Understanding Oneself as Discovery and Creation, or, Thinking About Autism

    Identities always fail. This is because when I seek to understand myself, to capture my experience and convey it to others through the medium of language –– a language that has existed long before myself, with its arbitrary and historically contingent boundaries and relationships, a language that is radically "not mine" –– I never seem to be able to grasp the full picture. 

    This is compounded by the fact that when I try to give an account of myself, I can never do so in a disinterested fashion. To understand myself is not to discover a truth by coldly compiling things that happened, it is rather a paranoid connecting of dots, a telling of stories, an act of creation. 

    It is these difficulties that makes every identity, even successful ones, deeply and irreparably unstable. I am a man because in order to relay my experience of gender to others, I must settle for imperfect categories that are "good enough" (which I frequently fail to live up to). But I am also a man because I understand myself through a gendered lens. I cannot help but see my past as somehow confirming my masculinity, nor can I help but act in a way that is informed by it. Through the masculine narrativization of myself, I am continuously being made anew into a man. 

Autistic icon and my beautiful son, Rise Donnie

    Recently I've been wondering if I am on the autism spectrum. This thought came about because:

1) various autistic friends expressed to me that they think I might be autistic as well 

2) I learned more about masking behaviour in some autistic adults and its tendency to lead to anxiety, which I am very much experiencing. 

3) Meaningful results in reliable screening tests such as RAADS-R, AQ, and CAT-Q. 

    Yet for the above reasons I find the thinking of this topic extremely difficult and unclear. 

    The point of this blog post is to try and make sense of this situation, incorporating insights from the questionnaires, personal experience, and observations from family and friends. I will first try to make the case that I am on the autism spectrum, then introduce some points that undermine this certainty, and finally try to figure out where to go from here. 

 

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Interpretation of RAADS-R score

Average CAT-Q score among autistics

Interpretation of AQ score

    I would like to start the investigation with the most straightforward of information –– the results of the ASD (autism spectrum disorder) screening questionnaires. In recent memories I have done RAADS-R three times, CAT-Q twice, and AQ once. Both RAADS-R and AQ are evidence-based, reliable and clinically widely used screening tests for identifying autistic adults. CAT-Q measures the degree of a person's masking behaviour, which are learned strategies to suppress autistic traits. 

    The first time I did RAADS-R was three years ago. I received a score of about 90. The second time was around two months ago, when I received the score of around 110. I took the test again right as I was writing this blog post, where I received precisely 90 points (language: 10; social relatedness: 47; sensory/motor: 17; Circumscribed interests:16). 

    While the score fluctuates over time, it is never below the test's threshold of 65, which indicates a likelihood of autism.

    I did CAT-Q around two days ago to the score of 147, and again while writing this post to the score of
153 (compensation: 50; masking: 53; assimilation: 50). A score above 100 indicates masking of autistic traits. The test result also suggest that I am masking to a degree much higher than the average male with autism. This tend to correlates with depression, generalized anxiety, and social anxiety.

    I did AQ while writing this blog post and received 36. A score above the threshold of 32 suggest a likelihood of ASD. 

    The results of these test seems to show that there's a mid to high chance that I have ASD, and that I am making a potentially life-impairing amount of effort to mask this fact. The tests from what I've read seems to be a reliable tool for identifying autism –– reports of RAADS-R's accuracy for example show that no one in the neurotypical group scores higher than 65, while only 3% of the autistic group fall below 65. Yet as the analysis of the test points out, the test itself is not conclusive, and must be supplied with "personal reflection, your developmental history, and, if you choose, professional clinical interpretation."

 

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    My friend Proxy kindly supplied a list of traits she observed in me that falls in line with traits of autism in adults, which suggested to her that I might be autistic. My other friend (let's call them Snorpus) mentioned "[signs of autism] involve a lot of internal feelings and the reasons behind the behaviours matter too." With this in mind, I will go through Proxy's list point by point, supplying it with my own internal experience currently and when I was a child, as well as comments and observation from my friends when relevant. The list is as follows:

• Flat, monotone speaking voice: I have been told that I speak in a more monotone voice, or at least in a "weird" inflection or speed. It's interesting that this seems to manifest in different ways depending on the language I speak: while monotone is what my speaking of English is usually described as, my Mandarin speaking is more often described and mocked as being too slow.  
• Difficulties maintaining eye-contact: This has always been uncomfortable for me, but around middle school I learned to stare at the point between the other person's eyebrows and believed myself to be generally better at doing it. I have since learned that I am still, in fact, bad at maintaining eye contact. Snorpus also pointed out that they don't think neurotypicals tend to have a "trick" to overcome eye-contact troubles. 
• Using repetitive language/phrases, and a unique way of speaking: I think this point should be understood in four aspects.
• Repetitive language: I think I do use repetitive phrases when speaking, although I'm wondering if this is because English is my second language. I think I must have used repetitive language in Mandarin. People like to do impression of me and they usually reach for my several epic and iconic phrases. But since no one has ever pointed it out to me explicitly, I don't really know if I do this to a meaningful degree.
•  Repeating phrases from different sources: I remembered in high school I discovered this gay youtuber with a very mean gay affect and for a while I started talking like that and adopted his phrases until someone pointed it out and I got embarrassed. Nowadays I repeat certain phrases because I like doing it and I find it funny. Phrases get stuck in my head and I find myself saying it very often for a period of time. e.g. I saw the SNL sketch featuring known man James Franco where he said "much to my chagrin" and for a period of time I said it whenever I have the opportunity. 
• I think I have a pretty unique way of speaking. I speak in a very academic tone and people often comment on how my speech seems overly formal. In Mandarin I used to over-pronounce my words and people thought that was a bit odd. 
• I also want to bring up that when I was little I used to repeat the last few words of the thing I just said under my breath (palilalia) and only stopped because my cousin made fun of me about it. 
• Difficulties engaging in small talk: I've always had this problem although it was worse when I was younger. At some point I really studied how small talk flows, what questions to ask and how to keep the conversation alive etc. so it's much less obvious that I'm bad at this. But it still bring me a lot of stress nonetheless. 
• Blunt assessment of people and things: I don't know if this is the case myself but if Proxy and Snorpus both think this I think it must be somewhat true. 
• Drained by social situations: I work very hard in big social situations mostly because I don't know when to talk and what about. The small talk strategy I have doesn't really work in large groups, nor can I drill into my single interlocutor's interest. Therefore it's very uncomfortable for me and it seldom goes well. Even when I hang out in smaller groups I often find myself thinking about my performance days and even weeks after the fact, reviewing my missteps and wondering if I say something wrong or offended anyone. It's much easier in a situation where people are listening to me talk (presentation, explaining something I like etc.) But otherwise most social situations are quite anxiety inducing and draining for me. 
• Code-switching:  I find that I act very differently in different friend groups. And I tend to get very disoriented and upset when the boundaries of the groups are transgressed (e.g. new people in group, seeing other friends when I'm in a group). When I am in a group with unfamiliar dynamic or a familiar group with changed dynamic I find it very difficult to talk and act. 
• Black and white thinking: I don't really think I think in a black and white way. In fact I think I spend a lot of time reading books to unsettle any trace of black and white thinking in my head. That said my bf says that while I do not have black and white thinking intellectually, I am very black and white with regard to my feelings of things. Proxy brought up the example she observed in me that I think therapy might be dangerous, therefore I should never do it. which supports bf's point. Snorpus mentioned that "You might find it overlaps with structural rigidity in that you have a clear understanding that things must happen a certain way." Which seems to be similar to what Proxy and bf are saying.
• Do not like surprises: I don't really know if this is true, because I don't live a life of many surprises. I suppose I do not like it when something unexpected happens, but I feel I can mostly cope with that.
• Prefer being alone or small groups: I can't really control how the interaction goes when the group gets too big or includes unexpected members and dynamics. So I largely stick with small groups of friends whose dynamic I am familiar with. I wouldn't say I prefer being alone, at least not anymore. I would much prefer to spend time with my clique and my cabal. 
• Having highly specific, long-lasting interest(s) on which much of my time is spent: This is what most people first point to when they tell me they think I'm autistic. About three years ago I became deeply invested in Freudian psychoanalysis (in critical theory) and I read all of his books and essays as well as every major theorists' writing on the man. I made a 52 page full colour comic about him and directed an animated short film informed by him. My conversation with anyone would turn into a discussion of psychoanalysis and I just spend a lot of time thinking about it in general. I had many of these interests growing up, from Bionicles to Star Wars to musical theatre, etc.
• Follow repetitive rituals, and finding it easier to flourish in a structured environment: I think it is true that I find rigid structures to be good for me and my mental health. However I live a life of profound chaos and structurelessness of my own making. I find it very difficult to follow a schedule that is not imposed on me and as a result I'm mostly just drifting from activity to activity. My bf points out that my extremely shit routine at the moment might also be a routine, just a very bad one, which I suppose can be true.
• Reduced reaction to sensory stimuli such as sound, smell, and taste: I think I have pretty bad hearing, but otherwise I don't think this one applys as much.
• Easily overwhelmed in busy environment such as shopping centres or restaurants: I get overwhelmed in busy environment but I don't know if it happens to an meaningful degree.
• Difficulties transitioning between tasks: I struggle with this a lot. I get very absorbed in tasks like drawing or more recently writing blog posts and find myself not eating, drinking, or sleeping. I also find it very hard to get out of bed or going to bed.

    I also want to add to the list a few traits that Proxy did not mention. These are traits I exhibited as a child and ones that Proxy didn't notice in general.  

• Delayed language skills: I had a some trouble learning to read and write. While this problem fixed itself soon enough, I was struggling with it when I was old enough to raise concern for my parents and teachers, especially when compared to my sister and peers. 
• As a kid I had trouble understanding idioms and non-literal language. I think this must be a problem to a noticeable degree because my parents and teachers often bring it up as something quirky about me.  
• Growing up I really enjoy making lists and charts. I like to draw symbols like every NLB logos, One Piece jolly rogers, or US presidents on a grid in a piece of paper, and I would do this repeatedly. When I drew Bionicles I liked to include in the corner small version of the other 5 characters in the series so when I draw more of them I can pull them up from the folder like a pokedex. Even when I was making things up to draw I like to come up with other similar things to draw in the corner so it appears to be in a lineup of things. I also spend a lot of time lining my toys up. Snorpus and Proxy both pointed out that this blog, especially the listing-stuff-posts, is pretty much the extension of this. 

 

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    I think the above picture I painted of my feelings and development, in tandem with the evidence-based screening tools, at the very least speaks to a likelihood that I am autistic. Although there are also a few things that give me reservation to say definitively that I have ASD. 

    For one, many people who are very close to me, such as my bf initially and my sister, seems suspicious of the idea that I might be autistic. On one hand, this reaction could be caused by prior experience with autistic people that better conform to the general cultural image of what ASD looks like. My sister and I has a cousin whose autism requires significant support and is difficult to mask; and my bf has a close friend and former roommate who is "clearly autistic." I also think the idea of masking is poorly understood if not outright unknown to the general public. I for sure didn't know much about masking before I started thinking about this topic.

    But they also brought up a point that I find to be vary difficult to address. Namely, how do we distinguish between autistic traits and things non autistic people do? Let's take special interests and hyperfixations for example: I'm sure non autistic people also have very specific interests and relate to it in highly specific ways and I'm sure that many of them are passionate about them in very high intensity and for a long time. But if this is the case, what really separate the special interest from non-autistic interest? Another example: What is the difference between non-autistic people finding a fun phrase and deciding to repeat it and delayed echolalia in people with ASD? It seems like echolalia isn't necessarily involuntary but rather something that feels good to do. But I can only imagine the reason a non-autistic person would say something they like is also because they like how it feels. It seems to me that many of the traits mentioned above are also things non-autistic people do, and to imply otherwise feels like an uncomfortable flattening of non-autistic internal life. 

    Perhaps the difference lies not in the quality of the traits but in its quantity. That is to say, it is not the actions that are significantly different, but rather the intensity with which it occurs. But if this is the case I would have no way of knowing where my feelings sits on the continuum of intensity whatsoever, as I can never go into a non-autistic person's head and compare the intensity of their feeling to my own. At the root of the problem, I think, is the impossibility of adequately communicating and comparing any experience to others. I can never know if my experience of interest relates more to special interest in autistic folks, or hobbies in non-autistic folks. All I know about their experience is that they experienced it and termed it the way they did –– the signified has no place in the system of signs, all I can access is the relation of a given signifier to other signifiers. 

    On top of this, I rarely know if my memories and my self knowledge is valid. I feel that if I go into my past looking for autism, I will likely find autism. Armed with the framing of ASD and its diagnostic language, I recreate my entire history in its image –– "staying up late because I am addicted to my phone" becomes "having difficulties transition from tasks"; "repeating something funny" becomes "echolalia". It might be that this is what people call contextualization, but it feels much closer to inventing a problem where none exists. 

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    A few days ago Snorpus ask me why I think it's so pressing for me to figure out if I have ASD at this moment. I can only speculate as I often find my own motivations to be deeply opaque and my intentions inscrutable, but I suspect that it has to do with a desire for my struggles to "make sense". To name an unnamed struggle is to have it recognized as real, to be assured that it's not your fault. I assume this is the motivation behind many adults who try to look into ASD, self-diagnose, or seek formal diagnosis. It all reminds me of a tumblr post that my boyfriend showed me:  

https://www.tumblr.com/femalepope/730173500029075457/my-deepest-darkest-fantasy-is-that-i-collapse-on

    Yet there is a danger in this naming of the struggle ––  implicit in this act is the conviction that one's struggle is unique, an excess that cannot simply be subsumed under "the human condition". The narrative element that hold the fantasy mentioned in the tumblr post together is that throughout the entire story the protagonist remains totally passive. She did not seek out what is wrong with her, she did not wonder why she struggles, she simply tried her best and was rescued by powers beyond her control. And of course she didn't. To seek the name of your troubles is to say, justified or not, that you have it worse, that the world really ought to cut you some slack. I suspect this is part of the reason the self-diagnosers have come to attract the ire of the entire internet –– without the legitimization from psychiatric institutions, it is simply an intolerable absolving of responsibility in a responsibility-obsessed, alienated society.  

     I find that I am haunted by this same ire, internalized and self-imposed, throughout this quest to understand myself as potentially autistic, which make the entire process profoundly uncomfortable and embarrassing. Whenever an experience can be interpreted as either autistic or non-autistic and I find myself making the case for it being the former, I feel myself morphing in everyone's mind into the quirky, creative, turkey-observing woman who everyone detests. 

    I didn't really find any clarity through all this research and introspection, and I feel too anxious to try and figure it out any further. I suppose Snorpus' advice that "(bearing diagnosis criteria in mind) if advice from and tools for autistic folks help you, that's more important to allow yourself than it is to get medical permission to identify with that group" is ultimately the best approach to this jumbled confusion. 

    I think it is also important to note that all this research and thinking is likely just a way to intellectualize my anxiety. Instead of addressing the anxiety itself, I spend my energy thinking about the nature of identities, the difficulties of modern psychiatry and the ambiguities therein. My other friend, Stingus, wisely said, "Ultimately I think the number one goal if you so choose is to address the anxiety, as it’s the common denominator between all of these labels, and I know anxiety is different between typicals and divergents, but coping mechanisms are relatively the same as they come from the same place." And I think this is something everyone around me, along with myself, can agree on.

Small Folklores

Folklore rat by me for a zine I did with my friends

    I was listening to the Rehash podcast, hosted by Maia and Hannah from the video essay channel Broey Deschanel. In the episode Chain Mail, the hosts look back on the early internet phenomenon of the chain email and attempt to understand it as a type of "digital folklore".

     The hosts adopt a broad working definition of folklore as "stories and traditions which are passed on among a particular group or culture," including things like "songs, nursery rhymes, recipes, stories, bits of wisdom, idioms, cures that are orally shared, or chain letters." Their discussion  makes me wonder what kind of more local and small folklore I grew up with. What are some pieces of traditions and culture my family and social groups practice that are not necessarily a part of the wider Taiwanese culture or Han-Chinese culture.

    Here's a list of interesting local/small-scale folklore that I remember.

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1. During the summer, when I want to sleep without a blanket, my grandma would urge me to at least cover my belly button, as the cold air would enter the belly button and give me a cold.

 

2.  My parents told me and my sister that if you sit on someone's pillow, you would contract the illness "臭頭" (stinky head).

 

3.  My grandma often insisted that we blow dry our hair after a shower, as leaving the hair to dry on its own would lead to severe headaches later in life. In the 14th century Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the warlord Cao Cao famously suffered from headaches that can only be cured through an unconventional skull-opening operation. It is implied by my grandma that this will be our fate if we do not dry our hair. How every 14th century Chinese person other than Cao Cao gained access to blow dryers is not explained.

 

4.  When I spend time at my great aunt's house, she would make us finish the food by telling us that if we do not do so we will marry "cat-faced wives". I assumed that this just meant women with a literal cat face, but upon researching for this blog post I have learned that "cat-face wife" refers to a woman with freckles, pimples, or blemishes on her face, which is not a very kind thing to say.

 

5.  This Playground Rhyme:

［姓名］的內褲三百六十度

飛上飛下飛到訓導處 

訓導處的阿姨幫你洗內褲

[Name] has a 360 degrees underwear

Flying up and down into the office of student affairs*

The lady at the office washes your underwear

(*the office of student affairs is the department within Taiwanese elementary and secondary schools responsible for the maintenance of discipline of the student body)

 

6. My mom always put a band aid right above my sister's belly button before a long trip, as this is meant to prevent car sickness.

 

7. When we fell ill, my dad would put onions in the steamer until all of the juice is extracted. We would then be made to drink the onion extract twice a day as a cure.

 

8. In sixth grade, the majority of girls in my class started to embody and act out these jointly created continuously evolving characters known as 球球 (balls, but in a cute way). These balls are each acted out through a particular hand gesture, they each have unique, simple and clear characteristics. There was 壯壯 (strength), who looks like 🤙, with the thumb and the pinky finger representing his powerful arms. There was 孫孫 (sun-sun) the pervert in the cast who looks like 🖐️ in a grabbing motion. Sun-sun's catchphrase was "Baha baha...I see sexy babes." There was also 奶奶 (grandma) who looks like 🤛 with the thumb moving up and down to simulate thick, scrumptious lips. Grandma is affectionate, smothering and loves giving huge kisses. There are more that I cannot remember. Periodically one girl would start embodying one of the balls and then it would spread. Before long half the class is making weird sounds and hand gestures at each other.

Towards a Theory of the Tumblr Sexyman

https://www.tumblr.com/itsscaredycat/760002826385670144/so-ok-yeah-fine-i-watched-gravity-falls-again-and

Amazing sexy Bill Cipher art on tumblr.com 

    In this blog post I wish to define the fascinating phenomenon that is the tumblr sexyman. I will look at the various attempts people try to nail down this elusive concept, try to work out the logic underlying these attempts, and discuss their potential shortcomings. At the end, I will try to propose my own, hopefully satisfying, way of defining the tumblr sexyman. 

    It is worth noting that I am very much a tumblr outsider. Growing up, I was dimly aware of tumblr as the place to look at nice drawings of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes kissing, but even then tumblr has already passed its heyday. I was never on tumblr, I never participated in the fandom and the discourse, nor was I as a teenager shaped by my experience on the platform the way many in my circle were. My tumblr account was made on August 2024, and it is set up primarily as an extension of my instagram art account. It is for me a way to maximize the reach of my drawings, to "cover all bases".

     All that is to say, I come to the topic of the tumblr sexyman primarily as an intrigued outside observer who, while looking at the topic with a somewhat fresh point of view, also comes with many blind spots and lapses in knowledge. It is therefore not my intention to provide the ultimate correct definition of the tumblr sexyman, ending the conversation once and for all, but rather to contribute humbly to the existing discussion and offer some observations and thoughts. 

    My hope is that this post would at the very least provoke the reader to think about their own definition of the tumblr sexyman, and, better yet, go on to critique, elaborate, and refine the very rough definition I propose here. 

 

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      Let us begin with the most basic definition we can find. The definition of the tumblr sexyperson given by the Sexypedia (tumblr sexyman wiki) is as follows:

1. Proportionately large amounts of fanworks focusing on the sexyman (keep rules 3 and 4 in mind).
2. Proportionately large amounts of social media posts regarding the sexyman, usually with captions along the lines of "Hear me out...".
3. Fans shipping themselves or a character meant to represent themselves with the sexyman.
4. Fans shipping the nearest available character with the sexyman.
5. Humanizations of the sexyman or popular fandom-created designs for the sexyman.
6. If the sexyman does something morally wrong or questionable, fans defending them or simply ignoring what they did. This may cause controversy within the fandom.
7. Common shared fanon regarding the sexyman.
8. Fans focusing on one aspect of the sexyman, until it's their main personality trait within fan works (also known as Fanon Flanderization).
9. Fans creating their own characters based on the sexyman and/or the sexyman's design.

    The definition given here boils down to this: a tumblr sexyman is a character tumblr finds sexy and does fan-stuff with. Now while this is undoubtedly the most literal and correct definition of the concept, it is an empty and tautological definition that doesn't tell us very much about what sexymen are, what causes a character to be sexified, and what unites the sexymen as an object of study. 

     

    Yet any attempt to give a more concrete definition of the tumblr sexymen immediately runs into two difficulties. The first problem is that as the idea of tumblr sexymen becomes a meme, and as a result the internet becomes bemused by tumblr's propensity to sexualize seemingly random characters, it becomes increasingly hard to distinguish between sexymen that organically attract sexification and characters who are ironically sexified to parody that randomness. This is what I call the hear-me-out cake problem, after the phenomenon of influencers participating in the hear-me-out cake trend only to propose characters not out of genuine sexual attraction but out of a desire to shock and confuse (I know for a fact you do not find the quadratic formula sexy).

 

    As the distinguishing between genuine sexymen and ironic sexymen is outside the scope of this blog post, I will bracket the hear-me-out cake problem by taking Sexypedia at its word and limit the analysis to the sexymen that are categorized by the wiki to be in the Apollyan and Tiamat class –– that is, roughly speaking, the widely agreed upon sexymen that the general internet user can name. 

 

    The second problem with a unified definition of tumblr sexymen is the dazzling diversity of characters commonly understood to be tumblr sexymen. While the Once-ler and Alastor might have more in common with each other, the same can't be said about Sans Undertale. Yet any definition that excludes the behemoth that is Sans Undertale should immediately be discarded as a useless definition. Sans Undertale rebels against the usual characteristics of tumblr sexymen, yet he is unmistakably a sexymen (perhaps even the sexyman). In this way, Tumblr sexymen are similar to pornography, famously defined by US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart with a thought-terminating cliché: I know it when I see it. 

 

    Faced with an object as fuzzy and perplexing as the tumblr sexyman, it might be helpful to take a page from the analytical move made by Umberto Eco in his celebrated essay, Ur-fascism. In the essay, Eco demonstrates the slipperiness of defining fascism –– a set of ideas he describes as "a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions." Instead, he understands fascism in a similar way Wittgenstein writes about games, "A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some 'family resemblance.'" That is to say, a game is not define by any single trait, but rather a cloud of many common traits. Game ABC could be said to be similar to game BCD and game CDE, and has nothing in common with game DEF. But because both ABC and DEF are similar to BCD, a relation is established, and the entire set can be grouped together as one thing (game). With this understanding, Eco goes on to list the 14 characteristics that characterize fascism. A movement need not satisfy all 14 of the criteria to be called fascist, nor is every movement that displays these traits fascist. He writes, "These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."

 

    Most of the attempts to define tumblr sexymen operates in this vein. Sexypedia has a 84 (!!!) point list of "tropes/archetypes", many of which includes further sub-points. These includes European, eye imagery, object head, etc. The fantastic video essay by Izzzyzzz, The Phenomenon Of Tumblr Sexymen provide a 10 point list of features –– popularity, evilness, skinny white anime boy, non-human, formal wear, powerful, monster body parts, supposed sex appeal, has tons of AU work, and eventually becomes hated.

    In an attempt to streamline the existing lists I've seen, and partly for reasons that will become clear later, I wish to propose my own 6 point list of themes/elements, possessing one or two of which a character might be sexified:

1. Leaves space for imagination and artistic expression: The character tends to require or encourage artists to actively work to make them fuckable. In the process of transforming Bill Cipher into a sexy white boy and designing the alter egos of the Once-ler, members of the fandom get to flex their artistic muscles in dialogue with the community's desire as well as exploring their own. Related tropes: non-human, fanon splintering, object-head.
2. Fun to draw: Related to the first point, the characters having elements that are fun and novel to draw –– clown outfits, glitches, puppet elements –– encourages artistic expression which strengthens social bonds within fandoms. Related tropes: animal theming, eldritch, monster features, clown, well-dressed.
3. Outcast/loner: This is usually the result of a dark edge or backstory. The character might be unbothered by their lonerdom, in the case of Bill Cipher or Beetlejuice, or deeply affected by it, in the case of Loki or the Once-ler. At any rate, the character is alone in a goth and dark way. Related tropes: angst, capitalist, knifemurder, pathetic.
4. Marginalized identities and coding: usually LGBTQ+, mentally ill and/or neurodivergent, as well as signifiers related to these identities. Related tropes: LGBTQ+, neurodivergence, angst, parental issues, artsy, distinct voice, alternative fashion. 
5. Privileged statuses: usually white, thin, and/or upper-class, as well as signifiers related to these statuses. Related tropes: European, Burton, pale twink, royalty, well-dressed. 
6. Confident and/or charismatic: sometimes but not always a result of immense social, magical, or cosmic powers. Related tropes: artsy, deadpan snarker, dominating, egotistical, power, royalty.  

    This is all well and good, we have a shifting cloud of definition for our object. However, the family resemblance model of tumblr sexymen, like Eco's definition of fascism, has the disadvantage of being quite unsatisfying. For one, a family resemblance idea of tumblr sexyman views the phenomenon as basically a collection of traits arbitrarily grouped together. We start with the project of trying to understand the tumblr sexyman as one singular conceptual object, but this definition essentially throws its hands in the air. It cannot grasp the centre that holds these traits together, nor does it wish to say anything about this centre. In this way, this cloud of definitions that could mark a sexyman, that might allow the character to be sexified, is only a slightly more sophisticated version of "I know it when I see it." 

Was Foucault a tumblr sexyman? (No)

    To make matters worse, there is a sense that not only does the centre exist, that centre lies somewhere outside of these disparate traits. A character –– say for example, French post-structuralist philosopher and historian Michel Foucault –– may well exhibit a large amount of traits in the list (He's fun to draw; he was an outsider in society due to his queerness and mental illness; he had a dark past –– alleged sexual abuse of kids in Tunisia; he was thin, white, European, and upperclass; he was well-dressed, intelligent, and charismatic), but my conviction would be misplaced if I, by virtue of this, confidently declare Foucault a tumblr sexyman.  

     A way to solve this problem is of course to fall back to our first definition (the tumblr sexyman is a man tumblr finds sexy) and make that the essential quality of the tumblr sexyman. Doing so, we're able to anchor the manifold incidental traits, relegating them as merely the shape in which the tumblr sexymen appear. This is in fact the way Izzzyzzz rescues and stabilizes their 10 points list in the aforementioned video essay. The video tries to "[compile] a list of 10 traits tropes that these characters usually have." adding the usual family resemblance caveat that "they don't have to have all of them, but they should at least have a few. " Yet they also posit the first point –– popularity among tumblr users –– to be an absolutely non-negotiable criteria. "There's no leeway here," they explain, "the character has to at least have like a thousand pieces of fan art. There's got to be ask blogs, role plays, fan fictions, pinterest boards all dedicated to this one character." 

    However, this opposition between the essential quality of the tumblr sexyman and the incidental and arbitrary shapes of their appearance introduces its own troubles. The problem is this: why does the sexyman necessarily take on these particular shapes described in our cloud of traits? Why is it that these traits attract sexifying from fandoms? The answer seems simple: The sexyman takes these particular shapes because these are the things tumblr finds sexy. The cloud of traits thus once again become the essence, the truth of the sexyman. In this way, the truth of the tumblr sexyman is caught in the oscillation between the sexyman in its singularity and its diverse manifestation. The tumblr sexyman is the cloud of traits that tumblr happens to make popular; tumblr makes a character a popular because they exhibit this cloud of traits. A circular and ceaseless shifting of emphasis that cannot get us anywhere close to grasping the tumblr sexyman as an object. 

    The point of all this pedantry is simply to say that the tumblr sexyman is both "whatever tumblr finds sexy" and "the cloud of traits commonly exhibited by the tumblr sexymen." And it is in the working out of how these two poles relate and how they unite can we finally be able to understand the tumblr sexyman as one singular object. And it might be quite obvious from the way I structured and laid out my 6 point list of traits, in contradistinction with how lists like this are usually laid out, that the way I am trying to establish the relationship between these two poles is through a somewhat functionalist understanding of the tumblr sexyman –– that is to say, trying to locate the definition of the tumblr sexyman not in what it looks like but rather in what it's doing. 

    What I am proposing is this: the tumblr sexyman is best understood as a process. It is a process through which the primarily adolescent tumblr users may try out desires and identities with the materials available on the 2010s online spaces. Through the tumblr-sexyman-process, the teens are able to fashion for themselves desires and identities in collaboration and negotiation with the community at large. As such, the tumblr sexymen condenses the desire of the community –– desire at it's most vague and unspecific –– with the specific desire of the burgeoning individual. It is at once mainstream and counter-cultural, repressive and transgressive, assured and anxious, included and excluded, bland and interesting. It is this process, this drive, that motivates the popularity of the sexymen and necessitates their manifold appearance. And if the list of traits appears fuzzy and contradictory, it is precisely because it is a process working at the intersection of the individual struggling to assert themselves, and society with its most mundane common denominator –– that is to say, the tumblr sexyman is contradictory because it is the contradiction of adolescence working through and captured on the internet. 

✷ 

 

    I think this definition of tumblr sexymen as process is a pretty satisfactory one for this blog post, but it is not without faults and shortcomings. Therefore, as a closing remark, I would like to point to a few of the more significant limitations with this definition that requires more investigation, thinking, and refinement.

    To start, this definition assumes the identity of the average participant of the sexyman process to be the stereotypical tumblr teen –– that is, generally speaking, the white, middle class, artsy, angsty, queer, and neurodivergent child. While this might make intuitive sense, it is something that should be and could be verified through surveys. If this assumption turns out to be true, it might be interesting to further articulate why this might be the case; if it is not, we would need to discuss why certain elements of the cultural hegemony (whiteness, thinness, class identity) are reinforced while others (cis-heteronormativity, neuronormativity) are transgressed. 

    Secondly, as this definition stresses the developmental function of the tumblr-sexyman-process, it would imply that people grow out of their need to sexify as they fashion more complex and individualized desires and identities for themselves. As such, the definition is dangerously close to pathologizing the desires and identities fashioned through the tumblr-sexyman-process, and perhaps even pathologizing adolescence itself. However, the fact remains that many adults continues to desire tumblr sexymen no less passionately then the so-called tumblr teens. 

    I can think of two ways of bypassing this problem, neither of which is ideal: 1) maintain the definition as it is and understand the adults who enjoy tumblr sexyman as being improperly individualized. This solution has the flaw of being judgmental and condescending. 2) Expand the definition to include the construction of all kinds of identities and desires –– tumblr sexyman as a macro process lasting one's entire life. As long as the individual constructs and negotiate their identities and desires with society (they always do, as desire and identity are always social), the tumblr-sexyman-process continues in perpetuity in a more and more defused form. This solution is a bit better, but it forgoes the specificity of the tumblr sexyman altogether. 

    Perhaps there are more elegant ways to address these shortcomings, perhaps these are no shortcomings at all, or perhaps these problems prove themselves to be so intractable it points to an opening to construct a more sophisticated definition of the tumblr sexyman. At present, I will leave these questions in the hands of more skilful thinkers to tackle.