Http://was first registered on August 27th, 2006 and archived by on November 7th, 2006. The thread was called In Bridget we trust (link via Wayback Machine) and contained an image of Hard Gay hotlinked from 420chan. On February 22nd, 2006, another Hard Gay thread was created. Unfortunately, this video has been removed due to copyright violation. On February 19th, 2006, a user by the name of Grommet on the forums at started a thread entitled For the NANA fans (link via Wayback Machine) and posted a link to another Hard Gay video.
After three years, the video has just under 70,000 views. The first Hard Gay video to be uploaded to Youtube was a video of a live performance, uploaded by user SaffronsGhost on January 19th, 2006. On the show, Hard Gay goes around performing acts of charity (or yonaoshi, “social improvement” → source: wikipedia link) for unsuspecting bystanders, wearing his fetish outfit while accompagnied by the Ricky Martin's "Livin’ la Vida Loca" song. Because of this, it was allowed to be aired and not deemed offensive to Japanese audiences. The character represents a common stereotype of American gay subculture to the Japanese audience and does not represent any Japanese gay subculture. Sumitani introduced the Hard Gay character (known in Japan as Hādo Gei) in 2002, growing to national renown by 2005 when Hard Gay became a weekly feature on the Bakushō Mondai no Bakuten!(Daibakuten) variety show. It was founded in 1912 as a traditional theatre, and has since grown to be one of the most influential companies in Japan, employing most of Japan's popular owarai (comedy) talent, producing and promoting the shows they appear in, and even maintaining its own amusement park. (吉本興業株式会社, Yoshimoto Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha?) (TYO: 9665) is a major Japanese entertainment conglomerate, with its headquarters based in Osaka. In 1999.Įxcerpt from Wikipedia on Yoshimoto Kogyo: Sumitani's most well-known performing character is Hard Gay (ハードゲイ, Hādo Gei), also called "HG", Razor Ramon Hard Gay or Razor Ramon Sumitani, an eccentric supposedly gay man wearing tight black leather and PVC clothes and acting with overacted gay mannerisms.Īccording to Wikipedia, Sumitani had been a popular stage comedian, performing a few different characters for a few years befor joining Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd. Sumitani and his friend Makoto Izubuchi formed Razor Ramon in 1997.
Like, I’m talking every two hours.Masaki Sumitani is part of the Japanese comedy duo known as Razor Ramon, a name which he also used in his brief wrestling career. She’s like the lesbian next door-if there was ever a town that actually had enough lesbians that two of them could live next to each other. Not to brag, but she *is* followed by Ruby Rose, who also gave hotmessbian a shout out on her social media. Hotmessbian is the first name that comes to many minds when it comes to lesbian memes. So, in my accumulated hours on the internet, I have been able to find meme accounts that may not be huge but that have had a huge impact on my development into the strong, self-actualized sapphic that I am today. No matter the topic, memers have the unique ability to tap into our most specific experiences and bring them to light for everyone to relate to. Some are light-hearted takes on dating or relationships that highlight the best parts of being a lesbian but also the worst parts. Some are so deep that they hit me right in the gut and get stuck in my head for weeks. Some make me sit back in my seat and contemplate my feelings for hours. Because I have been a big ol’ homo this whole time!Įvery day, lesbian memes send me into a “That’s So Raven” style vision, but it’s a flashback to some gay shit that I did in the past that I didn’t even realize was so effing gay. I found out there was a reason why all of the goth girl cartoons were my favorite and why I struggled with trying to walk the seemingly thin line of platonic affection and “acting weird” towards my friends. I feverishly followed as many accounts as I could in an attempt to replace the complete lack of lesbians in my real life and religiously checked for new posts and Instagram stories to see what new thing I could learn about myself. It was so surreal to find that not only did other people have the same experience that I did, they were able to articulate it in such a short, funny, and succinct way that answered so many questions that had plagued me for years. I found myself in a rabbit hole of lesbian memes that had me laughing until I was crying but also actually crying. Once Instagram figured out that I was gay, my explore page was inundated with lesbian content.