is there a scientific explanation besides Being Gay as to why tom and mark didnt use to interact a lot on stage in the early 2000s (aside from banter) but in recent years theyre just all over each other all the time
i was going to reply something dumb but acshully☝️🤓 i have my thoughts on the Being Gay and how it links to their interactions before vs now after two divorces
if you think about it, they (especially tom with how he’s presented himself throughout time. more on this below) have always been pretty brave about male stereotypes. def something something to do with them growing up in the suburbs, being early gen skate rats and circling punk and hc culture at a young age yada yada. they’ve always been somewhat outcasted despite being hegemonically (albeit not stereotypically) good looking straight white men.
this said, it was the 90s and gay jokes were easy (ofc was just homophobia disguised as). i feel like the interesting part of blink has always been the fact that they joked about themselves being gay or whatever. i mean i know it’s just words and stage banter to keep the show going but they were always somewhat controversial, in the punk “i don’t care that you called me X bc i already call myself X, therefore, already appropriated your insult” kind of way. and this is the part that i hate bc so many straight white men i feel took the banter to another level and instead of being punk they’re just straight up cringy homophobic assholes and blink wannabes and ruin the fandom but that’s for another day !!
now, regarding them not being physical in public back then, i think i’ve made my point— it was another time. perhaps a little too risky in the 90-00s, and perhaps something that didn’t resound at the time with mark especially… because i know that tall freak would have.
there’s a few clips here and there that can be read as somewhat them being/acting queer. off the top of my head i remember the one where tom in the middle of an interview massages marks shoulders and he tilts his head back moaning, until he subtly and awkwardly shrugs tom off for him to stop. tom slapping marks bare butt in the wmaa? bts. that man had no need to. alternatively, the bubble wrap photoshoot where they’re inevitably close to each other, but still tom had no business in grabbing mark that way from behind, touching his chest while also being wrapped flush against him. there’s a few more pics like that. oh yeah travis was just a third wheel in all those pics i forgot he was even there. i sometimes forget he’s part of the band. i sometimes forget blink is not just two old men grabbing each others balls but an actual, real life band.
anyways back to ur question,,
idk when exactly they started escalating it to something physical, maybe their newly wed lives stunted that (though i don’t think in the 00s it was a matter of societal norms and homophobia per se. besides, like i said, blink were beyond homosexual accusations. i don’t think they would even care about that kind of backlash). or maybe cuz they genuinely hated each other then.
i can only think of the first reunion era where they’d group hug, or at least tom and mark would, and then grab handfuls of ass. but then again my tall gay man was so so drunk… side note, just before the reunion era where tom was in his i-empire era imo he started being like ACTUALLY REALLY SEXUAL like hoe take your pills. but ugh 08 tom was sosososooo hot woof woof rawrrr awooooo !!! maybe this is where he started being more physical at least. lets not forget that clip of him moaning to a mic on stage,,,,,,,,,
and listen, i love me some good rpf but i know, i know that them grabbing ass and balls and the kissing etc in the current era is the equivalent form of the gay banter they always did, and that it’s JUST stage gay but something in me —and not just the 14 year old girl in me during the early 2010s reading stories about guys taking it up in the butt— something in me feels that it is a bit of tom being more unhinged yet still the same outcast kid we grew to love. a more free version, less cautious of showing mark how much he loves him and missed him, albeit still drunk. just… it feels more genuine in a sense, that they both indulge in this play. lastly, what sells it to me is that their target audience isn’t mostly young girls on tumblr, but millennials who probably don’t even know ao3 and just want to relive their teens through their hits.
i don’t know. i’m not saying they might be actually gay, but, at least on toms side, i’m also not saying i think that he’s completely straight and that in recent years he’s just been let loose. perhaps why all the kissing and groping with his lifelong bestie. not so much for show bc, again, us tomark truthers aren’t their main audience, so why would you even bother to be all over your boy bestie other than to make people uncomfortable watching yall try to kiss.
btw by how tom presents himself i meant like i.e. in urethra chronicles tom saying even his girlfriend thinks he’s gay, his infamous high pitched voice, his cute flaily hand gestures (which he still does except a lot more tame idk how to explain but iykyk), his painted nails, him yelling “we’re gay” in the dancing with myself cover, calling other guys hot especially celebs, or the time he was on marks radio show and said that if jonas ever needed to build something he would never ask his dad but he could ask him how to apply makeup, etc etc etc. he never really tried presenting himself as stereotypically manly, or at least this was just his own unique way of doing so. lets forget his divorce era tho where he tried so hard to look so manly with his ford hat and his voice going an octave lower omfg
and then mark too, especially pre blink in his curehead era of eyeliners and lipstick and crazy hair disregarding all gender stereotypes of the time and falling into this outsider category.
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
areudirty
