#phrant

Okay, so don't mind me because it's 3 am (it took me an hour to write this :D) where I live and I'm still emotional from rewatching Basically I'm Gay yesterday and then them posting the tree video on patreon.

I have been on tumblr since I was 12-years-old (early 2013) and at the time I was so into British bands and shows that now I have a permanent British accent that refuses to leave (I'm so for real about this, everyone that has heard me talk in English knows that I sound painfully British despite never setting foot in that bloody country, even after trying to perfect an American accent in my years living in Boston, it would keep sneaking on me so I just fucking gave up) which means that while I wasn't a phannie back then, I knew of them. People who weren't in that era of tumblr and DnP don't understand how inescapable they were. I even remember having a slight crush on Dan, but still not daring to get into them. Similarly to Dan, I was going through so much internalised homophobia during that time and seeing people speculate about Dan and Phil's sexuality back in the day was lowkey triggering to me. I was also a Directioner during those days and I still remember avoiding shippers like the plague for those very same reasons.

Despite those triggering moments, I still have to thank to tumblr and the queer friends I made here, for helping me heal. So by the time I was 17 (2017), I finally came out as bi to myself. However, that didn't change the fact that I was in a very homophobic environment which got worse when I had to move to Colorado with my uncle's family to finish high school. I knew it was fucking me up mentally, but I didn't know exactly how much until 2019.

And here's where Basically I'm Gay comes to play. At this point, I was no longer the kid obsessed with British media (at least not to the same extent) and was now in kpop tumblr, but I still remember how the website exploded that day. I wasn't a phannie, I had almost forgotten about my crush on Dan, so I genuinely don't remember why I decided to watch the video (it was probably my nosy Puerto Rican ass) but fuck am I glad I did. 2019 was the same year I realised I was transmasc at the very least (I felt like I was too feminine to claim I was a trans man). It was also the same year I was finally diagnosed with depression, for many reasons, but internalised transphobia and scared of how my mum would react played a great part to that. This all happened months before Dan's video (I was diagnosed in late April, and I finally came out to my mum in May, which thankfully went good). So when I watched that video I just felt so painfully seen. I still remember watching the video crawled in empty bath since it was the only truly private place I had in our old shitty apartment. I don't remember if I cried, but I do remember feeling understood. The bullying, the internalisation of that abuse, the fear of owning your own identity, even the fear of not feeling enough for the community. I can't give all the credit to Dan, but his video did play a part to me finally saying fuck it and explore my identity in whatever way I fucking wanted. I slowly stopped caring if I got confused with a lesbian or if people thought I was too feminine to use he/him pronouns.

It's lowkey surprising that I didn't become a phannie after that. But that doesn't mean I stopped checking on them. While I didn't watch more videos, I still remember at least once every year or two when someone mentioned them online and me checking how they were doing. I didn't even cared if they were actually a couple or not, I only cared if they were still living their best lives. Then the hard launch happened and despite at first not daring to watch it because it wasn't my business and I just cared that they were happy, I still did about a week later and I'm so fucking glad I did. Honestly, I feel like I was meant to get into their content and I just kept fighting it for stupid reasons for the last 12 years.

And now after 6 years and a half since that video came out, I finally rewatched it. It has been on my mind for the past years, but even more so in the past few months since I started to watch their old videos and finally call myself a phannie. I held back because I knew how much it meant to me and given this new perspective I had, I was afraid of crying like a loser. Thankfully, one of my best friends who is not a phannie, reminded me it wouldn't be so bad to cry over something that meant so much to me. So yesterday, I finally did. And fuck, can I say how fucking proud I am of Dan but also myself? Watching that video remind me how far we have both come in our different ways. How years ago he was still struggling to call himself gay and how I couldn't call myself a trans man without years of bullying coming to haunt me, to today where Dan has a podcast with his partner of 16 years talking mad gay shit and to me fully owning up being a trans man, finally finding my chosen name (not the one I use on tumblr, that's for anonimity) and starting T.

Seriously, this rant could go on for forever, but I'm going to start to cut it off here. I do want to add something about Phil before I do, though. While back then I didn't pay much attention to him (I apologise, I was a delusional teen who was lowkey jealous of him), seeing his old videos and his now has been a great comfort for me. Despite watching those old videos for the first time, I am filled with a hug of nostalgia whenever I do, but not the type where I romanticise the past. Instead, it's the type that makes me see the era in a different light and finally allow that 12-15 year old closeted me to be forgiven and fully heal. Oftentimes, we think of our teen years with shame, but there's something Phil's kindness throughout the years that reminds me how much old me needed that in his life.