It actually does. It’s a forty minute video and it was worth it for me, who had never heard of her and doesn’t care about tech at all (sorry lemmy).
Tl;dw: imagine a woman talking about how Freddy mercury’s chest hair makes her uncomfortable because she thinks he’s peacocking for her. That’s you. It’s initially very understandable- you saw something with one known cultural marker and assumed it tracked, I did too. It’s just not the same cultural marker (just like a Chinese person without much international contact sixty years ago would probably have a very different assumption when looking at a picture of a woman in a western wedding dress).
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I watched the video, it’s unconvincing. I don’t think she’s lying per se, just that her justification for doing all her videos wearing skimpy clothing is pretty thin. She says she’s doing it because she’s a “dee”, but in the videos she shows, she’s the only one who looks remotely like that. She shows herself walking her dog in fairly normal clothing, but claims she can’t do that on her videos. She thinks that unless she’s wearing absolutely skimpy clothing that someone’s going to mistake her for a boy. Sure…
For me, the imagery of hyper masculine leather daddies was a eureka moment (what a fucking sentence). I don’t think they’re doing it to be ‘marketable’ to women or men (on an immediately, trying to attract someone that day basis), it seems much more obviously just a style thing.
Plus, she’s right that she’d make more money with smaller breasts- a C-cup on her frame would probably appeal to more men, while looking natural enough that people like you might be interested in sharing her videos with others. I can’t imagine that’s new information for her (YouTube comments sections are not the most tactful places), so she probably would have tailored her look to appeal to more men over time, if that was her goal.
She thinks that unless she’s wearing absolutely skimpy clothing that someone’s going to mistake her for a boy.
I don’t think that’s likely at all, but I do believe her brain whispers that to her until she stops treating herself well. Mainly because truth is stranger than fiction- a 160 cm tall person (even in the most southern part of china, men’s average height is 168-170 cm) who has very long hair, shallowly set eyes, narrow shoulders, a high pitched voice and zero facial hair is not plausibly going to be mistaken for a man on a regular basis. That would be such a 4 year old lie to make up. Maybe she’s betting on that and it’s a ruse, but that’s a risky move if anyone who knows anything about Thai queer culture can out your lie.
the imagery of hyper masculine leather daddies
The point is, while they might dress up like that when going to a club, or while getting intimate with partners, they don’t tend to do that at their day jobs. And, if they did and their day job was presenting YouTube science / maker videos, I wouldn’t want to share their videos either.
She’s obviously free to do whatever she wants. Well… let me rephrase that. This article is about how she’s in China and has disappeared, so she’s obviously not free to do whatever she wants. But, as long as she’s within the margins of what’s acceptable on YouTube, she’s allowed to dress how she wants in her videos. Having said that, apparently she’s had videos demonetized for sexual content before. My point is just that as a potential consumer of her videos, I’d be more likely to watch and share them if what she wore wouldn’t result in HR violations in even the most freewheeling of tech startups.
It really doesn’t matter what her reasons for doing it are. Maybe it’s because she’s incredibly insecure about being seen as a boy. Maybe it’s because she’s a lesbian and part of a subculture that emphasizes a ridiculous take on the feminine form. Maybe she’s doing it because it attracts horny male viewers. It’s probably a mix of all those things, even if she doesn’t admit it. I wouldn’t want her kicked off YouTube, and don’t even think it’s reasonable to demonetize her content. But, personally, I’ll be watching and sharing other channels.
I don’t know if it’s in that video or a separate video, but she did talk about it in a specific video, and the short of it is, she was raised as a boy by her family and it messed her up for many years. Like, to the point where the trans community has adopted her to some degree for having had a similar experience to their experiences with gender dysphoria and other related psychological issues. So her dressing and looking like that is in part her embracing her feminity and the fact that she’s a woman. Kinda like that stereotype of the gay guy who comes out of the closet and starts acting “fruity” or whatever the term is. Or the trans woman who has a pigtails and overalls phase like having the childhood they never got to experience the first time.
