“Be perfect like me, so you can have perfect me,” these accounts seem to say.
This ensures that these men are framed not as objects of desire or an ideal to be aspired to but, as if hatched by a mastermind, that they are framed as both. The boyfriends share clothes and seem to shave their faces on the same days of the week. He is the same height as his partner, has the same coloring, the same body type, even the same amount of body hair. Even each boyfriend in each couple is the same.
The result, as everyone strives toward the same Platonic ideal, is a generic sameness. They try to make the concept of perfection real through filters and premeditated picnic displays, the baguette and the wine placed just so. Instagrays are constantly outdoing one another, not just with perfect photos or perfect relationships but with perfection itself. Gay Instagram is, basically, an arms race of self-refinement. As feminist theorist Marilyn Frye writes in The Politics of Reality, “gay male affectation of femininity is a serious sport in which men may exercise their power and control over the feminine.” The Instagays give us not so much a performance of effeminacy as a mastery over it. Effeminacy on gay Instagram serves to affirm masculinity: Being in touch with one’s feminine side is evidence of confidence in one’s manhood. Chris Lin and Brock Williams, who run the Instagram account “ Yummertime,” wear skimpy, effeminate clothing - but then pose with legs spread widely, thumbs in pockets, arms folded across the chest, bodies leaning cockily against a wall. Instagays’ self-presentation is clearly homosexual, but not necessarily feminine. They all live in California and have chiseled faces and bodies. They’re predominantly white, in their mid-twenties, and have a penchant for oversaturating their photos. Urban Dictionary defines an “Instagay” not as any gay guy on Instagram, but rather those gay guys who become famous on the social media platform for being “attractive, fun, rich, outgoing, happy, and confident.” The rest of the Instagays are basically indistinguishable from Ian and Rex. Ian Spear and Rex Woodbury are one of many couples who have landed thousands of followers and dozens of sponsorships on Instagram for being hot and gay. There’s an eagerness in his expression, like he’s trying his hardest to be the best boy in the world. In one post, Ian stands in front of a coffee shop, smiling widely, legs close together, thumbs looped over his backpack straps.
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Their Instagram shows a prim life full of self-discipline, productivity, and predictable escapades. In photos, they hike at sunset, go to Equinox, and drink smoothies.
Looking at these photos, it’s hard not to be astonished by their bodies: the miraculous shoulder-to-waist ratios, Ian’s Ken-doll abs, Rex’s biceps, which threaten to rip through whatever shirt he’s wearing. In one photo, they’re picnicking with gourmet food on the Seine in another, posted two weeks later, they’re swimming in Italy.
They have plucked eyebrows, which don’t make them look feminine so much as clean-cut - their strong jawlines and self-assured poses let us know the men we’re looking at are, without question, men. They have the same haircut and the same pretty American teeth. In one photo, they’re wearing royal blue suits and sipping what appear to be mojitos from striped paper straws. But Ian Spear and Rex Woodbury, an Instafamous gay couple, are particularly good at glory. Glory, it seems, is pretty generic nowadays. Social media has bestowed upon the masses the power to curate a self that is impressive and magnificent. Every picture of Ian and Rex is glorious and yet each picture is the same.