Pixel art and LGBTI+ community

This may be a ridiculous question but I am a curious (and ridiculous) person and so I'll go ahead and ask. If the mods want to delete this, I understand. In one sense, one's personal identity, gender and sexuality is irrelevant to the art, so I understand if some people don't understand why I'd raise the topic or don't feel this is the right forum to discuss it.

I've only recently joined Twitter and I'm seeing a lot of pixel artists who are proud members of the LGBTI+ community. I know it's Pride month, so it's a special time, but it does seem like it's unusually visible compared to other communities on twitter. I've seen a lot of pixel art depicting LGBT couples and individuals, I've seen the artists openly talking about their gender identity, their transition, etc.

Obviously, I'm all about positive, inclusive, pluralistic / multitudinous communities on the internet. I'm just curious if people A: think I'm reacting to something that is not particularly special about the PA community but is equally visible among musicians, cooks, athletes, authors, mountain climbers and whatever else, and B: have a hypothesis for why the PA 'community' (whatever that means) is special in this regard, if it is.

Its not "unusually" visible.

1. You kinda answered your own question, it's pride month, so you will see tons of posts and art themed after such topics. Your post was similar to being confused as to why there's so many christmas trees and santas during december in the states.

2. I'm not sure why you would bring this up, if you are okay with the LGBTIA+ community, then no harm, but if you aren't for some reason, then maybe some self reflection is needed.

Yeah, there's lot of people in the community, but I'd rather have it that way than any other. I, personally feel welcomed and respected amongst my Pixel Peers.

I have only comparison to software development community in general, so it's not significant statistically in any means, but my thoughts are:

• software dev community expresses their support too, also especially during Pride, so I see no significant difference between that community and pixel art one
• pixel art is painting, painting allows to express things and is about whatever you want to paint, it's about any topic you wish, which might lead to higher visibility of support than in software development community which has more specific topics to discuss due to its field nature (like news about upcoming changes to React.js etc.)

@nkoder said in Pixel art and LGBTI+ community:

I have only comparison to software development community in general, so it's not significant statistically in any means, but my thoughts are:

• software dev community expresses their support too, also especially during Pride, so I see no significant difference between that community and pixel art one
• pixel art is painting, painting allows to express things and is about whatever you want to paint, it's about any topic you wish, which might lead to higher visibility of support than in software development community which has more specific topics to discuss due to its field nature (like news about upcoming changes to React.js etc.)

Thanks! That's quite insightful. I do have to say that I don't think it's quite as visible in music, if I compare my favorite pixel artists with my favorite musicians, but I do think you're on to something. Maybe it's because pixel art is more individual. Also, there seems to be expectations of a shared identity between musicians and their fans (e.g. black metal), unlike in pixel art.

I'm not talking about expressing their support, I'm talking about the number of pixel artists who belong to the LGBTI+ community, being openly gay, transgender or whatever. But your point about individual expression and topic specific discussion makes sense, I wish I had thought of that.

EDIT: This will seem like a very obvious observation but if you look at, say, combat sports and compare the visibility of queer athletes (males vs females), it's a different story than pixel artists. And the same may be true for other fields of interest, like fishing or motor sports. I have no idea. My gf suggested that pixel art is mostly attractive to younger people, has weaker ties to tradition than other forms of art and that artists are generally more liberal and left-leaning, which I agree with. Those factors may be relevant.

Lots of the LGBT community are brought together online where there is/was the availability of spaces where they aren't judged for being who they are. Pixel art is pretty online focused so there's a big overlap. You see it in other online communities too, lots of digital art, furry art, speedrunning and software developer circles have LGBT overlap, for instance.

@lavendertgreat said in Pixel art and LGBTI+ community:

Lots of the LGBT community are brought together online where there is/was the availability of spaces where they aren't judged for being who they are. Pixel art is pretty online focused so there's a big overlap. You see it in other online communities too, lots of digital art, furry art, speedrunning and software developer circles have LGBT overlap, for instance.

Thanks, that's an interesting take! I've noticed it in gamer / streaming communities as well. I'm sure being able to create spaces without judgement (and block / ban people with bad behavior) is part of the explanation.