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The Internet Was Mean to ‘Straight Acting’ Erik. Should He Have Expected Anything Different?

We’ve said it before: “Some of us are BITCHES!” And that was certainly the case last week when we asked readers to try to find a date for Erik, the “straight acting” 20-year-old college sophomore who says he’s never been on a date with another dude. Turns out more of you felt motivated to attack him than hook him up with one of your single friends. And that’s got Queerty‘s mascot family The Leffews all sorts of upset.

As Jay Leffew explains above, y’all were mean to him! Which is true. Many of you were. (Others had very concise, if not entirely constructive advice.) Some of the hurt derived from how Erik describes himself (i.e. “straight acting”). Others, his looks. And further yet, his seeming desperation.

Like this website, neither Erik nor Jay is new to sharing their lives on the Internet. Both have been posting videos on YouTube for years. Along with videos, come comments, including cruel ones from anonymous Internet strangers. These comments can hurt! But also: They should be the ones most easily dismissed. As regular readers of this website can attest, sometimes constructive conversation takes place in comment threads; othertimes it’s a bunch of self-important twats bickering at each other, or the subject at hand. And really, who. the fuck. cares?

When it comes to videos of strangers we choose to share, here’s how The Blogging gets done on this website: We find a clip that catches our eye or seems particularly prescient (via reader submission, and sometimes through our own trolling), we copy/paste the embed code, we write up a short intro, and we click “publish.” That is also how many of these YouTube videos appear; some get uploaded with more foresight than others. Which is why it’s worth nothing: Despite all the flak, Erik has not pulled the videos from his YouTube account, and even chimed in on Queerty to say, “I’ve recieved many emails from people letting me know how I have helped them out. My idea worked. I’ve helped people out — that was my main goal. For the people who commented negatively about my looks. Do it all you want. Does it hurt, yes, a little. But whatever.”

Still unanswered: Has Erik you found a date yet?

EARLIER: Help Queerty Find ‘Straight Acting’ Erik a Date!

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