Memorial accounts: queer young men, identity and contemporary coming out narratives online

Abstract

Under the conditions of narrative construction, young queer men’s coming out stories present memorial accounts of ‘always-having-been’ queer; a queer childhood. The ways in which coming out stories operate have developed significantly over the past decade, particularly resulting from the use of online, digital technologies where such narratives proliferate. This article presents some initial theorisation of the role of young men’s coming out narrative in the constitution of performative queer identity with a focus on the construction of memory. The article presents an overview of the history of coming out and the ways in which this history has influenced the conventions and genre of the coming out narrative online. It addresses some of the ways in which such memorial accounts are performative acts themselves, seeking to stabilise queer masculine identity, and ends with a discussion as to whether or not online sites such as YouTube continue or disrupt such stabilising narratives.