In today's society, the lives of our youth are run by social media. With their phones as an almost extended version of their hands, they spend most of their time on sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. These are the platforms that believe sharing is caring, and promote their users to offer up any and all information about their lives, including aspects that they normally would not share with even their closest family member. As same sex marriage was legalized throughout the United States last year, numerous people in the LGBTQ community are finally able to be themselves. Even though the adolescents of this community may not be ready for this type of commitment, they seem to be coming out of their shells more and in turn coming out of the closet. But what does the term "coming out of the closet" really mean? According to Jimmie Manning, who conducted a study dedicated to the communicating sexual identities, there is a specific typology that comes along with the coined term. He has gathered after studying various scholarly inquiries that "coming out" means, "the process by which individuals come to recognize that they have romantic or sexual feelings toward members of their own gender, adopt lesbian or gay (or bisexual) identities, and then share these identities with others" (Manning 122). While there is a plentiful amount of new found identities, many of them are not interpersonal reveals. Most of these coming out stories are being shared online, with their followers and even anyone who is willing to listen. However,  not their families - unless of course their grandmother follows them on Twitter. The rise in social media is creating a strong, negative influence on LGBTQ youth promoting them to come out through these specific platforms even if they are not fully aware of themselves yet. This can be seen through the statistical rise of coming out stories on twitter and YouTube, increased amounts of bullying and stress on "out" teens, the inclination of adolescents coming out earlier, and the studies on adolescents that have actually used this method of coming out. 

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing amount of fight and acceptance for equality. In 2015, the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states of America. There is also the National Coming Out Day and the annual Pride Parades held in several different cities and states. With more acceptance, more people are feeling comfortable enough to come out as whatever they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or any other possibility that they feel is true to themselves. Through personal research, it is found that a large number of well known YouTube personalities have come out through their career on the website. One of the earliest faces of the LGBTQ community of YouTube is Hannah Hart who first came out in 2012. A year later, the now "on the rise" music artist Troye Sivan shared his story as well. Since then several other YouTubers have come out such as Connor Franta, Shane Dawson, Ingrid Nilsen, Lucas Cruikshank, Gigi Gorgeous, and Joey Graceffa. Also, during 2014 through 2016 so far, several mainstream celebrities have revealed their identities through interviews, twitter, and Tumblr, for example, Miley Cyrus, Caitlyn Jenner, Ellen Page, Raven Symone, and Colton Haynes. During the time that Connor Franta revealed his sexuality, friend and YouTuber Joey Graceffa was still in the closet. While Connor was receiving praises and support from many of his YouTube friends, Joey had not said anything to him, over the media at least. As fans noticed this, they began targeting him leaving comments and tweets about his silence being suspicious and that his reluctance to address the situation was rude toward Connor. Even the role models of the LGBTQ community are not safe from the hate and peer pressure of coming out. At the end of 2015, a YouTuber, Anna Russett posted a video titled "Coming Out Online is NOT Mandatory." In the video, she mentions several celebrities that have recently been coming out online. She says, according to these celebrities that they are being forced to live "alternative lifestyles compared to the heteronormative lifestyles" and that this influence is giving other people the idea that they have an obligation to come out online as well. In addition to this, she mentions that social media platforms are designed to make their users want to share more and in return feed the trends since they benefit from our using their sites. It is almost considered a societal factor for people to desire to know more about others and here, the viewers are extensively interested in what these people are going through in their lives. 

A website dedicated to investigating alleged trends on YouTube declared that the growing number of "out" YouTubers is actually a trend. A trend defined as being the subject of many posts on a social media website. Being mindful, however, that a person's sexuality and desire to reveal or conceal that part of their life is completely up to them. The article on this topic opens with a popular circulating video of twin boys, Aaron and Austin Rhodes, who film themselves coming out to their father. According to the source, sharing coming out stories is a big part of "YouTube Culture," with more than 36,000 videos on the topic. It also states that there were around 9,600 coming out videos released in 2014 alone. Another article addresses the increase in coming out stories becoming a trend online. 

In Rob Cover and Rosslyn Prosser's article, "Memorial Accounts: Queer Young Men, Identity and Contemporary Coming Out Narratives Online," they mention the fact that these stories are being searched for a lot more. Cover and Prosser state, "a Google search for 'coming out' produces over 150 million results, while a search for 'coming out story' find over half a million;" (Cover and Prosser 84). They later address how the stories are now more app driven, "with Web 2.0 applications such as YouTube and Facebook, the coming out narrative shifts from written text to the audio-visual, with hundreds of coming out accounts addressing YouTube audiences" (Cover and Prosser 84). According to Vocativ, a website who uses their extended ability into the deep web to research beyond Google to get better information on issues in today's world. In one of their articles they talk about how more kids are coming out online before they do in real life. Here they provide statistics from twitter on the designated National Coming Out Day and the hashtags that were the trending most on that day. They state that in preparation for that day there were more than 5,200 posts on twitter and Instagram using the hashtags #comingout and variations of #nationalcomingoutday. Statistically, there is no doubt that the LGBT youth is utilizing their knowledge of technology in order to let everyone know who they really are. 

With this fairly new found trend, there has been a decrease in the age in which adolescents are deciding to come out, whether that be online or in person. An article focused on the GLB's adolescents shows that there is an inclination of adolescents who are coming out during their youth, rather than waiting until they are fully developed and have a better understanding of themselves. The author of this article, Bettina Riley comes to the conclusion that youth are coming out during this earlier stage in their lives due to stress. Since there is becoming more acceptance for the LGBTQ community, this sort of idea is being presented to children at a younger age. Along with their being an increased risk of sexual health issues, Riley also mentions the increased amount of the stress adolescents are experiencing, "GLB teens also experience greater psychological distress from choosing an alternative, often stigmatized identity" (Riley 3). Youth have the option to come out in a safer way mentally, however, they choose otherwise because of the rising trend.

Another big issue with there being a spike in youth coming out is an equally important increase in the number of these youth being bullied and facing an unhealthy amount of stress. According to the Human Rights Campaign, LGBT youth are two times more likely to be victims of physical bullying in school than their peers. The Human Rights Campaign also states that 42% of LGBT youth live in a community that is not accepting of LGBT people. In an article from the Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, Bettina Riley ran a study resulting in a conclusion that one of the main reasons that youth are coming out much earlier in life is due to an overwhelming amount of stress. Riley mentions this issue along with a few other speculations, such as sexually transmitted diseases by stating, "GLB teens also experience greater psychological distress from choosing an alternative, often stigmatized identity ... "(Riley 3). She says that research from two different samples that GLB male and females, ranging in the ages 14-21 are much more likely to attempt suicide than those not identifying as LGBTQ. There are also higher rates of sexual assault and both physical and verbal victimization in school. An article from Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Network focuses specifically on cyberbullying with the youth in the LGBTQ community. The main claim of this article states that LGBTQ youth are the most targeted group for cyberbullying. It refers to several studies that collectively agree that cyberbullying is more prominent in youth who do not identify as heterosexual, resulting in various serious mental health consequences. The article also mentions the risk of depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, self-injury, and suicidal attempts in youth that experienced cyberbullying, who may not identify themselves as non-heterosexual. A study conducted in the United Kingdom explored the diversity and inclusivity in universities towards LGBT students. By administering an online survey to 41 different universities in the UK, researchers found an increase in harassment: "the incidence of verbal harassment reported here would appear to be significantly higher than the 39% reported by Fahey (1995) more than a decade ago" (Ellis 729). 

While there are several negative aspects to the use of social media for LGBTQ youth in coming out, there equally as many positive effects. A not so new way of dealing with any issues is the idea of support groups. This type of therapy has been around for a very long time, an example being Alcoholics Anonymous. These groups are not limited to face to face interaction with this day of technology. In an article from the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental health, there was a research study done in Canada on identity development in LGBT youth. The results of the study show that a majority of the youth that are coming out through new media feel more comfortable doing so that way rather than coming out in person to their friends and family. It gives them a sort of alternate identity to give them comfort and also gives them a support group that they may not have in real life. The article addresses the good and bad of this topic by given statistics found in a previous study done, "a study in 2013 found that LGBT youth faces far more bullying on the internet than non-LGBT kids -- but they also find greater support from their peers online" (Clark-flory and Leigh Cuen). In the article on cyberbullying towards adolescents in the LGBT community, there is a list of several different sources for youth struggling with sexual identity problems, suicide prevention, and cyberbullying issues. 

In another article, by Ingrid Dahl, she claims that the media is helping LGBT youth find a place of becoming and belonging. In her conclusion Dahl describes how well social media provides this safe haven for LGBT youth, "youth media is one of the best tools to support queer youth to build a positive identity because the focus of programs often encourages youth to claim and represent their identities despite harmful stereotypes projected by mainstream media" According to the Human Rights Campaign, around 75% of LGBT youth claim that they are more honest about themselves than they are online. One of the many YouTubers that shared their coming out story is Connor Franta. He says in his video that he struggled for most of his life with trying to come to terms with his true identity. He pushed aside all thoughts that he might be gay until his sophomore year of college where he finally accepted it and told himself that he was gay. In his video, he says that "the reason I accepted this information [is] because of the internet" (Franta). Franta was able to do that because he watched so many other people share their coming out stories on YouTube. This influenced him to post his own video and at this step, there is no turning back. Connor Franta and several other "out" YouTubers have all mentioned how difficult the process of accepting their identity can be and that they have all been able to come out because of the support from their families but also from their friends made over YouTube. 

As social media is becoming more of a part of our lives, we are relying more on platforms such as twitter, facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as our own personal crutches instead of each other. When we have a question, we do not ask people, we simply type the question into a search engine and hope that we can find what we are looking for. In a way, this is a new cultural trend in its own. The use of social media on one hand takes away our humanity by disconnecting our contact to each other. The fact that the LGBTQ community is gaining more acceptance in this world today is great news. These normal people are able to express who they are with less discrimination. There are more improvements in the behaviors from society in regards to the issue and to the individuals. However, as it is becoming more acceptable, it is also becoming more trendy. With celebrities introducing themselves in the LGBTQ community, younger fans are using them as their models for their own lives. Thus, potentially influencing them to be something that they are not or may not understand. Also being mindful that anyone is free to be who they are no matter what, and should not be penalized for being exactly that. Nevertheless, it has been proven that this increase in online coming out occurrences is correlated to a spike in cyberbullying, stress, and a lack of real life support. Adolescents are coming out due to the influence of celebrities and stress before they may fully grasp the actual concept that they are experiencing. As a supporter of LGBTQ rights, I believe that coming out is very important. However, I do not think that it is a process that should be forced. It can be extremely difficult to come out to a family that may not be one hundred percent supportive of your decision. No one should be discriminated against in any way for anything. Whether it be online or in person, anyone struggling with this transition in life should be able to do so in whatever way makes them comfortable.

