“You Could Hear a Hair Pin Drop”: Queer Utopianism and Informal Knowledge Production in the Gaylor Closeting Conspiracy Theory

Abstract

Rumors about Taylor Swift’s sexuality have persisted since the early days of her career. They have coalesced into an online subculture known as “Gaylor.” Gaylor is a novel kind of conspiracy theory known as a “Closeting Conspiracy Theory” (CCT). CCTs involve speculating about a public figure’s sexuality, gathering pertinent evidence, and producing fan knowledges, often informally, on social media. Like shipping and slash fiction (which they often involve) CCTs are largely feminized. Through a qualitative content analysis of 200 TikTok videos, this article situates Gaylor as a CCT that has developed into a kind of knowledge culture. Analyzing this knowledge culture using Emily Coccia’s notion of too-close reading and José Muñoz’s queer utopianism reveals specialized practices of knowledge production, including informal boundary work. As Gaylors get “too close” to Swift’s star text, triangulating lyrics and music videos with images and videos from Swift’s life, they produce folk literary criticism. Muñoz’s queer utopianism saturates Gaylor discourses, with many Gaylors engaging in a specific type of conspiracy-inflected queer utopianism: the doomsday coming-out. The doomsday coming-out pushes the date of the Swift’s purported coming out back further and further after each anticipated album or music video release, not unlike the date of the apocalypse in a doomsday cult. Ultimately, the function of producing CCT knowledge in the Gaylor community is propelled forward by imagining queer futures, reflecting on personal identity, building community, and pushing back against heterosexist consensus.