Meet Captain Normal, the master and commander of the SS Mainstream. It sails the calmest lagoons of the ocean of western culture. The ship flies no flag. It doesn’t have to. It does not need to raise a banner to state in advance any of the fundamental banner messages: “here I am”, “this is what I am” or “engage thus notified”.
Yes, the SS Mainstream flies no flag. Certainly no transgender flag or pansexual flag or LGBTI flag. It flies no flag because it assumes that everyone else will assume what kind of ship it is. A safe assumption for the SS Mainstream is part of the Great Mundane Fleet.
The SS Mainstream doesn’t even really need a name to be honest. The passengers aboard don’t particularly care what it’s called either. They just care that it’s one of the fleet of similar ships on similar comfortably conformist cruises: ships like the SS Anonymous, SS Quotidian, SS Yawn, SS Routine, SS Unremarkable, SS Thoughtless, SS As-expected, SS Unacknowledged, SS Unnoticeable, etc. etc.
All these new flags
There are just so many of these ships getting around. In gross tonnage, they outweigh all others as a cannonball to a feather. Craft like the SS Nonconformist, SS Dangerous, SS Interesting, SS Queer, SS Foreign and SS Uncomfortable – the sorts of vessels that DO fly a flag – these are uncommon and often unwelcome. So, no, when another vessel of the Great Mundane Fleet – say the SS Everyday – espies the SS Mainstream on the horizon, they ignore it so thoroughly that they don’t even “notice it” precisely.
Or, at least, that is how it used to be…
Because, the SS Mainstream now keeps a vigilant and resentful watch. For, over the past few years, as the internet has given the seas new kinds of churn, many new kinds of ships have been appearing on the horizon of the placid lagoons that the fleet sails. Flown by ships coming in from the stormy and wild open ocean are new flags. Banners of blue and pink. Flags of purple, black and white. An ensign of all colours of the rainbow.
Like all flags, none of these new ones are pretty. That’s never the point of flags. The point of all flags is to state, at a distance:
- Here I am
- This is what I am
- Engage thus notified.
Identifying, deciphering and responding to all these new flags has become a tedious imposition on Captain Normal. And it is distasteful too to accommodate newcomers who are not mundane. Further, it’s rarely been worth the effort. The comforts of mundane existence are so accessible simply by ignoring these queer new flags. Especially once you’ve understood that the ships that fly them are harmless – albeit noisy.
No, the SS Mainstream, its passengers, Captain Normal and indeed the entire Great Mundane Fleet prefer things that don’t change. Same every day, please. It’s why the passengers boarded this ship in the first place (or were born here and know nothing else). It’s just so inconvenient to deal with “new” things…
What you just read was a long illustrative example to get into the actual point of this article: what is the deal with all these queer flags on social media? Why do people feel the need to use them? You know, the pansexual flag, the transgender flag, the pride flag, the asexual flag, the LGBTIAQ+ flag (aka the alphabet-algebra flag)?
Well, there are three reasons. Can you guess them?
1. Attention – Here I am
The first thing any flag does is say “here I am”. By being flown, it draws attention to itself. It is intentionally conspicuous. Flags do this even when their meaning is not understood by the viewer. See, a flag is an abstract symbol. It has no precise (that is, prosaic) meaning. A flag is not a sentence. There is little information conveyed by a flag that is noticed but not understood. To interpret a flag once noticed requires context. Attention-getting is a useful thing, indeed it is necessary for the other functions that flags have. To fly a flag that isn’t seen is pointless. Flying a flag that is not understood can also be pointless (or even counter-productive) but at least it has an effect…
2. Identity – This is what I am
The second thing a flag does is categorise the one who flies it to those who view them. And, when it comes to queer flags, this is really the main purpose. More than gaining neutral attention and more than pre-stating your personal rules of engagement. Self-definition is what queer flags are about.
The need to self-define or self-categorise is innate in all people. We need to have an idea of who we are and we do this by comparing ourselves to other people and groups and then drawing meaning from those comparisons: “this is me, and that is not me”. By this, we individuate our identities, thus becoming individuals. One interesting development in the culture of late has been around individuality and assimilation. So let’s talk about zombies for a bit.
Now zombies have been a ubiquitous “scary thing” trope for at least a generation, but there has been a shift. In the first half of this generation, the zombie movie played on the fear that you were a vulnerable survivor who fights the horde for fear of being violently assimilated. The shift in the second half of this generation is not that you are one against the horde, but that you are already just another anonymous zombie among zombies. The fear is that your individuality doesn’t exist, not against surrendering it. The fight is to assert that you have an identity. This fight is made all the more difficult because everyone else is trying not to be a zombie and is trying in the same ways. If everyone shouts, no voice is heard.
This battle to assert self-identity is why we see social bios that are just lists of political acronyms, zodiac signs, personal statistics, medical diagnoses and, yes, often flag emojis of various kinds. These are efforts by people who feel like they are treated like zombies to be seen and understood as individuals. Or, to borrow a meme catchphrase: WITNESS ME!
But to be understood as defining someone as an individual, the flag emojis they display must be understood by whoever is seeing them. A new, unknown or unique flag is meaningless. A banknote for a foreign country has no “currency” until it is converted into something the local economy can grapple with. This takes some effort. Similarly, the mystifying flag has no “currency” until it is understood. This also takes some effort. This defeats the second point of a flag: a shortcut to identification.
Still, flags only have symbolic meanings, not exact meanings. They are not so much “read” as interpreted. Flags are high on context and low on precision. This leaves a LOT of wiggle room. If someone is waving the stars and stripes, it doesn’t tell you anything other than that person is over there and is keen on America. You can’t say WHY they’re waving the flag or WHY they’re keen on America. But you will have some clues on what to do next, perhaps to hail them in English rather than, say, Swahili.
3. Engagement – Friend or foe, engage me thus
Once the viewer has noticed the flag-waver and recognised their banner, the ball is now in the viewer’s court. The response part of the communication cycle now kicks in. This all depends on the predisposition of the viewer. In the subheading I named two – friend and foe – but there is a third kind: impartial. Let’s look at them too.
Firstly, if you fly a flag and it is well received then you’ve either found a friend, an ally or fellow traveller. These are all good things and the flag has helped you build identity through the validation and support of community.
Second, if you fly a flag and it is impartially received then you’re either going to be unheeded, dismissed or misunderstood. This is not harmful of itself … unless you are crushingly insecure, in which case it’s self-harm anyway.
As for the SS Mainstream noticing and recognising a queer flag, the usual response is lazy dismissiveness. You are something that has insisted on being noticed but can be safely treated as irrelevant by eyes only seeking the comfort of seeing the expected.
Last, if you fly a flag and meet a foe, then, in the best case you will be pointedly avoided. The point in “pointedly avoided” is if you are the one to press the engagement, then there will be conflict. You may well recognise a foe by their own flag and make your own choices henceforth. If your displayed flag is seen as provocation enough, then you’re picking a fight by having the temerity of being visible. You may be called out, and at least be respected enough to receive a declaration of war. It’ll probably come as a demand that you justify your existence. Or, you may simply be sucker punched – figuratively speaking. It’s hard to sucker punch someone digitiall, so the unprovoked attack will probably come as sudden harassment and a spume of hateful words.
Liking and needing flags
This has been a few thoughts about flags in general and queer flags – pride flags, transgender flags, pansexual flags, all those ugly multi-coloured things. (For sure, some of them may represent me, as a transwoman, but that doesn’t mean I have to think they’re aesthetically pleasant). This article has also been about the forum in which these flags are usually flown, noticed and responded to. What I have been trying to get at are the reasons why we minorities like and need flags – those abstract markers of presence, identity and engagement.
For digital flags are simply displayed rather than flown. Other than the rainbow flag which is bought online-order for $1.99 from China and hung outside cafes, real physical queer flags are pretty scarce. They exist really as digital badges of belonging and allegiance. A few pixels in a social media bio or appending a comment or post. More a lapel pin, everyone with their own, than a single banner which we gather under and by which we rally. Our flags are as bumper stickers.
The social forum of the road is depersonalised, so external markers count. On the internet, we are so depersonalised that we try to reassert personhood. Our flag emojis are our bumper stickers. Perhaps less a piece of cloth hoisted up a mast and viewed at distance, and more an officially sanctioned option ticked in a “Set up my profile” screen.