Fellas, Is It Gay

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About

"Fellas, Is It Gay" refers to a series of parody tweets that mock the idea of fragile masculinity and homophobia in which users ask if non-sexual or homoerotic things make one a homosexual.

Origin

The earliest known instance of someone on Twitter posting "Fellas, is it gay?" occured on May 20th, 2009 by Twitter^[1] user @BricksDF. That day, they tweeted (shown below), "Fellas it is considered gay if your in a public restroom and its open urinals but yo ass gets right next to a twigga!! Move down! Lol."

Precursor

Human beings questioning their sexuality is a common experience, as is the idea of mocking that experience, and predates Twitter. However, the earliest known instance of someone making this joke on Twitter happened May 11th, 2007. Twitter^[2] user @baddie tweeted, "Is it gay to like One Tree Hill? Please say no."

Spread

While "Fellas, is it gay" would be tweeted by numerous users over the next decade, it was not until August 2017 that the phrase became a viral phenomenon, reaching new levels of popularity after a tweet on August 10th, 2017. That tweet, Twitter^[3] user @ilooklikelilbil tweeted "FELLAS: Is It Gay To Pray ? You're Getting On Your Knees For Another Nigga ? 😳🤔" The post (shown below) received more than 4,000 retweets and 11,000 likes.

On August 20th, Twitter^[4] user @arizonablueme posted "fellas… is it gay to take out the trash? i mean men are trash so you basically taking out another man." The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 61,000 retweets and 155,000 likes. Three days later, Twitter^[5] user @datassque tweeted "fellas, is it gay to make money?? i mean youre just collecting pictures of other men 😳😳" The post (shown below, right) received more than 32,000 retweets and 96,000 likes.

Several media outlets covered the popularity of the meme, including BuzzFeed ,^[6] Mic^[7] and more.