REALLY interesting perspective of how men making gay jokes and couple jokes isn't necessarily about repressed desire but instead a form of jockeying for social position and dominance. Told from the perspective of discussing about Love Island, but this is also very applicable to minecrafters especially.
One example that strikes me immediately is President Poundcake, and his occasional form of gross out sexual humor, and the concept of this type of thing as establishing a niche of dominance when you can't necessarily compete in other areas. This is of course very relevant to the fact that he's surrounded by some of the best of the best in terms of runners, and so even though he's a very talented runner himself to establish, like, a sense of dominance in something he then relies on this sense of being the most intense in the sort of gay chicken of it all. Sexual virility (getting/having bitches) as a sign of male dominance is pretty common, but because of both via lack of reality (they are speedrunners) & lack of social respectability for talking about women like that in the community, instead the desire to Mog (and I am using this term in it's proper sense) sexually is instead sublimated into these more socially acceptable expressions of """homosexuality""" without ever challenging the implicit power structures involved.
Something very relevant to the shipbaiting of many MCYT is the concept of seeking to position a male rival as a potential conquest instead, thereby lowering his status and increasing your own. Unlike the creator above, I think this is often not "calculated" but instinctual social maneuvering that people don't necessarily realize they're doing this. Like, an explicit framing of these relationships in these competitive terms would make them more difficult to maintain and therefore there's a sort of willful ignorance sometimes of the jockeying for position that's going on.
This is also why gay shipping can be disastrous to these relationships; the tendency to explicitly (Pun intended) frame one party as the bottom and the other as the top draws attention to these potential power struggles/dynamics, making them harder to move past & ignore.
