Queerbaiting rule

I love that she has a blob fish friend just sitting there.
- Kilroy the Blob Fish

I absolutely find it annoying when romance is prioritized over friendship but this isn't quite what queerbaiting is. At least, not on its own. Two same sex/gender people being very close and sharing a strong connection or even having some romantic undertones that never become "official" isn't automatically queerbaiting. Those things can happen in real life without those relationships being or becoming romantic. Queerbaiting is when the writers/showrunners purposefully insert romantic subtext into the story and advertise it as if it will become canonically romantic with the primary intention of gaining more lgbt viewership, while never actually following through on those implied (or even occasionally explicitly stated) promises. The way it is presented and marketed is an important part of what makes it a problem, hence the "baiting" part. There's nothing wrong with keeping a relationship ambiguous, or portraying a platonic relationship as being as deep, important, and emotionally intimate as romantic ones are typically portrayed without making them romantic, but if you try to manipulate or outright lie to viewers to make them think a relationship is going to be something it isn't in order to gain their viewership and support, only to pull the rug out from under them, then that's when it becomes sleazy, especially if you're taking advantage of the fact that they're a marginalized and under-represented group desperate to see more people like them in media.
I know this is just a joke comic so "it's not that deep" but I see a lot of people online who misunderstand what queerbaiting is and accuse shows/series of queerbaiting unfairly so I thought I'd bring it up.
- The issue is that romance tends to be prioritized over friendship in media even for straight relationships, and so many romantic relationships are incredibly shallow or have very little reasoning behind them (the "I met this guy I have nothing in common with 2 days ago and we're so totally in love let's shoehorn in a sex scene" thing is played out so often for hetero romances) and LGBT relationships are so rare, that any subtext that even remotely hints at a queer romantic relationship has people grasping at straws. So companies use that to their advantage. They just dangle the barest hints of anything, because that's all they need to get people. And they dare not show anything more than the tiniest of subtext anyways, because anything LGBT is considered sexually explicit by default. Just look at how much the creators behind The Legend of Korra and Steven Universe had to fight for the queer romances in their respective shows. Both almost got cancelled because the writers wanted to show those relationships (and the Korra one was even completely unintentional, the writers just kinda realized it was developing over the course of the series and decided to go all in on it).
  Edit: Forgot the part where they don't openly hint at or mention it because they don't want to piss off the homophobes. They want to straddle that line that let's them have their cake and eat it too.
  
  The issue is that romance tends to be prioritized over friendship in media even for straight relationships
  This doesn't seem strange to me. Personally I do this. I'm ~~in a committed long term relationship~~ married, but even before that I prioritized romantic relationships above friendships. I don't get why this is weird (forgetting the exaggerated "I met this guy I have nothing in common with 2 days ago and we’re so totally in love" part).
- That was a very interesting read. Do you have any examples of queerbaiting or portrayed relationships that are commonly mistaken for queerbaiting in shows? Being a very boring stereotypical heterosexual, I've never paid attention to that, and I admit I haven't heard the term before today.
  
  I think the above comment was kind of blowing the comic out of proportion—I mean it’s a 4 panel comic it’s obviously not going to be able to give great nuance but I think it’s easy to read it as “proper” queerbaiting.
  Anyway, the Wikipedia page has a good list of examples if you’re interested in mainstream examples.
  Ones that stick out off the top of my head I’ve personally watched were Sherlock, and Teen Wolf and Rizzoli & Isles to a lesser extent.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting
  
  It's hard to think of off the top of my head because I admittedly have not gotten into a lot of the more popular examples, and a lot of them mix together, but a typical indication that someone is using the term wrong is if they try to point to evidence inside the show of how the couple should be canon because they have so much chemistry but the creators just won't commit and make it canon. Those are typically just people wearing shipping goggles using the word as a way to say "I want them to be canon, therefore they SHOULD be canon, but they're not, so it's queerbaiting" even though the creators have never at any point indicated that the two characters will ever be in a relationship in advertising, interviews, previous drafts of the script, or otherwise, and at most the actors may have joked about how the ship is popular or mentioned that they personally enjoy it (which isn't the same as using it in marketing or promotional material or teasing the possibility of it becoming canon). Queerbaiting can also take place even if a couple or sexuality DOES become canon if it's halfassed or skimmed over or done poorly. Some famous examples of this are Shiro and his relationships from VLD and Destiel from Supernatural.
  
  One rather infamous case of Queerbaiting was with the BBC's Sherlock. Watson and Sherlock have been a popular couple for decades and the show played around quite a bit with the idea. There's lots of essays on YouTube and the net about it if you want to dig into the details, but there are many jokes in the show about Watson and Sherlock being a couple, and hints that Sherlock at least is gay/bi. The running gag is Watson repeatedly telling people he isn't gay, but he still seems jealous of other characters who have eyes for Sherlock.
  All of this seemed to pretty deliberately play into the popularity of the pairing, with even a few nods to it in the show. But in the end, nothing came of it, and fans felt that they had been "baited" into watching and driving the popularity of the show without any payoff. In hindsight, the whole relationship had only been used as a joke and a lure, which was especially galling since representation of homosexuality in mainstream entertainment was still fairly rare. Thus did it receive the label of "Queerbaiting".
  Now for an example of something that's not queerbaiting (though it was sometimes referred to as such) we have Steven Universe. The short version is that there was a popular pairing between two female characters in the show, and one could easily assume they were an item since they lived together and were generally only seen with each other after a certain point in the show. However, their relationship was never officially confirmed and there were hints from an artist/writer of the show that they hadn't been allowed to be as explicit as they would've liked about it.
  So what makes this not queerbaiting? The biggest defense against the label is the context that Steven Universe as a whole was a very LGBTQ+-friendly show, featuring the most explicitly gay couple in the channel's history with two of the main characters. It also had a litany of other gay relationships and LGBT+ individuals. Further, the contentious couple was never officially disproven in the "it was all a joke!" sense of the previous example, it was just left open to interpretation. In total, it's clear the show wasn't using the couple purely as marketing and that the creator did genuinely care about LGBTQ+ representation.
  In summation, queerbaiting isn't just "the gay couple I wanted didn't happen." There has to be a deliberate effort on behalf of the showrunners to keep people watching by heavily hinting at a payoff that will never come.
  
  Hibike Euphonium anime is often accused of queer baiting even though they are just friends even on the original work.
  Even though Japan still doesn't have gay marriage, lgbt couples are well represented on their yaoi and yuri bubbles, so there's no need for authors to be sneaky about it and use queer bait.
  
  There's this "kids" show called Sakura card captor from the makers of X tv...
- Seems you didn't get the memo, 2 boys or 2 girls can't be besties now, they must be gay for each other so fanfics can have more weight.
  
  A guy and a girl being besties never stopped fanfic writers before. If media ain't gonna give queer people actual relationships, they'll just have to make their own (with blackjack, and hookers!).
- i think that what you are talking about might be related to Amatonormativity (and maybe Allonormativity a bit too)

- That's kind of sad.
  
  For both parties.
- as long as you're feeling settled-for, that's what counts
  
  My aunt once told my (then) 10 year old sister to "just marry a man you can stand". We keep wondering when aunt Wendy is going to kill her husband. He's a dick.
- I have a bi ex who broke up with me because she knew her lesbian friend group would ostracize her for dating a man. The queer community can be incredibly discriminatory against the bi part of itself
  
  It's always been the case unfortunately. Biphobia is as rampant among the LGBT community as homophobia is in the world at large. All the things that homophobes do to gay men, they'll happily turn around and do to bi men.
  
  The queer community can be incredibly discriminatory against the bi part of itself
  Or the trans part of itself. Or the questioning part of itself. Or probably the lesbian and gay parts, let alone the +. It sucks, but it turns out queer folks are just, well... Folks. So we gotta work on that.
  
  sad to see that the scene from chasing amy still rings true
- settle
  Uh. I hope she isn't using that particular word when talking about you friend.

- No there is a difference I guess. Like personally I love brooklyn nine nine and Kevin and Holt are my all time favourite couple, period. It doesn't matter if they are gay or not, they are just perfect. But on the other hand I had to quit modern family midway because I can't tolerate cam. Mitch is a very good character but Cam feels very over the top. Online I have seen that people just love cam and sure he has his moments too. But I cannot stand him in general. So I believe there is a psychological line for every one. Now people may differ from my opinion and I have no qualms with that, entertainment is for enjoyment and it is actually beautiful that different people have different tastes. I just shared my opinion.
  
  To me, that just applies to relationships in shows in general. Some are just completely unnecessary, and sometimes that extends to queer ones too, but it's not the queerness that is to blame, it's the forced or uncomfortable romance.
  I think romance is overused in shows in general, but I suppose it makes sense since it does make up a lot of people's existence, so I guess it's something to be tolerated.

I can't believe the amount of people in the comments that have never seen queerbaiting, I guess none of them watched Supernatural
- You can’t convince me that Naruto and Sasuke were not meant for each other. Hinata and Sakura have like 0 chemistry with them.
  
  You can't convince me they don't angry fuck on the side
  
  Shockingly relevant.
- I never finished supernatural. What was the qieerbaiting in that? I swear to the gods if you say "Dean didn't fuck Sam" I'm gonna lose all hope in humanity.
  
  Did you never make it to season 4? Castiel and Dean are probably the most popular ship for that show.

You me an everything to me.
Keming is hard.
- Do you mean Kerning?
  But by spelling it Keming you’re making a meta joke?
  This is some level of obscure typographical humour that I’m surprised so many people get.
  Am I just a word format humour Luddite?
  
  There was (is?) a subreddit called r/keming about bad kerning.
  
  by spelling it Keming you’re making a meta joke?
  Yes.
- Does it count as kerning when it's hand-written?
  
  Technically, no. The kern is/was the overhang of part of a letter over a type block's edge. But, if we can make the jump and can apply the concept to digital fonts, then I can make the jump and apply it to handwritten text.

I don't know why, but I read her voice the same as the hydraulic press guy saying "what ze fuck"

"with whom I have no meaningful connection with"
Oh it hurts to read.
- Author confirmed as member of the Department of Redundancy Department!

It would be nice if the people who post these comics would give credit to the artist.

What kind of top is the one our blue girl is wearing?
- probably layering a spaghetti strap cami over a tshirt
  edit: if you’re also curious about the necklines, the tshirt is crew and the cami is sweetheart
  
  Username checks out

Idk if you guys know this but you can have a best friend without FUCKING THEM, YOU FILTHY FUCKING ANIMALS
- A real friend wants their friends to be happy. Maybe think about that next time you selfishly decide not to go down on them.
  
  Boooo don't make this sort of joke at strangers you nasty slime

what is this thing next to her on the couch? I want it.
- Depressurized blobfish
  
  Is there a Plush of this?
- A friend.
- It is the rotting corpse of a fish that lives in the higher pressure of the deep ocean after being turned basically inside out by being pulled up to the surface by humans trawling the seabed.
  It is a mascot for how we humans fuck shit up for our own amusement, right up there with the pug.

Hey op, who is the comic author ?
- Blobby and Friends :)

Blue Eye Samurai, where the mc binds her chest and hides her neck, talks about being born different from everyone else, and insists on he/him pronouns. Then the producers are like "yeah she just pretends to be a guy because it makes her life easier".
- I think you're underselling it a bit. The implication is mc would be killed for not following customs etc... Not so much "easier" as "possible".
  
  that's a fair reason for the character to cross-dress, but I'm talking about the author's motivation

Ah It doesn't matter what gender any person is, but if two people have a strong bond, and one of those people has a strong bond with someone else too, an unfortunate part of being human is that there's only so much of one person to go around. Can't spend all your time with everyone. You have to pick someone. I know a magical man like that, there's not enough of him to go around. Everybody wants him. He has to pick someone. Otherwise the best he can do is have parties all the time so everybody can be around him all the time.
- Can he not start a harem?
  
  I wish he would. Problem is women get jealous. That's human nature. One of his ex-girlfriends actually committed suicide because she perceived that he had broken her heart.

Girl is developing a very clear relationship with another girl, building over multiple arcs. And then a different author gets to write a book and instead of even trying to be subtle he just has the characters up on stage, announcing how they feel (it makes me feel angry):
Chandra had never been into girls. Her crushes — and she’d had her fair share — were mostly the brawny (and decidedly male) types like Gids.

I also hate the ones where they develop a chemistry but then never go anywhere besides being friends and the story ends when its so clear they are developing to be more than friends
- Hey, save some representation for us ace folks. Not every show/movie needs to have the main character smashing pissers with someone. Let close queer platonic friends just be what they are.

Which Love Actually sub-story is this?

I can think of literally zero examples of this. Apparently I'm watching the wrong shows? (Or perhaps, the right shows?)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting
  Has examples.
  
  Some of those seem a bit reaching. Will and Mike, seriously?
- Just rewatched Bridesmaids and it fits this pretty well.
- Queerbaiting is almost exclusively a thing that happens in badly written shows