52. Gayming: Level Up Your Sense of Community (with Jonathan Steele)

Snarky Opener (0:00)

Jonathan Steele

You can create a character, whatever you want to be. In the current campaign that I'm playing, I am—can I say big-breasted?

Rob Loveless

Sure.

Jonathan Steele

A big-breasted tiefling monk.

Episode Introduction (0:32)

Rob Loveless

Hello, my LGBTQuties, and welcome back to another episode of A Jaded Gay. I'm Rob Loveless, and today I am a jaded gay because I have just been in the feels all day.

And then I went to Mass earlier, and I was walking back to my house listening to Don't Cry for Me, the acapella version by Whitney Houston.

And I almost cried walking home, just all in the feels. And I mean, my Reiki teacher says it's a good thing to cry, just let the emotions flow. And believe me, close to flowing here.

So, hoping the emotions just ease out and level off a bit.

Gayming (1:01)

Rob Loveless

But anyway, one thing that will definitely help with the emotions I'm excited about today is my friend John is joining us.

We actually connected over the pandemic via Instagram and met in person for the first time last year. And he is a big fan of board games, video games. We love it.

So, through hanging out with him over the past year, he's invited me to some game days with his friends who are awesome.

And as some of you may know there is a subculture in the gay community called gaymers. G-A-Y-M-E-R-S. So, I thought, who better to dissect this topic with me than him?

So, we'll hear from John in a bit. But first, tarot time.

Tarot (1:37)

Rob Loveless

Okay, so the card for this episode is the Two of Cups in reverse. Now, as you know, Cups is in the Minor Arcana. It's tied to the element of water, which is symbolic of emotions.

You can think of emotions flowing freely, like me, almost crying on the way home from mass. It's also feminine energy, so it's tied to more meditation, reflection.

And in numerology, the number two is typically tied to partnership, balance, and duality. But when we draw this card in reverse, it's indicating that there may be a sense of disharmony in our lives.

Usually, the Two of Cups is typically tied to relationships, so when we see this disharmony in reverse, it's usually signifying a breakup.

But that's not necessarily the case because this card could be about self-love. You know, love in any form, it starts with loving ourselves.

So, we might be in a state of disharmony where we're not choosing appropriately, you know, situations, people, we're not focusing on what makes us happy.

We're just kind of maybe stretching ourselves too thin, or not really paying attention to what we want. So, it's really important to remember that we can say no to things.

And that we should say no to things that don't bring us happiness, because we need to start with our own foundation, our own core, in getting to a place of compassion for ourselves, self-compassion, and self-love.

And since this card is tied to feminine energy, we really should take the time to focus and reflect on what those things are that truly make us happy.

Not for the validation of others, not for the attention of others, but for ourselves. You know, the things that help us love ourselves a little bit more.

And by doing that, we can overcome the sense of disharmony and better align ourselves for better situations on the horizon.

Guest Introduction (3:02)

Rob Loveless

So, with that being said, let's get into the topic. I am very excited to introduce our next guest.

He is saving lives by day and slaying virtual zombies by night. Please welcome my friend, John.

Jonathan Steele

Hi everyone. I'm Jonathan Steele.

Rob Loveless

Well, thanks for coming on today, John. You know, just to start off, I ask all my guests this.

Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself, how you identify, all that fun stuff?

Jonathan Steele

Yeah, so my name is Jonathan Steele. I identify as bisexual, male-leaning, single, and maybe I have a face for podcasting, and this could be a catalyst to a new career. Who knows?

Rob Loveless

There you go. And just to kick things off today, are you an honorary jaded or non-jaded gay?

Jonathan Steele

I want to say jaded, just in case I'm wrong, please let me know. But I don't know if any of your guests have said they're jaded yet, so I want to be the first one.

But overall, I'm non-jaded. You know, I have a lot of good things going for myself right now, and I'm doing pretty good. Job could always get better, but it's getting there.

What is Gayming? (4:02)

Rob Loveless

Awesome. Well, let's kick things off. Truthfully, you know, I didn't really know where to start with this topic, so I figured I'd start off with the definition.

So, as you know, gaymers are people who love video games and board games and the gaymers we're talking about, it's a combination of the word gay and gamers.

So according to Wikipedia, it's an umbrella term for LGBTQ+ identifying individuals who have an active interest in video games and tabletop games.

So first off, with that definition in mind, do you identify as a gamer?

Jonathan Steele

I definitely think I fit under that umbrella, yes.

Rob Loveless

Okay, and your own personal definition. What does being a gaymer and gayming mean to you?

Jonathan Steele

So, I believe being a gaymer with a G-A-Y, you know, that means that you're somewhere under the spectrum and in real life, you know, or perhaps you're curious when you're playing games.

You know, games, we'll get into that. But you know, games offer you that, that freedom.

You know, maybe you want to romance that hot male character, or, you know, maybe you want to be the the big busty woman. That's part of the character customization.

And then with gayming, G-A-Y-M-I-N-G, you know, the gayming community, that's where you can find people to, you know, be with online that you wouldn't have in person.

You know, there's not a lot of people that are blessed to have a lot of LGBTQ people around them to play with and online gives you that opportunity.

You can meet chat groups and just play games online.

Rob Loveless

So, there was a lot there that you said. I, you know, we're definitely going to circle back to the community piece. I know we're talking about that later on.

One thing I did want to jump into that immediately stood out to me was, you're talking about the big, busty female characters, which I think most of us gay boys or bisexual boys growing up, at least it seems like it's a common theme online, that a lot of us chose Princess Peach in a lot of the Mario games.

Jonathan Steele

Well, she was, you know, putting my nerd glasses on real quick.

You know, she was part of the lighter class, so she's a little bit faster, a little bit better acceleration. So, yeah, I chose her as well, you know, too.

Rob Loveless

Oh yeah. I chose her in everything from, like, Mario Party to Mario Kart. I mean, she also had the coolest cars.

But then also, Super Smash Bros, she had that like, little, like side hip thing where there was, like an explosive in her dress. I don't know, but you just.

Jonathan Steele

Smash Bros Melee's booty bump.

Rob Loveless

Yeah. A little ha-cha! And, like, exploded. Just right, and you got the umbrella, you, like, knock people off the edge. It was, I mean, so definitely, by far the best.

But, like, in terms of abilities. But also, I don't know. Guess there was just that draw there.

And also, when I got a little bit older and realized, like, oh, boys, pick boy characters, I would lean towards Toad instead of her.

But I feel there is, like, a queerness to Toad as well.

Jonathan Steele

Well, I can't even think of the voice, and I'm not going to perform it on this podcast, my goodness. But, you know, Toad's in his own lane.

He's following his own thing, but he could be part of the the umbrella as well. I don't know.

Rob Loveless

I'm trying to think, how his voice. It's like, all right.

Jonathan Steele

Wow, Mario.

Rob Loveless

Well, so going off of that, can you tell us a little bit about how you leaned into the gaymer identity, and did you always love video games and board games growing up?

Jonathan Steele

Yes, as you've come to see that I'm very competitive. So, for as long as I can remember, I loved to play video games and board games.

You know, this will show my age, but I do remember playing my dad's Atari. Do you know Atari?

Rob Loveless

I do. Actually, my dad had the original Nintendo. He got it as, like, my parents, like, when their engagement party got as, like an engagement gift.

And so, growing up, we actually had, like, the first Nintendo, the cartridges.

We had, like, blow into it, which it says you're not supposed to do on there, but to get the dust out, we had like, Duck Hunter and The Legend of Zelda and the original Mario Bros on there.

And my dad still has it. And, like, over 30, almost 40 years now, it's still going strong.

Jonathan Steele

But Rob, I said, Atari, do you know that?

Rob Loveless

I know it, but I never had it. So, with my own video gaming, like, I had a Game Boy when I was a kid, and then the first, like, actual gaming system, beyond that was a Game Cube.

And I think I was, like, in fourth grade, then, yeah.

Jonathan Steele

I have pretty much all of Nintendo's systems. But yeah, so anybody listening to the podcast, Google, Google Atari. And, you know, pray for my, pray for my bones.

But going back to that, my cousins, you know, my brother and I, we all like to play board games growing up, and I always had that group of people to play with.

And then, you know, I always saw them weekly. We hung out a lot, and it was just a lot of fun. But I loved that games could bring people together.

I think I told you in one of our first meetings, you know, I like to play some games like backgammon and stuff because you can still talk with the people.

So, any, any games that you can still have a conversation and just mess around and BS with people and then play the game like I really like those.

And then also my grandfather played, he played board games with me. I never won against him. Never won against chess with him, either.

But he used to always say, you know, how else are you going to learn? So, he was always brutal.

And but you've seen my collection of board games at my house shout out to the wonderfully chaotic Jungle Speed as my friend Drew, if he's gonna listen, shapes or colors, Drew shapes or colors.

Frustrates him. I’ll have to show you that game one day. But you know other games that I've really liked Killer Bunnies, Betrayal, which I know you've played with us.

Rob Loveless

Yes, I ended up actually buying that for myself after I played that with you guys.

Jonathan Steele

Excellent. It grows. Photosynthesis, Wingspan, Dead of Winter, just to name a few of mine.

And then online, I play an assortment of Nintendo Switch games, PC, PS5 games. In like the tactical genre, RPGs, JRPGs, and first-person shooters.

And if I have to translate any of these, please let me know.

Rob Loveless

Yeah, can you give us the breakdown of what those acronyms are?

I know some of them, but just in case, anybody listening out there doesn't know them.

Jonathan Steele

No problem. So, RPGs, role-playing games. So that's where you're a character and you level up abilities, skills, your strength, health, everything.

And you just go around do a whole bunch of side quests. Skyrim comes to mind. And then JRPGs is just Japanese role-playing games. So that's typically in the anime umbrella.

And that's a whole other episode for another day. We can talk about anime stuff. But one of the ones that I think of is like Tales of Symphonia, and I know that's coming out.

I think it's on the PS5 market. I saw somebody online downloading that, and you can get it for the Switch.

The Queer Appeal of Video Games (10:37)

Rob Loveless

So, you know, I love with all these episodes, I try to find as much research as I can if there is research.

Some of them don't, don't have as much research, like the house plants and gays episode I did recently. Not a ton of research.

But I did come across this, which I thought was interesting. A UK games industry census, so across the pond, not here in the United States, it's from 2020.

It stated that 21% of all people working in the UK gaming industry identified as LGBTQ+.

So, I was wondering, why do you think there is such a strong tie in between the LGBTQ+ community and gaming?

Jonathan Steele

Everybody's experiences are different growing up, but I feel like there is a general sense of isolation when you're growing up.

Maybe there's bullying or you don't have that group of people, and maybe that that sense of community yet.

And with with all of that, you know, maybe you feel isolated from the world and you just need an escape.

So, we'll probably go into this a little bit later, but part of playing games with me, it was just a form of escapism from the stress of the world in life.

And video games provided that freedom without judgment, because you're a character doing a specific thing, maybe saving the world, or you're fighting people, Smash Bros Melee, or just playing a simple card game.

But like the LGBTQ community and gayming there, there are games, if you've heard of them, like the Dragon Age series and Mass Effect.

They give you the ability to romance an assortment of straight, bi, and gay characters. You can have male, female, and alien. It's Mass Effect.

And then there's other games, like my first introduction, maybe with it was like Dragon Age Origins. And they're characters like Zevrin and Morgan, and I can show you photos of them.

I did, I did bring photos just in case, but yeah. And sometimes, when I hear stories of other people growing up, you know, I do consider that I only considered myself lonely.

When I was growing up bisexual wasn't a thing. It was you were straight or you were gay. There's, if you're in between it was an air quote placeholder.

So, kind of just kept my mouth shut half, more than half the time. But you know, I dealt with all that.

Like you don't exist. You know, you're, you're lying to the world, and you're supposed to be on one end of the spectrum.

So, it was just nice to play some games where I could escape into that world and just be who I wanted to be. And I, you know, I wasn't bullied to my face, at least.

So, I was fortunate enough to just have an easier time growing up than others. And, yeah, Dragon Age just provided that little bit of escapism.

Sorry, I'm going on a rant.

Rob Loveless

No, and I'm here saying the word escapism, which really kind of jumps out to me because, in past episodes, I think it went back to the pop icons and their gay emotional appeal.

You know, in a book called Straight Jacket, they actually had talked about, you know, the four there's more, like four core pillars within pop music that attract gays, and one of them is a sense of escapism.

And that was really big with a lot of disco music. It's kind of a futuristic, different sound where people could escape on the dance floor.

So, think this is a similar phenomenon, just a different side of the spectrum there.

So, I also found a 2022 article published in The Guardian that talks about queer representation in video games.

And in it, there's this really interesting quote from Stephanie DeBiase, gaming and future tech coordinator at the youth-focused It Gets Better Project, and she says:

“We’re seeing games feature LGBTQIA+ characters, queer coming out stories, and queer relationships. More and more, games are giving players more options to create characters that reflect them, removing binary gender selection, building character customization that allows for subversive and nuanced gender expression, including non-binary pronoun options, and more. Games that offer the opportunity for romance are starting to allow players LGBTQIA+ romance options. This representation is not only making games more enjoyable for LGBTQIA+ players but also helping gamers explore their queerness in safe, virtual spaces.”

So, what are your thoughts on this?

Jonathan Steele

Character customization has really become a huge thing with modern-day games, and started off slow in the past.

And it's really picked up speed, where they really let you, you know, you can be male or female.

I think some of the games, and I could be wrong, but I do feel like some of the games kind of lets you have that ambiguity, you know, allows you to it just lets you represent how you want, how you want to represent yourself in the game.

And just lets the person create the character however they want to be. And I do think that that's a very, very good step forward for LGBTQ+ people.

You know, there's, there's games, like, can I go into get other games?

Rob Loveless

Yeah, definitely.

Jonathan Steele

So, like, one of the ones I thought immediately is Dungeons & Dragons, especially with Stranger Things being such a popular show on Netflix that the the D&D genre has really become mainstream.

Even on Amazon Prime, there's like The Legends of Vox Machina. It's, I'm going down long tangents, but that's that's a show from critical role. It's a bunch of voice actors that just get together, play a game, and they have like three different, they D&D, and they have like, four-hour episodes on YouTube. I have an unlimited plan now.

So, I listen to episodes on the way to work, but focusing John. Dungeons & Dragons, you can create a character whatever you want to be in the world.

There's there's the the players' handbook that lets you do that gives you the character races that you want to be.

You know, like the couple of campaigns that I've been been in, I've been a half-orc barbarian named Barb. It's a funny little backstory joke, and I wasn't really creative with the name. I apologize.

But he was a barbarian that his goal in life was to run the best inn and have the best insert fruit betty recipe.

So, on top of raging and killing monsters, I am plundering people's kitchens for their best recipe. And then in the current campaign that I'm playing, I am, can I say big-breasted?

Rob Loveless

Sure.

Jonathan Steele

A big-breasted tiefling monk, and she is part of the Kardashian monastery, which has come to be a lie. And you're, you're slowly seeing that I'm that gentle chaos in people's lives.

But yes, I'm part of the Kardashian monastery, and I have like, these big Louis Vuitton heels. Um, clickity clack, I'm a monk.

I don't know if I said that, Astro monk, but that alone, you know, I could be whoever I want. I am, you know, obviously, tieflings don't exist in the world, half orcs don't exist.

You can be a human if you want. You know, don't worry.

Rob Loveless

Where's the fun in that?

Jonathan Steele

But where's, yeah, exactly, where's the fun in that? Outside of like, an extra, like ability score bonus that I think you can pick. There's variants.

There's a whole bunch of stuff. Basically, summing it all up, it's, it's such an uh, there's so many options out there for people that they can be who they want to be.

Summing it up succinctly, be who you want to be.

Rob Loveless

So, I know you just gave us a few of those there, but are do you have any other favorite queer video games?

Jonathan Steele

Um, so I mentioned Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but some of the other ones that I've been playing. There's Hades, which I don't know if I've ever introduced you to.

It's a, you can play it on the Switch. You can play it on PC. But Greek mythology, check, check that box, yes, please.

A hot, I can't remember if he is listed as bisexual online or pansexual, but you can romance both options, essentially, and but anyway, hot male protagonists, Greek mythology, check the box, check the box.

And awesome music and just, it's a fun game. And, you know, COVID did a lot of things to us the last couple years, and I successfully fended these kinds of games off for a while, but I did download, Dream Daddy.

It's okay. You can laugh. It's okay, Dream Daddy. So, in that game, you are somebody that moves to town. You have a daughter; I think she's like mid teenager.

And you just meet dads at various assorted locations in the town, and you just play little like games with them, talk with them.

Depending on your responses, you air quotes, romance them, and like, get to go on more dates with them. And the one I, one I ended up with, he was a ginger daddy that had a corgi.

So, you know, you got a corgi or a dog, that's, that's what I want. And then the other one I downloaded was Boyfriend Dungeon. Oh yeah, and this is gonna be on a podcast.

So, Boyfriend Dungeon, it's another dating sim dungeon crawler, and that one, you find weapons within the dungeon and level them up and level up your relationship with them. Now, why did I say that?

Because the weapons transform into guys or girls. And then you can also befriend a cat, but I never made it that far in the game. I put it down after a while, but I guess you can.

The cat gives you brass knuckles, which is kind of awesome, but I never, never got that far.

But yeah, you level up your relationship with those weapons by just interacting with them, talking with them, and then using them in the dungeon.

Rob Loveless

And who couldn't use tips on leveling up a relationship honestly?

Jonathan Steele

Right?

Community & Gayming (20:54)

Rob Loveless

So, you know, also, doing some research for this episode, I saw that there are tons of gamer groups for local cities.

And I was wondering, does Pittsburgh have a group, or are there any other groups that you belong to?

Jonathan Steele

And I'm so sorry, Pittsburgh. If there are groups in the city, but I just, I did not find any. I was in preparation for this.

I was trying to look up and find them, but I know there, Pittsburgh is a very gay-friendly city. There's a large community, and everybody has like, their own respective clubs. But I didn't find a gayming club.

So, I'm sorry if I let anybody down. At me in the comments and make yourselves known. I don't know if you have comments. I'm just saying that.

Rob Loveless

They get in touch sometimes.

Jonathan Steele

They'll find, you know, if we plug our socials later, and then they'll just message me angrily. I don't know.

Rob Loveless

Oh yeah, you'll be tagged in all the socials. So, they'll know who to come after.

Jonathan Steele

Yes, it's yes. But I am also involved with just a couple different friends group, friend groups that have people within the LGBTQ spectrum. I do the Stonewall bowling league, so that's always fun.

And that was a really big step for me because I've never been part of the, of the community until last year, whenever I was starting to do the well, first off, I could never get into bowling, because it was so popular, and you had to really be on your game, even if you're at work.

And then when registration came up, you had to, like, sign up. But that's beside the point. Started doing it. It was a lot of fun. And then the different board game groups that I'm in, and D & D.

You know, Joe, Cody, we play games with. And then I have Leah and Amber in the D & D. Joe and Cody are also with the D & D. Then there's a game called, Here's the Storm from Blizzard. It did die.

Well, air quote, die. Blizzard stopped updating it. So, sad face. But over COVID, I met two or three Canadian friends, and then one friend who is a straight ally.

He's in the military. In I don't know well, he's in the military. I'll say that I don't want the rules and I don't want an air drone attack. And I'd actually met Dan from Here's the Storm last Montreal Pride.

So that was a lot of fun. New city. Never been there before, never been to a Pride outside of Pittsburgh, and got to meet him. It's really cool.

Rob Loveless

I mean, it does seem like there is a pretty tight-knit community for gaymers online and in person. Then I know there are some more, like, famous gaymers.

Now this is just for me Googling to get like, a list of some of these people, but when I did that for you know, famous gaymers, the search results listed Jacksepticeye, VanossGaming, DanTDM, Markiplier, PewDiePie, which I've actually heard of him before, Jordan Maron.

I don't know anything about them or what they identify as, but Google says they're gaymers. So, I was wondering, do you know about these gaymers? Do you follow them? Or who do you follow?

Jonathan Steele

Well, Google may have led you down the wrong rabbit hole. I don't know some of them, but I have heard of Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, and PewDiePie.

PewDiePie had a very huge, especially him, because he had a huge YouTube channel way back in the day, and just loading videos, and he was kind of off the wall and animated, and just acted funny.

And sometimes it just made you laugh. Again, escapism, but, and I do believe that they are straight.

Rob Loveless

Oh, sad.

Jonathan Steele

I know. Oh no. But, you know, not saying, you know, 2023 can't be fluid and be wherever you want to be. But I think all of them do have wife's wives/girlfriends. And then...

Rob Loveless

So, Google did lie.

Jonathan Steele

I'm clutching my pearls that don't exist. But. But yes, no. And if you didn't see in the Google research as to there was some drama.

They, I mean, they did Google probably just, you know, led you down that rabbit hole because there was the drama and the rumors. But that's part of like just being online.

People are going to say what they want to say, and there was just the controversy years back that they may be... their sexuality was questioned.

But then I know there was also drama with PewDiePie with, I think he was like spotting anti-Semitism, had stuff like that.

Rob Loveless

Oh shit.

Jonathan Steele

Yeah, we don't like that. But that's, that's, yeah, we don't talk about.

Rob Loveless

Sorry for bringing him up then. We do not support that on this show.

Jonathan Steele

No, we do not. And I don't. I don't know if he apologized. I think he did, but sorry, PewDiePie.

Rob Loveless

Well, then it's a good thing he's not a gay. Give us a bad reputation.

Jonathan Steele

Yeah. But I do also follow, like quite a few Twitch, Twitch streamers and some gaymer Well, I follow quite a few Twitch streamers, and some of them are part of the gayming community.

So, there's like GorillaGayming with the G-A-Y gayming, PixelManta, BranMci, Jay Cottz1, and JustinPlus. And then through Twitter, recently, I met ChaoticallyDaniel and RoyallyDavid.

Some I found, like I said, and some of them I found on Twitter. And then some I found because they were streaming a game that I was interested in.

And then some I followed because of thirst, you know?

Rob Loveless

Yeah, you sent me some of those pictures, and I need to know how I can level up so I can look like them.

Jonathan Steele

Listen, yeah, the ones I sent Rob were from Jay Cottz, and we'll get into him, I think in a little bit.

But, you know, but most of the thirst is gone now. And you know what they call that?

Rob Loveless

What?

Jonathan Steele

Growth.

Rob Loveless

There you go.

Jonathan Steele

Growth. But it's also, it's just fun to chat with the viewers, chat with the streamer within that community because it does really feel like a safe space.

And plus, sometimes I'm just introduced to games that I've never heard of. I know sometimes Twitch streamers will play like the newest, hottest game that's out there, and cool.

I get to watch it before I buy it. But then they find some obscure ones that are on sale on Steam. It's an online platform, you can buy games. And I've sometimes, it just looks fun and I buy it myself.

Rob Loveless

So, before we get into talking about McStreamy, can you tell me a little bit more about Twitch and Discord and how they work?

Jonathan Steele

Sure, yeah, we can go into some of that. So, Twitch, and you said Discord, right?

Rob Loveless

Yeah.

Jonathan Steele

Yeah, Twitch and Discord. So, I'll start with Twitch. That is just a platform online where people can play games, chat with their audience. There is audience participation.

You get, like, viewer points, air quoting every so often with intervals. I've never really analyzed how often it happens, but you build up, like, viewer points, and then you can cash those points in for the streamer to do something.

Could be as innocent as, like, stretch, highlight my message, hydrate. I've seen that's a lot of them. And I mean, I wish somebody would remind me to hydrate at work, but yeah, you can say hydrate.

And then some of them, with some of the streamers, like the guy I sent to you, he can do like, titty bounce.

Rob Loveless

Speaking of big busty ladies.

Jonathan Steele

Yes. T-I-D-D-Y, just, I don't know, maybe because he's the man. So, pec bounces, but yeah.

You know he can. You can do that. I think on his, on his channel, too, like, if you save up enough, like he, he does have a shirt on, like half, I'll say half the time. I'll give him some credit.

But you can, as the as a viewer, you could pay enough points from watching that he'll take it off. Woo, get those dollars out. You, you invited a chaotic person into this podcast, Rob. Yes.

Oh, and then sometimes, with the audience participation, there's a game, there's a website called Stream Raiders.

So, it's while you're watching them, you can also go to this website where they're the, they're the team captain, and it's just like monster battles online, and you put like little characters in.

Just fun little participation. And then Discord, it's basically a platform where, it could be as simple as like you and I, if we're playing a game online, we could and if, let's say that game doesn't have a chat function, or it doesn't have the best way to chat online, we could open up Discord on like our phones and just chat with each other.

Or for plain PC, we can do Discord, just chat with with each other that way. It's also part, it's an easy way for it's called Discord servers, where, like with JayCottz1 or JustinPlus, I've mentioned those just for a second, but like, you can go on those Discord servers and just chat with people that you were chatting within that, in that stream, like, so just a whole bunch of back and forth.

I think people can upload things. I just really got away from those servers because you got to turn off notifications.

Because if there's, like, thousands of members on that Discord server, your phone just blows up. And I'm like, yeah, notifications off.

Episode Closing (30:45)

Rob Loveless

Well, I think we covered a lot here, so just kind of to close it up. What advice do you have for anyone interested in getting involved in the gaming community?

Jonathan Steele

I honestly, I would say, just put yourself out there and interact. You never know who you're going to meet up there.

And don't be shy, because I sometimes I would just lurk in the background with some of these streamers.

And once I got comfortable and was, like, actually putting myself out there, especially in Twitch, like, they it, I just feel a sense of community that I and it's like a just a judgment-free zone.

So just put yourself out there.

Rob Loveless

And, you know, I think connecting it to the tarot for this episode, we pulled the Two of Cups reversed, signifying disharmony and that we might need to be practicing more self-love and really connecting with ourselves.

And I think, you know, being in the gay community, it could be kind of hard to kind of find where you belong. There's, you know, the party scene, which a lot of people don't identify with.

But then it's like, you know, where do I fit in this? I already feel like an outsider being, you know, part of the LGBTQ+ community in a straight man's world. But within this community, where do I find myself?

So, I think with the tarot, it's asking us to really reflect and find those things that we're interested in.

The, you know, our hobbies, and how we can maybe turn that into an area to build a community, and whether it's gayming or gardening or recreational sports, just finding things we love, the hobbies we enjoy, and then find a way to maybe bring that forward into a community aspect where we can meet other people who also enjoy those same passions of ours.

Jonathan Steele

I just like how gaming has provided me that opportunity for escapism in the past. And then getting older, the just being in a better community, and it just makes me feel like I have a home sometimes.

Connect with Jonathan (32:34)

Rob Loveless

Awesome. And then, is there anything you want to plug as we wrap up?

Jonathan Steele

I mean, I do have my Instagram. @johanpmueller. I think on PlayStation5, I have @johannespmuller, but on Instagram, you can at least find me. J-O-H-A-N-P-M-U-E-L-L-E-R. You know, send me a DM if you want.

Connect with A Jaded Gay (32:55)

Rob Loveless

Awesome. Well, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. If you have any feedback or questions, you can reach out to me rob@ajadedgay.com.

You can follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and SoundCloud @ajadedgaypod. You can follow me personally, Rob Loveless, on Instagram @rob_loveless.

You can also support the show on Patreon for as little as $1 a month @ajadedgaypod.

And remember, every day is all we have, so you gotta make your own happiness.

Mmm-bye.

Outtake (33:47)

Jonathan Steele

You know, Toad's in his own lane. He's following his own thing. Um, but he could be part of the the umbrella as well. I don't know.

Rob Loveless

I'm trying to think how his voice. It's like, all right.

Jonathan Steele

Wow, Mario.

Rob Loveless

Like that, did you ever see the SNL video where Dua Lipa is performing, uh, what's it called? Levitating.

And like it was during the pandemic, so, like, nobody was really there in the audience.

And it gets really quiet after the course, and somebody just screams out in the audience, but it sounds like Toad screaming. It's like, wow.

Jonathan Steele

I have not seen that. You're gonna have to show me that later.

Rob Loveless

Maybe I'll put it in the episode notes.

Jonathan Steele

Of course, now I'm trying to desperately think of the YouTube video where, where Toad is singing a certain song in his voice.

What is that? Do you remember?

Rob Loveless

I can't remember the song. I think you showed me that.

Jonathan Steele

Probably did. Is it bad if I'm like, trying to look this up on my phone while we're talking?

Rob Loveless

No, go for it. I mean, this is quickly becoming the Toad Stan Club podcast episode. So, forget gayming.

Jonathan Steele

Oh, this one. How can I forget this? Toad sings, All I Want for Christmas is You. Mariah Carey, hallow by her name.

But yeah, if you ever want to violate your eardrums, YouTube that song. I'll show you later.

Rob Loveless

Perfect.