Say Anything - Oliver Appropriate (January 25, 2019) Album • Page 37

yeah it's like so........ do you actually like men? or do you just want an excuse to say the q word 500 times because I'm starting to wonder

 

Yeah, I'm not reading that. Like Pike Snot a good deal more than any Say Anything song I've heard in a while tho, cautiously optimistic.

 

Samesies, I'm not surprised because this is something that I've seen a few queer men say but I wish he didn't choose to do that though. Really, he should rethink this.

 

We’re bordering a fine line here though because queerness comes in many forms and it’s not really up to us to tell him how to handle his.

 

Yeah I read a few red flags in that “rant” and tapped out. Idk Max.

 

Not saying he isn't queer or that he's being queer "the wrong way" but the way he's presenting this as a perfectly healthy reflection a queer person should have is pretty demoralising

 

True but we do have a right to point out when he uses his platform in dangerous and problematic ways such as with this homophobic laced statement

 

calling yourself queer doesn’t shield you from criticisms of the language you’re using and how you’re using it

 

Honestly it reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Brian Cranston converts to Judaism so he can tell Jewish jokes. Sort of. I get your point and I agree. Max should really be taking his feelings up with a licensed professional and not stream-of-consciousness diary entries on the internet.

 

Yeah I mean I’m not saying fuck max he’s a piece of shit. But he’s saying some harmful stuff and he doesn’t seem healthy

 

also...you can be a good person to women without writing/talking about it over and over again. if you wanna be a good ally and call out your fellow men theres better ways to do so without posting long things on twitter that dont make much sense and going "I'M good, they suck" like, that helps you not feminism in the end

 

yeah its like dudes who go around calling themselves "male feminists" all the time.....more often than not those are the dudes you have to watch out for

 

Definitely. Granted I’m saying this as a cis straight white male, but from what I’m gathering from this and his last big statement, he seems very uncomfortable with identifying as queer. Not in a self-deprecating way, but in a “LoL queer amirite but I am queer but seriously that’s icky but like, just saying I *would* with a guy”

Again, I have no idea what it is like to experience these feelings so please don’t take my interpretation too seriously, but for someone who is a professional writer, he really needs to work on the way he is phrasing his thoughts.

Plus the whole “I only would if I were desperate” statement and the fact the upcoming album seems to be focused more on the anger with his feelings rather than acceptance... I can absolutely see how that would make people very upset and uncomfortable. Like you said, just because you identify with a word doesn’t make you immune to criticism of how you use it. It seems like a regressive take on LGBTQ+ issues from the perspective of a straight man who is a little bi-curious but wants to fit in with the group that he can’t seem to accept his part in?

 

To clarify: I'm not saying he can't be criticised for the way he's handling this. I was specifically referring to the post that questioned whether he even liked men. That's where I think we cross the line, because it's obvious this is something he struggles with and it seems like he has a bit of imposter syndrome about this to begin with, and I don't think we should invalidate his identifying as queer because we don't particularly understand it.

I'm also sympathetic I guess because it took me a really long time to admit my own queerness to myself and it's still something that I'm super uncomfortable with about myself. I even literally used to think to myself "well ok I'm attracted to men but I would rather date women" which is really similar to the language Max is using. I agree that it doesn't excuse some of the things he's said and the way he's handled this though. I wish he would take the time to really figure out coherently what he wants to say, if anything, about this since he does have a lot of people who really look up to him. And yea the "I'd never date a man unless I was desperate" line was pretty rough and I felt uncomfortable when I read that.

 

I didn't read the whole thing but claiming to be "extremely queer for a not-that-queer guy" in conjunction with "I’m BORING QUEER. I am a guy who loves girls and couldn’t really fall in love with a guy unless I was desperate" really rubs me the wrong way. Like, what is he really saying there? When I read that, I feel a tangible distance between "my queerness" and "queerness" in a way that seems to condescend. I feel like queerness is supposed to be communal umbrella under which we, people of different identities and a shared experience of oppression, embrace and support each other--not try to say "well, I'm not queer like you, I'm my own thing." That feels like a rejection of the queer identity, which is an identity of shared otherness, to me.

I'm not doubting Max's identity, I'm just acknowledging that one can identify as queer and still harbor unsavory feelings toward others who identify as queer. Some of Max's language makes me think he should be working harder to unlearn some biases.

 

lots of people over on twitter calling these rants "intelligent" or "well written" and I wanna know exactly what we're missing because they read like a mess to me.

There's also a significant amount of people who seem to just... like reading this really personal and uncomfortable stuff and get off on the voyeurism? How are those people not concerned for this dude?

 

Yeah, that wasn't well put, I'll admit it. It was meant to be hyperbolic, not literal, but it does read like that, so that's on me.

 

ive struggled with this the way it seems max is right now, in that i have an attraction to men and definitely feel some sort of feelings beyond regular friendship for men but im dating a woman and can't see myself not with a woman, so i can sympathize with the overall things he's dealing with but i just cant get behind how he's going about working through it and the language being used to get across what he's going through. really, this sort of self discovery should not be done on such a public stage. it just shouldn't. it's messy, it's hard, and a lot of people can easily get the wrong idea of what it is he's trying to say because he's not being very clear or concise about any of it. which, with stuff like this, maybe its impossible to be clear or concise, but that's why you dont do this kind of thing in the public eye, ideally.

 

This is stuff that she be told to a therapist, obviously, i'm stating the obvious here.

 

I feel this a lot. Calling yourself queer while rejecting other people's queerness is the core of what disturbs me with this, I guess. It's like he understandably wants to signal that he's not het but he still clearly harbours semi repressed feelings of disgust and rejection towards people who are comfortable in their queer identity, and it's like, we don't deserve that kind of shit, you know? The way he rejects his own insecurities with himself onto others as if his way of being queer is more palatable is just not okay.

 

Yea I get ya, I get where you were coming from. I wasn't mad or anything just pointing out we should be careful about that.

 

the og version of telescope eyes was pretty emo. I must say

 

reading all these takes made me feel a little less insane. there’s no right way to love men but as a gay dude i really wanted one of my old role models to love men and not back down from it. i don’t need max to be a perfect queer but i do need him to realize he can’t continue implying all queer men have daddy issues and that he can always fall back to sleeping with other queer men when he can’t sleep with a woman lol

tldr i need him to stop projecting his issues onto men who like men as a whole

 

also don’t even get me started on like the three paragraphs he dedicates solely to explaining he’s not like Other Emo Men (jesse lacey reference AGAIN???) because he doesn’t do xyz to women and isn’t mean to gays?

 

what the fuck does that even mean, really