his formspring (which is where this claim was made) were “full of lies”. Likewise, he has also stated that he was “immature and attention seeking” when it came to Formspring. http://phanantiproof.tumblr.com/post/80485884655/im-also-going-to-add-these-for-context-to-what-i

But Ren! Why would Dan want attention that badly?? Don’t you think it’s sort of insulting towards the LGBTQ community to pretend to be something you’re not? Yes- yes I do. It’s not cool. And it’s not right. But when you’re young, and not really thinking about the long term consequences of your actions especially when there is no foresight, those thoughts might not come into effect. I don’t really think Dan had any idea that this would bite him in the ass later on. Additionally, as evident by his DML video, he had no idea that his channel would grow at the rate – or to the size that it did. He’s pretty much become the most popular British youtuber to date. How could he know this back then? The things he was telling people were getting positive attention – why would he not continue?

Even though people say that there was no shipping back then, and that Dan and Phil did not have that many subscribers, this is actually extremely false. http://phanantiproof.tumblr.com/post/107450059961/in-late-2009-early-2010-dan-and-phil-had-a-lot

Because some of their friends were already shipping them, poking at it for fun, and the fans seemed to enjoy it – why not make a prank video? YISSS. That must be the answer. (I’m not even going to go into detail about the voldy video. That would make this post too long for my taste and none of you want to be sitting here for days reading it).

The spiral of lies everyone refers to – which Dan has gotten himself stuck up in several times – always seems to be the spiral to cover up phan. However, I am under the impression that the actual spiral of lies that was made comes right down to pretending to be into Phil, and being into guys. If he went back against this – I believe the backlash would be astronomically horrible, which is why it continued for a bit, until 2012 where his channel exploded with subscribers.

Everyone calls 2012 Dan’s Anti-phan phase – mainly because he was so against the idea of phan, and denied it so many times (sometimes in aggressive ways) that it really caused a slight backlash from the fans.

However, this is how I look at it:

By this point, the v-day video had made its return and was spreading throughout the phandom. Because Dan’s audience had grown exponentially by this point, many new people were hearing about it (without context) and harassing Dan about an apparent relationship with Phil. I think at first Dan tried to ignore it, or address it subtley in youtube comments, or liveshows, (as seen in my screenshots and Cori’s videos) but when that didn’t work – the customer service blog was made – which was Dan’s super aggressive way of putting down Phan since he felt people weren’t listening to him.

But Ren – he didn’t have to be so mean! Why would he be so defensive unless it was true???

(RETURN OF THE LEMON SIMILE!) <— Ok ok. Soooooo. If you’ve been following me for a while, you should know that I have a simile to describe this situation at hand. Gather around, *here have a cookie!*, sit and Ren will tell you the simile.

Imagine for moment that you dislike the taste of lemons. You don’t mind if other people like them – it’s just not for you. But image for a split second that people thought you did. At first, it might not seem to bother you. Oh, haha. That’s funny. People think I like lemons. Your friends think this is funny too. So between you and your friends it becomes a slightly inside joke. Sometimes they call you “lemonhead”, sometimes you pretend to almost put a lemon in your ice tea, sometimes you joke that lemons are your favorite fruit. It’s all in good fun. But then, one day, someone comes up to you and asks you if you like lemons. Casually, you just answer “nah.” But the people keep coming. They keep asking you. Over and over again. 3 times a week this happens till it’s almost every day you have at least 1 person coming up to you asking you if you like lemons. By this point, it’s getting frustrating. How can so many people think I might like lemons?? I should stop with the lemon jokes. So you do. But that doesn’t help anything. Eventually, a rumor starts spreading that someone actually SAW you drink lemonade. Now more people than ever are convinced that you love lemons. Out of sheer frustration for the lies you feel are spreading about you (even though in the context of this simile, lemons are NOT that big of a deal) you lash out at people when they ask you about Lemons, thinking this might finally put an end to it. But it doesn’t. People take your hostility towards lemons and say that it’s just you protecting yourself. After all….you would never get so defensive if you didn’t like lemons.

However, what people fail to realize is that when lies are spread – it’s extremely harmful, emotionally, for the person they are about. I don’t blame Dan for getting angry. Nor do I call it his “anti-phan phase”. I just see it as someone being backed into a corner by thousands of people who won’t let shit go.

I think eventually it calmed down a bit though. I think his new step was to ignore it, and pretend like it wasn’t a thing. Which was pretty much most of 2013.

Now that the phandom is fucking ginormous, I think his new tactic has been to appear as relatable as possible. And that relatability extends to joking about guys being attractive that potential people in his audience might find attractive. Do I think he is legit? Absolutely not. Danisnotonfire has turned into an internet persona. We are not looking at the actual Dan Howell – in my opinion. I have strong, STRONG feelings regarding this matter, but for the most part, imo, whatever we see on camera has been carefully calculated for teenage consumption. Which is why I put 0 weight into anything that Dan says now.

Think about this – management has to know that D&P’s sexuality is a big selling point. There’s no way they would let that be revealed – nor the exact status of their relationship. Because either way, there is going to be horrible backlash. If Dan or Phil were to come out and say they were openly Gay or Bisexual (they aren’t gay – they have said this many times. See the videos), or they were to come out and say Phan is real – they would lose thousands of subscribers that are determined to marry them. People would feel betrayed and lied to, and I personally would have lost so much respect for them for lying this entire time.

If they were to come out and say they were heterosexual, or say they have girlfriends, or move apart, or do something that would prove the non-existence of Phan, it would alienate all of the shippers (which takes up a large portion of their audience, and are the most loyal). Many people in the LGBTQ would feel betrayed and people would be very upset and angry.

It’s a rock and a hard place. They dug themselves into a ditch which I don’t think they can get out of for a long time.

Long story short – and I’m so glad this is all over – Do I believe Dan is bisexual? Maybe. I’m not going to discount the theories that people have put into place. They have really thought about those theories and I have no problem admitting that I could be entirely wrong. But I tend to lean more on the side of the heterosexual boat – personally, just based on my own opinions stated in the post above. As far as Phil - I have no idea. I’m going to go with Hetero just based on the things that I have seen thus far. 

This post is not meant to cause drama. It’s merely a place where I can express an opinion. If you agree with me, great! If not, that’s ok too. btw, you guys should really check out the counterphan timeline. 

♪ Long dog 

Long dog 

Long dog