Nora J. Dalton

Why do we use they/them pronouns for Tyler Catastrophe when he exclusively uses he/him? I have asked myself this question many times while diving into this rabbit hole and keeping up with it over the last few days. And here are my thoughts on it.

If you don’t know who Tyler Catastrophe is, let me give you a quick rundown. If you do, just skip the next two paragraphs. Tyler is an online personality, a business owner and an artist from the United States. He sells his beaded jewellery and artworks for more than they are worth and he is very adamant about how he supposedly still charges too little. But that is not why the internet has become almost obsessed with Tyler. You see, in the early 2020s there was a famous Minecraft YouTube group called the DreamSMP. A bunch of friends would, well, play Minecraft together and upload fun videos on YouTube. That’s where Wilbur Soot, also known as William Patrick Spencer Gold, found his success. I tried to find some positive words to use ti describe him, but I think the biggest reason as to why people liked him was his attractiveness. He does not appeal to me, but you could say that he fits the general conventional attraction model. Anyway, in early 2024 a streamed by the name of Shubble, or Shelby Grace, told her audience about an experience with an ex-boyfriend. She shared how he would bite her way too hard and ignore her safe word. She did not name that ex-boyfriend, but people speculated. Nothing was confirmed until Wilbur basically admitted it himself in a Twitter (now known as X) post. People were torn but most took Shubble’s side. Wilbur and the drama surrounding him eventually faded into a 2020s YouTuber memory.

I know we went quite far back and now you’re wondering, what does that have to do with Tyler? Well, Tyler has been a massive fan of Wilbur and his band, Lovejoy, for years. Even throughout and after the biting situation. In a video I cannot find anymore from 2024, Tyler said that he did not think Wilbur was an abuser and gave some very weird “evidence” and argument points defending the Brighton Biter (as the internet named Wilbur). Tyler wasn’t a massive internet personality back then and his viewers on TikTok seemed to share his views or at least didn’t condemn them. In Summer of 2025 said video did his rounds and more people found Tyler. But only this year, in late Winter/early Spring 2026, Tyler gained massive attention after posting a video where he said he has had a crush on Wilbur for 7 years, and that this celebrity crush stops him from forming any real life romantic relationships. Having a crush on a YouTuber/Singer is absolutely fine but since the crush in question was basically a confirmed abuser, people started digging deeper into Tyler Catastrophe. They discovered the video where he defends the Biter, alongside auditions for Wilbur’s band, Lovejoy. Tyler also started a GoFundMe so that he can move from Texas to the UK, specifically Brighton (that place ring a bell?). Of course he defends his choice of area by saying he always loved it and he appreciates the art and culture scene, but there’s just too many “coincidences” that point to him wanting to be closer to Wilbur. The internet quickly painted Tyler as an extremely obsessed, parasocial fan of a not so good person. But in my opinion that’s not the only reason they latched onto this hate train so hard. Tyler is a transgender gay man, who is also very very confident. Beauty is subjective, but Tyler is not conventionally attractive to the general population. That is just how it is. And I am not saying he is ugly, because again, beauty is subjective, but he just does not fit into what society would deem attractive. And the internet despises unconventionally looking people that find themselves attractive and are confident. Out of jealousy, self-hate, spite? It is to be argued. But then they find a person like that, who is also in love with an abuser AND is a gay transman? It’s like starved lions finding a cave full of dead gazelles. There’s much more than what I have listed here so feel free to look it up and research Tyler and Wilbur yourself.

Now that you’re aware of who Tyler is, let’s get into my question. Why do we use they/them pronouns for Tyler Catastrophe when he exclusively uses he/him? I am a big fan of watching YouTube videos in the background while I play my videogames and my feed suggested a video about Tyler Catastrophe. I watched it. And I watched more. On TikTok as well. Every single day more and more creators voice their own opinions and takes on the whole situation and thousands of people watch them. But one thing I have noticed across a lot of them is people using they/them pronouns for Tyler. But why? If you go to his profile you will clearly see his pronouns set to he/him/his. So why are people not using them?

I have thought about it for a while and initially came to the conclusion that it’s just transphobia. By using the wrong pronouns (even if technically they/them can be used for anyone), they deny him his gender. And I do think that is part of it. But then I thought more. What if it’s out of fear? As someone who was a teen and very active online in 2020, I lived through the “gay” era of the internet/Tiktok. People started experimenting with their genders and sexualities. And also their pronouns. Neo-pronouns started becoming as common as she/he/they and alongside that that, people started pushing back on people using the wrong ones, even on accident. Same with literally anything else. Suddenly “mother” was a triggerword and you were banned from Discord servers for accidentally referring to someone as penself instead of pencilself. Cancel culture was at an alltime high and people got “shunned” from online communities for tiny mistakes. I hate to say it and I mean it with no disrespect, but most of these folks in the crazy part of the LGBTQ communities had a certain look to them. Colourful hair, piercings, crazy makeup, a certain clothing style.

Over the years that calmed down and many people settled into their pronouns and sexualities and left these “extremely woke” communities. Now in 2026, you won’t get death threats if you accidentally use a wrong pronoun. But people are still scared. I myself lost friends in that whole craze and I was terrified of saying one wrong letter and then getting doxxed and swatted. And I think that fear stayed with certain people, at least internally. So now they see someone who looks like one of the easily-offended people from 2020 (like Tyler) and get scared of using the wrong pronouns and getting cancelled. So they just use they/them to be safe. So do we have a set set of pronouns (they/them) for a specific look (the 2020s woke gay trans look) of people?

I don’t think it affects Tyler that much, but it did give me something to think about. I am in no way hating on anyone or trying to paint anyone as something they’re not. I am just sharing my opinion and my thoughts as respectfully as I can. Everyone is allowed to have different takes on this.

Excuse any grammar mistakes or typos. :)

I went to the the Orell Füssli bookstore in my city, but they had only one classics shelf row with maybe 10 books. But 5 whole, full size shelves with at least 400 books with modern YA romance slop, where every single storyline is the exact same. And of course that dark romance bullshit. Dark romance, I don’t even wanna call it “romance”, is extremely harmful, especially to young girls. It’s basically porn but in word form. And we all know in porn women get extremely objectified and even hurt. That teaches boys (who are the primary viewers) that pain during sex (towards the woman) is good and normal. Having that whole problem was already bad enough, but now we get “dark romance” where men hurt and abuse women and now little girls read this and think okay, I need to like being mentally, verbally and physically abused, this is love, this is normal. I understand the human mind is complex and especially after (childhood) trauma, sexual desires and dreams can change and become extreme. And I am all for looking into it and experimenting and exploring, as long as you’re safe and know that this doesn’t come from a place of “normality”. But porn and dark romance for kids? Yes, there’s restrictions on both and porn is still extremely easy to access but the dark romance books? They are on full display, 5 rows in the front of the bookstore, easy for any little girl to grab. I know that there are age restrictions on some books but an unsuspecting parent can easily get deceived into buying a DR (I’ll just start abbreviating it) book. The covers don’t have insane explicit imagery or titles, they mostly look like fantasy novels with intricate dragons and swords and dark designs. An uneducated parent might just think they’re getting a cool little Eragon/LOTR/whatever book. Back to the topics of the books. I think what is discussed there, BDSM, (consentual) abuse, choking, “sex dungeons” etc etc are all fine by themselves. If an adult genuinely enjoys these things, they should go for it. And not every twisted desire has to stem from a bad childhood, some people just like inflicting or being inflicted with pain. And that’s okay! But that is an adult topic. Kids should never know what vampire gloves, Ben Wa Balls or Berkley Horses (yes I just had to google all that) are. Those are ADULT toys. This might be a controversial hottake but I think BDSM was invented by men and women were forced into enduring it and conditioned to think they like it. Because at the end of the day, men are violent creatures. They want to hurt women. I have had my fair share of sexual encounters and I have only met one man that did not want to punch me in the face during sex. Seriously, what is up with that? You say you don’t want to be spit on, strangled and hit and suddenly you’re “boring” and “vanilla”. No, Jeffery, maybe I am just a normal person and you are deranged! Anyway, look at BDSM and all those related things. Yes, there are “dominatrix” and women in the “power” roles but most of them are the “victims”. The ones that get tied up, gagged, abused and humiliated. And I am convinced many many of these women aren’t actually into it. They have been conditioned, by their partners, by the internet, by society, to “like” abuse and violence from men. And I think that’s really sad. And it’s just one of endless ways patriarchy tried (successfully so) to take power over women. But that is a whole other topic. I don’t think DR should be sold in normal bookstores like Orell Füssli. Or at least it shouldn’t be so accessible. It should be behind the counter and everyone who buys it should be made aware of its contents. It makes me sad. I am a classics enjoyer and I understand it’s not every woman’s taste, but to have 1% classics and 99% of the exact same, woman-abusing books is a bit insane to me. And yes, there are tons of classics online, but I do enjoy actually going to a physical store and spending a few hours reading the backs of books and just browsing (and not with Safari). I’m not sure what the overall point of this rant is, but I just needed to let this all out.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

While I like the first part, the second is what really got me and made me look up from the page and think for a moment. We think resignation is not caring anymore. We use it as almost a synonym to “apathetic”. But it isn’t. It is desperation. You are in such a grave situation of wanting or needing something so badly, yet not getting or doing it, that you have no choice but to just “give up” on it. Let it go, let it move on its own without your interference. Even when inside you are so desperate, it almost rips you apart. That is at least my interpretation of it.

“Is it better to speak or to die?”

But no one ever asks:

“Is it better to die if you can’t speak?”

NNP6

Life is short, minutes are long, days are endless,

minds are full, souls are empty, thoughts are restless.

No one knows what they’re doing, everyone has a plan,

adults are walking straight, kids follow no man.