Kaylor and other rumored celesbian couples are fairy tales for gay women raised on straight ones; fables where two people who appear to be patriarchy's pinups are actually manipulating the men with money, choosing the girl over all the guys. The fan communities that have formed around these pairs are forged through wondering and wishing, in-jokes and lingo and those in the know. Our touchstone isn't the friendship itself; it's a feeling, an act of quiet yearning, a longing look and a passed note. These love stories offer us an opportunity to write our own folklore. When queer women post TikToks and Tumblr manifestoes, they're writing toward and through their fave — not the pop star, or the actress, or the athlete, but the fantasy of a closeted queer woman agonizingly in love with her best friend, the idol so many women like me desperately want her to be. Personally, I've fallen for a best friend before, and am all too familiar with the s tartle in my throat and the spark in my heart that means this is going to hurt. If I've learned anything in this corner of the internet, I'm not the only one. For many queer women, first love means falling for a friend, hiding your feelings and hoping they'll pass, pretending to like boys — and underneath all that, praying she feels it, too.
This is an experience riddled with shame — the fermenting terror of anyone finding out what you're thinking, the certainty that you're a creep in a world that teaches young queer people their desire is wrong, an overstep, a misfired signal. In another world — the alternate universe we find online — wouldn't it be nice if we were the ones reading the room right for once, and all the straight people were misreading the lyrics and missing the obvious? These theories are wish fulfillment and a choral narrative to scream-sing — a daydream in which Miss Americana, maybe, tells us she knows what w e mean and she's happy we have one another.
Much has been written about the perverse parasociality of fandom, the blurring line between public displays of devotion and invasions of privacy. Queer fandoms often foster an especially ardent passion, passed among people who've felt misunderstood and judged for whom they love, finally publicly expressing adoration. The object of their affection isn't real, per se; they're a character, a figment of our shared imagination: a collaged angel, or a shattered mirror showing us shards of one another. While the fervent side of fandom is often mocked, this is its underdiscussed, softer side: the tender, bruised and consistently caring communities built on social media by people who've felt ashamed of themselves in the same ways. Neither our desperation nor our desires are shameful; actually, our desperation, distilled, might be a love potion or a strong cocktail after a bad day, drunk in a dark bar with the girls you've been looking for your whole life.
Emmeline Clein is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her first book, "Dead Weight," is forthcoming from Knopf in 2024.
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