If Nostalgia Were A Sport...

Looking Back In Order To Look Forward

Imagine growing up with a football player’s build, but just wanting to be a (male) cheerleader. Get to go to the games, hang out with the girls, and not really have to understand the rules. Go, Team!

While I was forced to play a couple of soccer seasons, sports were never my cup of tea. Eventually, my parents gave up on “encouraging” me to develop my supposed athletic abilities. Go, Team!

All these years later, imagine my excitement to realize I’ve become something of a virtual cheerleader (and occasional bouncer) to a growing community of gay and bi men of a certain age. According to YouTube, over 90% of the channel’s viewers are men over the age of 45. Like myself. Go, Team!

As I experiment with different ways of slicing and dicing montages of men for this motley, sometimes restless crowd, I’m always excited when something that’s very personal to me resonates with a wider audience. Go, Team!

GETTING BIGGER = BETTER

While my “work” has been seen by even bigger audiences before, it was always to help promote other people’s work, made as an employee or work for hire.

The YouTube channel is just me, doing my thing. Or trying my best to.

In making mostly montages about vintage men, I’ve found a small-but-growing community of modern men who enjoy a few of my favorite things:

Art, History, and Photography.
Of course, the common denominator is men.

I may be gay, but let me make it very clear: I LOVE WOMEN. I just don’t want to have sex with them. (I’m sure the feeling is mutual. lol)

The truth is most of my favorite people are/have been women. Most.

But since YouTube’s Al/Algorithm doesn’t like it when I make videos about women, I don’t very often. And if I do, it’s for the Too Channel.

At almost 7K subscribers now, here’s why I think my little montages are relatively popular:

Most men are feeling unloved and unseen by society as a whole. Especially gay men of a certain age…many survivors of a plague that decimated so many nears, dears, and queers.

Being a white, cisgender man isn’t as much a “privilege” anymore. To some, just looking like guys that did/do BAD xit is enough to make you guilty by association.

But history is full of guys who do/did GOOD xit too. My little montages are about focusing on the the good stuff. I’m attempting to find what Dolly Parton calls “that common light” (when I’m not blocking asshats for complaining and mansplaining):

“When I meet someone, I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first - it's easy to find when you're looking for it. You let a person shine with their own light and try to connect it to yours. As soon as I say hello, I go right to that light and I don't care who you are! I know we're all pieces of the same thing - I go for that common light because I know it's in all of us.”

Dolly Parton

AN ARTIST WORTH KNOWING

It’s Friday morning as I write this and I’m feeling both anxious and excited about the latest video I posted earlier. It’s about the English artist Henry Scott Tuke.

Famous for his impressionistic paintings of young men, boats, and/or the sea, I’ve always been leery of recommending Tuke’s work because folks can be so touchy about nudity.

Especially when it comes to nude young men.
Especially when made by gay older men.

But I recently read the following quotes (cited in the video) that helped (re)shape my point-of-view about the artist and his subjects:

“Famously, the models all said in later life that Tuke never exploited them or made untoward suggestions.... Tuke was never accused of sexual impropriety in his relations with boys and young men.”

Cicely Robinson
Author, Henry Scott Tuke

Go, Team! Yet another gay who wasn’t a “groomer” in today’s lame parlance.

From my limited research, many of his models became life-long friends. Some even became chosen family…long after their modeling days were over.

“While twenty-first century eyes are more likely to view them with suspicion, as covertly sexual, the success and popularity of these works makes it clear that the bathing boy or youth was a completely legitimate genre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and many such paintings adorned the walls of exhibitions, galleries and homes not only in Britain but through Europe and beyond.

“For most artists and viewers this motif was about health, vigour and charm, a depiction of a childhood far from the evils and social problems of modern city life. Thus, the subject was innocent of any sexual interest; indeed, these works would have been seen as the very antithesis of the erotic.”

Michael Hatt
Contributor, Henry Scott Tuke

If you’re not familiar with Henry Scott Tuke, I encourage you to add him to your list.

Thanks for reading!
Clint

P.S. I was nervous about how this video would be received, so I started writing this post instead of checking and rechecking the analytics. The good news is it seems to be doing just fine. Go, Team!

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