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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34513 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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'I will say that everybody on that show seems to be a lot gayer than is statistically reflected in society,'

So people say this about a lot of recent shows, and that may be true, but the question is, is it true of the people currently being shown on-screen? After all, a majority of people under 30 aren't white, LGBT identification is surging among young people as well, and so on.

So yes, if you have a show centered on say, a small town in rural Iowa, there shouldn't be that many gay or non-white people. But, if you're making a show in a city in 2023, if you're even close to the demographics of people under 30 in that city, it's going to seem "woke" to anybody watching from the outside.

Now, the TLOU is a slightly different thing, but the representation that's being used was part of the original game for the most part AFAIK, so if you hated the changes to The Witcher, you should be OK w/ what's being done to stay current with TLOU.

LGBT identification is surging among young people as well

Yes, but not LGBT acts. A lot of people like to get social credit by calling themselves some sort of "queer" identity, while still demonstrating through revealed preference that they're functionally boringly straight, with a shiny coat of paint slapped on.

This claim is surprising to me and I'm unable to find survey data on it. I can find the sexlessness rates over time but if I try to add keywords about LGBT, I get survey results about support for gay marriage and similar political, not behavior, survey results. Any pointers? I did find this chart which appears to show a slight increase but haven't tracked down the paper to get clarity on what is actually being measured.

Although I guess given the great decrease in youth sex, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if LGBT acts also declined just slower.

Here's my source

When we look at homosexual behavior, we find that it has grown much less rapidly than LGBT identification. Men and women under 30 who reported a sexual partner in the last five years dropped from around 96% exclusively heterosexual in the 1990s to 92% exclusively heterosexual in 2021. Whereas in 2008 attitudes and behavior were similar, by 2021 LGBT identification was running at twice the rate of LGBT sexual behavior.

Thanks for the source with detailed data. That's pretty much in line with my expectations: LGBT behavior has increased, but not as fast as LGBT identification.

The interpretation of that data as "a lot of the young people claiming to be queer don't really mean it" strikes me as strange. I'd generally assumed it's more about Kinsey 1-2s identifying as bisexual/queer instead of heterosexual as they would in cultures less accepting of queer people. And since people have a lot more opportunities for heterosexual pairings than homosexual pairings simply due to there being a lot more possible partners, it's not surprising homosexual behavior would lag behind queer identification as queer people who didn't need to openly identify as queer to find partners were open about their identities.

After all, a majority of people under 30 aren't white

Are you sure about that? Last I heard it doesn't hit <50% until ~16.

Anyways, if the shows were going from population demographics what there would be much less of is black people and more Hispanics -- Hispanics are about 1/4, or twice as prevalent as Blacks.

Since I don't care that much, might've got the exact age wrong. My larger point stands - even a reasonable portrayal of urban America of the youth is going to involve more non-white and non-straight people than many people are going to like.

As for the African-American v Hispanic thing, that's probably more African-American's being more united as a bloc than Hispanic actors. Plus, the cheat code of their being black British actors.

even a reasonable portrayal of urban America of the youth is going to involve more non-white and non-straight people than many people are going to like.

If by "many people" you mean "literally Archie Bunker", then maybe -- but do note that even going with under-15 demographics, a typical show might have a cast of 10 -- 5 whites, 2-3 Hispanics (at least one of whom would have been "white" in Y2K), an Asian/other, and one black person. (who probably is not in an interracial relationship -- although if the Asian is a girl, it's not quite even odds she's dating a white guy).

This is totally not what we see on say, Netflix. (or even the BBC for that matter; I think British demographics are even more out of line with their shows) It seems like a very shaky foundation for a hypothesis?

My guess though 20 year after an apocalypse the number of gays would be back down to 1-2% of the population. It’s sort of a luxury belief. Todays lesbian would be grabbing onto the strongest man she can find in that environment. Bruce Jenner would be a jock again in that world.

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