“Hey, we’re Matthew and Ryan and we’re 27 and 25 years old. We met in Southampton almost 5 years ago and have been inseparable ever since.
We share so much of our lives across various social media platforms and helping people with their mental health or to overcome LGBTQ+ related issues has always been a priority for us.
We’re both really fortunate that we have such an incredible and supportive circle around us along with our amazing online family, but being so openly gay and other people’s reaction to that can definitely take a toll on your mental health.
Online Trolls – we’ve received homophobic ‘troll’ comments for years on a regular basis and we know a lot of our LGBTQ+ audience do as well. I think when we started social media it affected us more mentally as it was a real shock to the system to have people go out of their way to type mean things aimed at you. Things are definitely different now for us mentally as we’ve got ourselves in the mindset that we can never be sorry or change ourselves for being our true selves online. We’re not disgusting like we get told and being gay isn’t WRONG. We deserve to be free and share whatever we want online. We realise a lot of ‘trolls’ are usually really unhappy in their own lives or dealing with being a member of the LGBTQ+ community themselves, but they’re finding it hard to come to terms with it, so they take it out on the comments section. It doesn’t condone their behaviour, as trolling is not okay, but sometimes it’s their way of dealing with their own pain. The main piece of advice we want to give around receiving online hate and your mental health is, don’t take the comments to heart. It sounds easier said than done, but if you’re happy within yourself and realise you’re not in the wrong for being YOU, then no one else’s opinion really matters. If you do get troll comments online and it affects you mentally, it doesn’t make you weak, but just remember, never let them stop you from being you. It’s never a bad idea to turn your comments off if you want to be extra safe with how people interact with your online media.
We really hope this insight into how we deal with online LGBTQ+ hate helps some of you. Just never stop being you, for anyone.
Thanks,
Matt and Ryan”
You can follow Matt and Ryan on their instagram.As a Pride Month Special, Matt and Ryan did Instagram Story Takeover on the 27th of June on our Instagram account, so make sure to catch up with it in our Highlights on Instagram in case you missed it.
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