Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Education, Community, Narrative Voices: The Internet As A Queer Storytelling Platform, Melody Yourd

Gender & Queer Studies Research Papers

The Internet provides a space where artists may produce queer narratives without censorship, so these representations often offer more diversity and complexity than the negative, stereotype-based queer representations that are more common in more mass-consumed fiction. This paper examines how the online fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale and the webcomic The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal represent their queer main characters, and how those storytelling forms and the Internet as a storytelling platform influence both queer and non-queer audiences alike. These interactive storytelling forms allow queer audiences to participate in creating their own narratives, and also …