THE STAR: Renewed hope, healing, and self-development

My first piece for @dnptarot!!! The Star has always been my favorite card, and I thought a Basically I'm Gay theme fit the meaning well enough :]

[ID: Digital art of Daniel Howell, as an interpretation of the tarot card The Star. He wears the outfit from Basically I'm Gay, the sequin jacket fading into a star-filled view of space. He's surrounded by twelve larger white stars, and his expression is calm and happy. Faint rainbows from lens flare and lighting surround the piece. End ID]

"I think, as you may have clocked in the show, from a period of time when I was feeling a certain way. It was towards the end of 2021, early 2022, where I was a bit, like, I need to do something. I have been on this hiatus, there has been a literal pandemic, the vibes are not amazing, and so I very much was like, I want to... Look. With Basically I'm Gay, I wrote myself out of the closet. Right? I used the hell that my career has trapped me in as an obligatory way to force my hand to rip the plaster off and confront my sexuality. Which was a good thing! Without all of you, without the internet, who knows? I might be in the closet, being a sad lawyer right now. Legitimately. And it was kind of the same thing here. I was, like, I want to just start creating a piece of entertainment and then maybe I'll entertain myself out of a hole. And if I go on a tour, then I'll get to touch grass. I'll get to smell the fresh air of Chicago, Illinois and wherever the fuck. I guess Helsinki had fresh air. Shout out to Europe. Ehm, and yeah. It was literally like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? It was like writing the show and doing the show was the thing that I needed and here we are!" - Dan Howell, post-live premiere of we’re all doomed, 25th of February 2024

BIG and WAD are both such incredible things and I am emotional about the fact that he can sort out something so complex and private through sharing it with his audience.

Quotes from Dan (150/?)

ok ok everyone please, ignore for a moment that this is a clip of The Quote. please just ignore the words and look at dans body language cuz its killing me LMAOOOO

dan and phil appreciation week

day six: favourite solo video - dan version

Dan and Phil still refusing to outright acknowledge that they are in a relationship while clearly being in a relationship is a little bit funny but tbh if my fanbase spread a video about my most intimate and personal moments with my significant other for years and years after it was accidentally leaked all while I was still not out to my own family, I would also do everything in my power to keep as much of my love life away from them as humanly possible for the rest of my life

Honestly, big fat mood.

Basically I’m Gay (13.06.2019) for @dramaticallydnp

watching dan and phil videos again for some reason and GODDDD Basically I'm Gay still gives me SUCH a strong response emotionally. watching that video for the first time was literally an indescribable experience

Hey Phandom, I there's an article from Distracify with the headline "Dan Howell and Phil Lester's love story has captivated millions of Youtube viewers" that misquotes Dan from his coming out video. It generally passes it off as much more romantic and scandalous then the original quote.

[ID, text from article that reads: "It was more than just a love affair," the gamer explained of his relationship with his channel partner. "This is someone who genuinely cared about my health. I trusted them. For the first time since I was a tiny child, I felt safe... we are truly great friends. As in, true soulmates."]

The ACTUAL quote is:

"And obviously we were more then friends but it was more than just romantic. This is someone that genuinely liked me. I trusted them. And for the first time since I was a tiny child, I actually felt safe. And the relationship we formed at that point was something that I needed in my life. We are real best friends, companions through life, like actual soulmates, not that souls are a real thing that exist."

This misinformation is exactly why phan is so widely shipped. Even the headline implies that they're together. Please help respect Dan and Phil's boundaries and personal lives by pointing out this kind of misinformation to the rest of the Phandom. It's disrespectful and childish to spread information like this.

"This is when, through the magic of the internet, I met Phil"

- as written by Daniel Howell 21/09/22

My mum knows it's my favourite Basically I'm Gay quote, it even inspired this art i did, so got Dan to write it when she met him :')

We had taken a piece of paper with the quote written on it in case Dan didn't know the exact wording, but he literally glanced at it and went "aw yes" and then wrote it while looking SO SMILEY!

Next, some edits for your heart (cos bless him, Dan's handwriting in some of that is shit)

You are welcome x

oh i clipped this and forgot to post. anyway i love her so much

im going to be in a retirement home unable to remember my grandkids' names but 100% will genuinely be able to remember someone named dan howell talking about goddamn tortoises

tell me what the video Basically, I’m Gay means to you?

It was way past midnight for me when the video dropped. The first thing I felt when I saw the title was, inexplicably, fear.

Or well, I can guess at where the fear came from. I've known what it's like being outed, I've felt that same kind of fear every time a family member brought up anything queer, that feeling of "oh god they know, do they know? what's going to happen now?" and I've never quite gotten over it. I knew it was a long time coming, but over the years it has become such an unspoken thing, the elephant in the living room, that my knee jerk reaction was to brace myself. I remember immediately getting up and getting into the washroom, locking the door, knowing that whatever it is gonna be I'm probably gonna want some privacy with it XD

And I did, I laughed and cried and remembered the best and the worst parts of being queer, but what I loved was, it didn't just feel like a confessional or an address or vlog. It was a proper essay, it was divided up so well and coherently, taking the biographical elements and basing thematic segments based on the issues that crop up at each stage in the journey. It is incredibly personal as such things often are... but it remains to me first and foremost beautifully academic.

Maybe that makes it boring or less impactful for some people. Personally, I was never one to watch personal accounts of oppression and call them "poignant". I've read and seen plenty, I offer all the strength to people who share them, I see the merits of it, but none of those accounts stick with me. What has stuck with me, over the years, what has genuinely moved me, is political and academic accounts of oppression. I feel more seen in them, I feel like they go to the crux of the issue, I feel empowered by them.

Yk why? Because if Dan had just talked about how he was bullied and his fears and insecurities, too many people could have easily looked away. Too many people can see those accountants say "well I'm not like that". When I read academic and politically charged accounts of oppression what stood out was the clarity. There's no obfuscation, there's no mystification, there's no 'oppressed' with vague faceless figures of bullies ('oppressors'), there's named methods of oppression, of validating those oppressive systems in the smallest ways that people are quick to ignore. Even now within queer circles we see so many people reinforcing oppressive systems, being casually misogynistic and racist and transmisogynistic and a number of things that they look away from because "I'm queer I can't be oppressing myself".

I understand personal accounts and I think they're great, but I do not like when these things are pinned on faceless bullies and a nebulous idea of "society". Who is "society"? No one knows. This is why it mattered so much to me that Basically I'm Gay wasn't just a story about overcoming struggles but also a systemic exploration of power systems and various facets of existing as a queer person in a queerphobic world. You can't look away from that. And the reason it sticks with me is precisely because of that, because the topic is given the political seriousness which it calls for.

Ik, we've watched Dan grow up before our eyes, ik this is deeply personal for so many people. But I much prefer when it's political honestly. I much prefer when it's academic. And I am much more moved emotionally by it because I find it a lot more empowering. I don't wanna talk about how oppressed we are without talking about how we are oppressed, by whom are we oppressed, how are these systems being kept in place. That's what BIG means to me, something that didn't shy away from making it political when it could have been left personal.

“obviously”

versatile king

in regards to Noah Schnapp coming out some of y'all could use this reminder from Dan Howell's coming out video! you did not "know" someone's sexuality unless they told you