Chris Olsen, nude photos and when gay men tear each other down

Chris Olsen is screaming. Crying. Bereft.

The 26-year-old gay TikTok personality – known for paling around with celebrities like Meghan Trainor – has finally had enough of the bullying and harassment he's faced online. A portion of said bullying is coming from fellow gay men, a fact that may seem shocking at first blush to a general audience. But it's not shocking if you've spent time in that space online. People dunk on each other left and right. Sometimes it's innocent, arguing about who the best pop girlie is. But a lot of the time it's cruel – directly attacking strangers online with little regard for consequence. It goes from petty to dangerous fast.

Olsen, for example, has long been endured people commenting how "annoying" he is. But he's alleging that people are leaking his nudes or finding them online and sending them to him as blackmail (48 states and Washington, D.C., have passed legislation against nonconsensual pornography, or revenge porn, as of October 2023). USA TODAY has reached out to Olsen for comment.

Many have come to Olsen's defense, including fellow creator Rob Anderson. "Seeing him break down and the responses to him breaking down show just like a lack of humanity, just this lack of empathy for people, and forgetting that people are people," Anderson, 36, says. "And having gone through it myself, I just wanted to just give a little bit of insight, and hopefully some release from what he was feeling." That's right. His own nudes were leaked too. "It's something that you don't talk about, because the more you talk about it, the more it happens."

Why are people so horrible to each other, especially people in the same community? Experts theorize it's a combination of factors related to the rise of social media, a generation unburdened by the worst of the AIDS epidemic and changing laws and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. As common enemies and threats fall away gay men may turn against each other to cope with their traumas, from lighthearted memes to cyberbullying to even the aforementioned revenge porn.

"The reason why anyone – gay man or not – is catty comes from a lack of wholeness within themselves, and it mirrors how they view and treat themselves," says relationship coach and certified hypnotherapy practitioner Ted Smith. "Insecurity, low self-esteem and a lack of self-love can all play a role in where this treatment comes from."

When gay men tear each other down

Michael Bronski, a Harvard University professor and author of "A Queer History of the United States for Young People," was shocked to hear from younger gay men about vitriol roiling the community. "This was not the case when I was coming out in the late '60s or during the '70s or '80s. I mean, there was always the queen who was maybe catty, or who was sort of sarcastic, and even that was not particularly meant to be harmful."

Chase Cassine, licensed clinical social worker, adds that "the longstanding history of skillful and strategic insulting – or shade – as it most commonly known, has played a significant role in LGBTQIA+ society," specifically among Black and brown gay men. A coping mechanism to deal with stress and trauma.

When Bronski was younger, the reality of everyday oppression was so bad that gay men didn't want to add to the burden of actual homophobia by being each other's bullies. Of course, homophobia, is far from over. But with 69% of people accepting same-sex marriage compared to just 27% back in 1996, that's a marked change.

Social media has introduced gay men to each other who may never have interacted, or at least put names and faces on people who may have otherwise only caught glimpses of each other in a dark club.

But when the lights are on, traditional norms and beauty standards that afflict every community also apply to gay men. The white, hot, muscular gay men get a lot of the attention – and are therefore primed for takedown from people who are likely jealous and bitter.

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'These communities are uniquely fragile'

Do the detractors have a point? Absolutely. Spaces should never be exclusionary. It's important to step outside your comfort zone and talk to people who don't look like you. And more vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender people of color, are far more likely to experience hate than white gay men. But that doesn't mean they deserve hate.

"They should instead support one another, defend one another, have each other's backs," says Sameer Hinduja, PhD, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University. "And yet we see this occur in many marginalized groups." Jealousy and self-hatred are the roots of the problem.

Cyberbullying is prevalent across communities, and women in particularly bear the brunt of hate online. But the factors affecting gay men are inevitably unique.

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The gay community and consent

Critiquing and teasing someone is sometimes fair game. But "there's a difference when someone has this extra energy and takes it too far," Anderson says.

Like Olsen and Anderson, Erick Adame, a New York weatherman, also saw his nudes appear online. He lost his job after his employer discovered he appeared on an adult webcam website. Members of the LGBTQ community face further scrutiny for any expression of sexuality and are at higher risk for revenge porn according to at least one study.

"You have a right to privacy, and the violator is the person who is actively taking these things and sharing them," says Anderson, "not the person who has sent them with the intention of one or two or three people seeing them. And it's sick, and more people need to be talking about it."

Part of being in the gay community means you don't need to abide by heteronormativity. You can feel freer in how you have sex and form relationships. But some mistake others' sexual expression as an invitation.

"The gay community doesn't understand consent," Anderson says. "When you're in a space around women, you see how it changes and how men just have to have more consent, because women are in these spaces. But when all gay men are around each other, online or offline, they feel like they own that man. They own their body. They own their image. They own anything about them." That's why some are comfortable nude sharing. "They're like, 'Oh, well, they exist, so I deserve to be able to see them and share them,' like, no. It's called consent."

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'They secretly want to be a part of it'

In real life, people may turn out to be nicer and more inclusive than you think. It's easy to perceive yourself as an outsider when you're plastered with intimidating images on social media of people – maybe all looking a certain way, maybe not – partying and having fun. Maybe you want to pick apart the image and make fun of them in an unserious way, or maybe you take it to another level. But why are you picking it apart in the first place?

"Sometimes when people criticize something, they secretly want to be a part of it," says Jarrod D. King, who hosts a gay culture podcast, "or they wish that they could fit the mold of what that looks like, without understanding that you can just go and enjoy yourself and be with your friends."

How does this get better? Examining your own behavior is a good first step – including the types of people you're inviting to your parties and how you're interacting with others on the internet.

If you're a little shady online, remember that "when overused and over-relied on passive aggressive communication can be detrimental and harmful because it can be invalidating to others," Cassine says.

And the best way to combat this behavior may be with positivity.

"People are always going to be unhappy and they're always going to do this," Anderson says, "but I think if people have more positive experiences, if you see something like this happening, and you see a lot of negativity and you see a lot of hate and dogpiling, don't embrace it or join in or even participate in any way."