Tired of all the doom and gloom? These queer content creators have you covered

Signing onto social media in 2025 can be a scary prospect, given the flurry and nature of news filling feeds. But it can also be a source of comfort or comic relief, thanks to what seems to be a growing number of queer creators taking the doom out of scrolling with comedic content ranging from thought-provoking to downright silly. Building on LGBTQ-made content’s positive impact and popularity in recent years, these creators and social media personalities appear to be giving more and more people a much-needed reason to laugh.

“Social media have always been places where marginalized users are early adopters — whether that’s by race, sexuality, ability — because they are able to seek out communities that they may not have in their offline lives,” Jessica Maddox, an associate professor of digital media at the University of Alabama, told NBC News.

She also noted that in the current political environment, in which many people “have already lost a lot of rights and freedoms,” there’s been an increase in “online chatter in queer spaces, forming around queer creators, because people can come together maybe in ways they can’t come together offline right now.”

Maddox said she’s personally been finding comic relief via the TikTok account of Emile Ennis Jr., who launched a series of “queer agenda” videos for June and quickly attracted loyal fans who refer to his posts as their “daily dose of happiness.” But there is an abundance of options, particularly on TikTok and Instagram, for people looking to add queer joy to their feeds.

There’s wholesome satire from the likes of Connor Clary, who rates everything from Pride collections to political speeches on a 5-star scale, and Rob Anderson, who recaps the outlandish plots of nostalgic films, television shows and books. Meanwhile, creators such as Haley Faulkner, Coach Jackie J and Col and Ari are making lesbian-centric content on subjects ranging from sapphic flirting to women’s sports coaches and DIY home renovations. There are general interest talking heads such as Tyreak Told You and Chris Zou who deliver takes on a boundless array of topics, as well as highly specialized accounts from a TikToker known as Babe and Grant and Ash.

Unsurprisingly, many pet-related accounts are run by queer creatives, as in the case of Michelladonna and Shop Cats. But perhaps the most popular category of content at the moment is character work, which launched the careers of actors Benito Skinner and Megan Stalter and is the bread and butter of comedians such as Boman Martinez-Reid, Kendahl Landreth, Vinny Thomas, Joe Hegyes and Britt Migs.

‘The characters have become parts of people’s lives’

Among the many social media personalities doing top-tier character work is Zachariah Porter, who started making content in 2019 and now boasts nearly 5.5 million followers between TikTok and Instagram. Porter is also one-half of a social media power couple completed by partner and podcast co-host Jonathan Carson, who has more than 1 million followers tuning in to his personal accounts. The two Brooklyn-based creators met on Instagram during the pandemic and have since teamed up to accelerate their respective social media brands, with Carson educating followers on now-defunct aesthetic styles and bizarre Zillow listings and Porter donning quick drag to play a variety of put-upon Massachusetts women.

Zachariah Porter.
Zachariah Porter.Brendan Wixted

“I never thought I would be doing this, because I didn’t think this was a thing,” Porter said of transitioning from nonprofits to finding success with short-form comedic content, which he’s recently parlayed into a touring stand-up show. “It’s the character stuff that has really changed my entire life — doing these wigs and these characters inspired by the people that I grew up with and that raised me.”

Porter, who describes his dynamic with his audience as “parasocial,” said the majority of his followers and the people who come to his show are women in their 20s to 50s who see their own relationships brought to life in his portrayals. On TikTok and Instagram, these fans take to the comments sections of Porter’s videos, which are shot by Carson, to express their feelings of kinship for characters like a wine-loving matriarch his mom swears isn’t based on her, a trauma-dumping cousin and a chaotic but oddly effective restaurant manager. They also show up at meet-and-greet events to reminisce with Porter about their favorite videos from over the years, as if they’re talking about old friends.

“The characters have become parts of people’s lives. They have been connection points for people,” Porter said, underscoring a point that Maddox made about comedy resonating when it’s “grounded in lived experience.”

‘People do come for joy’

Another social media personality who expertly pairs humor and personal history is RaeShanda Lias, a 43-year-old veteran, mother of four and small-business owner who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. After a difficult stretch of years and rebuilding her life more than once, Lias began filming herself at a dry-erase board in 2023 outlining rules to live by — from respecting Rihanna’s privacy to deplaning in an orderly fashion. And since then, she’s amassed 2.5 million followers on TikTok and another 1 million on Instagram with her no-nonsense approach and positive worldview.

RaeShanda Lias.
RaeShanda Lias.Myron Fields

“You know what you get when you come over to my page. If you stop, if you scroll, there’s going to be somebody wearing something hideous that I need to talk about — all the way down to our rights,” Lias said of her videos, which often feature her scribbling nonsensically while delivering unscripted lectures on topics ranging from wearing Timberlands inside to reproductive rights.

Lias, whose tagline is “let’s check the board,” attributes her success on social media to the multifaceted quality of her content — which occasionally involves her cat, Nutmegan Thee Stallion — and just being herself. She tries to avoid getting too enmeshed in somber topics, she says, and is passionate about making people laugh because she comes from a big family that uses humor to get through hard moments.

“There’s so many things going on in the world, and it’s too heavy to talk about the same thing every day. So I break it up with Nutmeg or saying something off the wall, because people do come for joy, and I want them to find that,” Lias said.

‘Being able to come together’

Like many queer creators, Lias, who also has a transgender son, has ended up commenting more frequently on hot-button issues as a result of the current news cycle. And, of late, she said she’s felt compelled to open up about the heavier sides of her story — including dealing with divorce and domestic abuse — because of the response she’s had from followers. She has found that either one can lead to backlash and land her on the “wrong side” of social media, but she takes a live-and-let-live approach that’s espoused by many of her fellow creators who are grateful for what the internet has given them.

Carson, who’s found unexpected fan bases on social media among antique collectors and straight, male realtors with his videos that pay homage to simpler times, said there are always hateful comments but noted that he’s “found more support than ever.”

“I grew up a little gay boy in the Midwest during the ‘that’s so gay’ era of the 2000s. It was rough, but little 8-year-old me would be thrilled to know that he has finally been accepted for being himself,” Carson said. “As the great American poet RuPaul once said, ‘Unless they paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind.’”

Maddox, who also spends a significant amount of time online for work, shares a similarly sunny view about how the good outweighs the bad when it comes to social media.

“Social media has unleashed a lot of problems on our world. And at the same time, there is actually a lot of good that comes from it — such as people developing spaces that are their own, having authentic conversations and being able to come together,” Maddox said. “It also does bring us these moments of joy that, I think, are really important to cling to and be more deliberate about seeking out, especially when things are bad.”



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