beninldn: Daniel Howell - Full BBC Interview (5 September 2019)

Videos appearing on other channels and featuring Dan and Phil
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itasca00
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You're being beamed up by aggressive aliens and they're plugging in the anal probe
"Oh, God. Okay. I say: *shrug* [...] I'd be like, 'I don't know how this works. Put a condom on that thing. *shrug*'"
Dan Howell, 5/10/18 Try new things..?
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itasca00
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itasca00 wrote: Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:59 pm It's nice to hear Dan expand on some of the things he mentioned in "Basically I'm Gay," and it's interesting to hear his perspectives on some LGBT+ issues. Here are my timestamps:
  • [0:00] Dan discusses the corporate displays of support for the LGBT+ community during pride month. He says that companies need to be held accountable for their past and present anti-LGBT+ actions, but the public displays of support shouldn’t be taken for granted. He also discusses how he prefers the monochromatic aesthetic to rainbows.
  • [1:27] Dan explains why the debate in England about whether LGBT+-inclusive education should be taught in schools is ridiculous.
  • [2:11] Dan is asked whether he feels that he provides the LGBT+ education that some schools won’t, and he says that he does insofar as kids these days turn to the internet and social media to find communities where they can talk and learn about their sexuality and gender identity.
  • [3:02] Dan is asked how it makes him feel that he’s providing LGBT+ education. He says that it’s overwhelming. He says that he’s made a lot of mistakes, and he’s happy if young people can learn from his mistakes when he talks about them online.
  • [3:43] Dan is asked what it was like hitting upload on “Basically I’m Gay.” He says it was overwhelming. However, it wasn’t a moment of big emotional relief but rather a moment of complete exhaustion as if he had just completed running a marathon.
  • [4:16] Dan is asked what it was like seeing the reactions to his video. He says it was hard for him to guess how it would be received or how many people would care. Knowing he had a large, supportive audience, he knew the video would get a lot of love, but he didn’t realize that so many people would watch it. He didn’t know how interesting a coming out video would be in 2019.
  • [5:10] Dan is asked how it makes him feel that the video has been so successful. He says it makes him happy because he worked so hard on it for so long. He says he made the video partially for himself but also to try to change people’s perspectives and have an impact on people’s lives.
  • [5:46] Dan is asked what it was like being closeted.
    D: It is bizarre for me because it feels like my whole life I’ve just had this glass wall in front of me. And so much of my personality, so much of my life--especially with me being a comedian on the internet with so many followers, people feel like they know me so well, and they do, but there’s this one big part of it that was just this murky--you know, like a mirror covered with fog. And it’s just now there’s--there’s nothing--there’s no obstacles in my life anymore. I literally feel like I’ve been walking around in a glass box. Even though people could see through it, and now it’s for the first time I’m actually walking around open in the world. So just emotionally, just as a person existing in this world, it feels completely different now that it’s just not--I’m not holding this big secret anymore.
  • [6:39] Dan is asked why it took so long for him to come out.
    D: Part of it was that a lot of people in my life knew. You know, I had friends, I had, you know, random strangers, people that I worked with. A lot of people kind of saw things I said and did and had an idea, but I wasn’t clear about it. But then there were certain people in my life that had no idea. I had friends that honestly would be like, “So are you gonna get a girlfriend at some point?” And I’d be like, “So you have no idea even though we’ve been friends for five years.” And my family--literally they--they didn’t know. And, you know, I was 27, and I just hadn’t told my family at all yet. So it didn’t matter if I was living this life because my family had literally no idea at all. So for me, this wasn’t just: Oh, I’m going to write a funny comedy video about coming out and being gay. It’s: To make this video, I’m going to have to confront all of these things that I’ve been putting off my entire life. I realized I have to come out to my family before I do this, and I think it took me about six months of actively trying just to muster up the courage. I thought I was gonna do it at Christmas. I was thinking Boxing Day.

    B: Really?

    D: Going ‘round the--Yeah, yeah, not to be dramatic or anything. I thought, you know, Boxing Day--day after Christmas. Don’t want to make it all about me on Christmas dinner. I’m not--I’m not gonna do it, like, cutting in the turkey: “I’m gay everybody.” ‘Cause that--you know, no need to be that theatrical. I thought, you know, Boxing Day, having some nibbles, wait for an awkward silence, and then just, you know, calmly do it.

    B: “Just so you know…”

    D: And, you know, my family situation--I feel quite lucky because, you know, it’s--The world is a very different place to what it was fifteen years ago. I didn’t know how I felt. You know, when I was a young teenager, I didn’t want to tell anyone about this. I felt that times have changed enough, that I know my family well enough that I felt in that moment they wouldn’t reject me in a violent way. I thought it may be--it will be a bit awkward. It’s just going to be a shock when you tell people, you know, anything about your sexuality. I wasn’t expecting any real bad reaction, but it was just terrifying. Because just being so emotionally vulnerable, telling them something about me that I can’t change and then seeing whether in that moment they choose to accept it or not is--that’s terrifying. That’s what it is about coming out. It’s--you’re telling the world: This is a part of me that I can’t change, and you might just not accept it. And then what do you do in that situation, especially if it’s your family? And like I said, I--I felt like they were going to react well, but it was still terrifying. So I just--I couldn’t. And then I tried again when it was my mum’s birthday in February, actually.

    B: Her birthday! You love the drama. Gosh!

    D: Yeah, I--again, I’m just trying to ruin everything. Yeah, but every time--three or four times I saw my family, I was like: And *deep inhale* no, it’s not happening. And it got to the point where I was like: This is actually starting to--this is going to be ridiculous. This is going to be four and a half years before I can tell anybody this thing just ‘cause I can’t tell my mum and my grandma. So then I did the most awkward, on-brand thing for me, um, which was to just tell them in an email

    B: What?

    D: LIt--Yeah, I literally just emailed my family because it got so ridiculous. It went on for so long, and I was just too scared. So I literally sent them an email, and I was like, “Basically, I’m gay.” And then I just went “send.” And then I thought, Look, this is just the start of the conversation. I’m sure we’ll go on about this, but I just need to rip the plaster off.

    B: Yes.

    D: And that was the terrifying moment. So I know it’s weird, and I know it makes me this awkward--and, you know, I owed it to my family to give them a real moment, but I just couldn’t care any longer.
  • [10:00] The interviewer (Ben Hunte) says that it’s interesting that there’s this Hollywood dream that coming out is sitting down with your family and telling them your secret as you’re holding each other’s hands and crying. Dan says that that’s not him, and Ben agrees that it’s not most people. Dan continues saying that his way of coming out by email worked. As he said before, it was indeed just the start of the conversation. He got a call from his mom later. Because of the way he had been conditioned by society, Dan didn’t feel like he could talk to his family about being gay. He just carried it inside him and lived with a secret until he was 27.
  • [11:11] Dan is asked what he would say to people who are 27+ who haven’t come out yet.
    D: I’d say that, firstly, you’ve got to be authentic in your life. If you--if you really want to be happy, if you want that moment of serenity where you can just deeply exhale and go This is who I am. This is fine. At some point, you need to come out. And that’s a hard thing to say to people because based on people’s life experiences, it might be difficult. You might think that people in your life will reject you. You could lose your job. You might be in danger depending on the environment that you’re in. But I just say you need to do everything you can to get to a place where you can be who you are, and you have people in your life that love you for that person. Because when you say, “You know what? It’s fine. I--I can just get on with it. It’s okay as it is even if I’m lying about this one thing,” it--it’s not. So I--you know, it’s hard, and that’s the thing. It--It’s so easy to say, “Just come out! That’s the answer. It will be fine.” And I think we both know that’s not how it works. But y--you just have to. You know, it was the struggle for me for 27 years. People look at me and they’re like, okay. I’m a--a white, able-bodied gayboy from a relatively middle class background that now, age 27, has this incredibly successful career in life, and it was still torture for me. So, you know, if it was this hard for me, then you can’t imagine how hard it would be for everyone else.
  • [12:37] To close the video, Dan makes a motion his hands with a very cute expression on his face. :love1:
You're being beamed up by aggressive aliens and they're plugging in the anal probe
"Oh, God. Okay. I say: *shrug* [...] I'd be like, 'I don't know how this works. Put a condom on that thing. *shrug*'"
Dan Howell, 5/10/18 Try new things..?
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