Who Is Your LGBTQ Kid Following Online, and What Are They Learning?

In today's episode, you will understand what exactly queer creators and influencers can teach us about authentic joy.

Welcome to More Human, More Kind, the podcast for parents of LGBTQ+ kids and anyone trying to stay human in a world that keeps hardening. I'm Heather Hester, and here we talk about fear, belonging, boundaries, courage, love, and what it means to protect what matters without losing yourself in the process. Your child doesn't just need a parent who's informed, they need a parent who is grounded and strong. Let's take a breath and let's begin.

So it is entirely likely that your kid has a phone. They probably have some kind of social media feed, and they probably have people who they follow, they've never met, whose voices they know better than even some of their closest friends. And somewhere in that feed, someone is teaching them something about joy. Today we are going to talk about what that is, why it matters, and what you can do with that information. By the end of this episode, you are going to understand why queer creators and influencers have something genuinely important to teach us about authentic joy. You will have a clearer picture of what is actually happening in your kid's brain when they consume this content, and you will walk away with one simple curiosity-based conversation you can start this week. So I want to tell you first about a moment that I have had more than once as a parent. One of my kids will be talking about someone that I've never heard of. I'm sure you are very familiar with that feeling too. They are animated or excited or talking a mile a minute. And using shorthand, a language that I don't fully understand, about a person whose content they clearly know inside and out. And I've found myself so many times sitting there thinking, who is this person and why does my kid care so much about them? Early on, my first instinct was, mild concern. My second instinct, which came with time and curiosity and practice, was to actually look, to ask, to sit down next to my kid and watch some of the content or listen to some of the content with them. And what I found more often than not was someone who was just being authentic, someone who was being genuinely themselves, and someone who had built an audience not by performing happiness, but by sharing something real, their actual life, their actual struggles, the moments that didn't photograph well alongside the ones that did. That is what good queer creators do particularly well, and it is not an accident. So let's talk for a moment about what an influencer actually is, because I know some of you are still a little uncertain about this. An influencer is someone who has built an audience online, usually on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, by sharing content consistently enough and authentically enough that people keep coming back. Some of them make a really, really good living doing it. Some of them do it alongside other work that they do, but what they all have in common is an audience that trusts them. And here is what the most successful ones have figured out, especially in the queer community. The highlight reel doesn't hold. It never does for long. What builds a lasting audience is realness, specificity, showing up as who you actually are, not who you think people want you to be. Research on queer joy and social media has found that LGBTQ+ people consistently define authentic joy online as happiness that comes from a person's identity and their genuine expression of it. Not performance, not a curated version of themselves designed to get likes, actual self-expression. And followers can feel the difference. Your kid can feel the difference. They're actually often better at detecting it than we are. Here's why this matters so much for our kids specifically. Adolescence is when identity is being formed. It is the season of figuring out who you are, and maybe more importantly, whether who you are is okay. For LGBTQ+ teens, that question carries extra weight. Because the world is still not consistently safe or affirming for them. And so when they find a creator online who looks like them, loves like them, who moves through the world similarly to the way they do and genuinely seems happy doing it, that lands differently than it might for another kid. Research shows that when stories of affirmed identity, what some researchers call gender euphoria, are shared online, teens gain language and confidence to live more authentically themselves. They are not just being entertained, they are being shown that a life like theirs is livable. Joyful, worth claiming. That is a profound thing to witness. And it is also why the authenticity of who your kid follows matters. A creator who performs joy without living it is teaching your kid that joy is a performance. The creator who has done the work of connecting their inner life to what they share outward is teaching your kids something totally different. That real joy comes from within. It is sustainable. It doesn't depend on likes or views or external validation. That is the lesson worth learning. And some of the best teachers of it right now are queer creators who have had to find their own joy on their own terms. So what do you actually do with this? First, get curious before you get worried. If your kid is spending time with a creator you don't know, ask them about it. Don't interrogate. Ask. What do they make? What do you like about them? Show me something you think I would find interesting. You will learn so much more from that conversation than any amount of monitoring. Second, watch with them sometime. Not to evaluate or critique, just to be present in something that they care about. Your willingness to enter their world without judgment is its own kind of message. Third, help them develop the skill of discernment, not by telling them what to think, but by asking questions. Does this person seem happy to you? Like, actually happy? Or does it feel like they are performing happiness? Your kid knows the difference. Give them the permission to name it. And fourth, trust your gut. If something about a creator feels off, name it gently and openly. You do not have to be the social media police to be a thoughtful, engaged parent. Here's what I want you to hold on to. Your relationship to the online world is different from your kids'. Most of us came to social media as adults with an already formed sense of who we are. Our kids, many of them have had access to this world since before their brains were fully developed, before they had the critical thinking skills to evaluate what they were consuming, before they understood what was being sold to them. And what was genuinely being shared. That's not a reason to panic. It is a reason to stay curious and stay connected. The emotional reward your kid gets from following someone they love is real. Understanding the psychology behind it, the way authenticity builds trust, the way seeing themselves represented builds confidence, the way genuine joy things actually could teach us, goes a long, long way toward helping you support and guide them well. You do not have to become a TikTok expert. You just have to be willing to be curious about what your kid finds meaningful. That curiosity is the connection point, and connection is always, always the goal. So when you get a few moments, I'd like for you to think about these two questions. Who does your kid follow that you don't know much about? And what would it feel like to ask them about that person this week with genuine curiosity and no agenda? Thank you for being here today. If this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with another parent or ally who might need it. And if you have been searching for real conversations with other parents and allies who are walking similar paths as you, come find us in the Kindred Collective community on Skool. It is a space that has been built exactly for conversations like this one. I will see you on Friday for the butterfly effect. Until then, keep becoming more human and more kind. Inviting someone into your home to paint is a big deal. You want people you can trust, people who show up on time, respect your space, and do the job right the first time. That's exactly what we do at Heather Hester Painting and Decorating. With over 58 years of experience and a commitment to true craftsmanship, We treat your home like it's our own, creating masterpieces one wall at a time. To schedule a consultation, go to go.heatherdecorating.com/mhmk. That's go.heatherdecorating.com/mhmk.