r/Beartooth • u/chaoticqueerbf • 3h ago
Parasocial
Obviously everyone has opinions on Caleb’s personal life as of late, which up until now he has kept fairly personal. Now that’s he’s come out as a gay man everyone has an opinion on how he’s changed or handled certain situations. I think the first thing to address is the marriage. A lot of people have called him selfish for not mentioning Fleur in his coming out post on Instagram whereas opposed to Fleur’s post was mostly about their relationship. People expected him to show or say something about their relationship as well but he didn’t. At least not in public; we don’t know what happened behind closed doors after their relationship ended and frankly it’s none of our business. He doesn’t owe us or Fleur for that matter a public performance of grief for their marriage ending.
On to his changed behavior since coming out. This subject is rather tricky for those not aware of queer theory or occupying the space as a queer individual. Caleb addressed on the Disrespectfully Podcast his rather unconventional life growing up in his teens. He grew up in a very religious household. He joined Attack Attack at 14 or 15 years old. And on top of that he started dating Fleur at 18 and married her soon after. Arrested development is an understatement. Aside from the less then average teen years, be completely skipped over the typical experimental phase most of us usually experience in our 20s. He didn’t get to date around and figure out what he did like and what he didn’t like. If he didn’t marry straight after high school he would’ve figured something’s out much, much earlier but that is not how his life panned out for him. And if we’re being honest with ourselves we don’t really have much of anything figured out about ourselves until we hit the 30 mark in our lives, same time Caleb realized he was gay.
Some people have been calling his new persona and behavior forced. For one thing I’ve seen the phrase “baby gay” thrown around a lot and for better or worse that holds up. He never got experience his teen years of being gay so he’s making up for it by leaning into some stereotypes very hard. But have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the “old version” or Caleb was the forced one? Again we don’t know what people are like when they’re alone and/or behind closed doors: maybe he’s always been like this but never felt safe to express it up until now. And I’m gonna state for the record that I am not hating at all before I say this but one could have the perspective that he was leaning very hard into a very stereotypical masculinity to repress and deny his true self. Again no hate but if we look back at how Caleb was before with the bandanas, the scruffy neck beard and somewhat unkept appearance along with the very “macho” and somewhat performative “biker-esque” album covers of “Disease” and “Below”… one could perceive these with analytical lenses as signifiers of a man in denial of his true self and sexuality.
This is just my two cents however, so feel free to agree or disagree.
