Rabies Pride: Queer Micro Communities on the Internet as Sites of Liberation

Abstract

In 2017, Tumblr user dirk-has-rabies created the Rabies Pride Movement for autistic trans individuals who feel like they are treated as less than human or diseased. In July of 2018 a satire account called rabidloving was created that co-opted rabies pride into a joke label about being attracted to people with rabies or the idea of having rabies. Currently the true meaning is virtually impossible to find under associated tags or searches on Tumblr. How does the formation of rabies pride produce insights into the complexities of online queer spaces as sites of liberation and assimilation? Through archival research on TikTok – where I first came across the movement – and Tumblr I seek to contextualize the Rabies Pride Movement and its appropriation within broader narratives around queer liberation and LGBT+ assimilation while disrupting the idea that there is a singular queer mindset in online spaces. I will articulate how rabies pride is an example of smaller communities in queer internet culture that function as sites of liberation through a refusal to be palatable to cis-heteronormative society that are often lost or perpetually rejected by others due to the assimilative nature of jokes other LGBT+ people make around these communities. This understanding helps challenge homogenizing views of online queer spaces, and recontextualize how we interact with the internet while seeking to give understanding to the appropriated movement rabies pride.