Gay vs. queer

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Hello everyone, I'm trying to understand something, and I apologize if I sound ignorant or insensitive, since I'm mostly out of my element here.

I'm a musician who does a lot of weird, retro, and nerdy type electronic music, and I have a hunch that the best target demographic would be people in the neurodivergent, queer, and anime communities, since those communities tend to be attracted to novelty and there's a lot of overlap between them.

I've tried marketing my music to men in the gay community based on this hunch and been unsuccessful. It seems like there's a separation between the gay community and the queer community. Like if you look at DeviantArt where I was trying to push my music, the gay artists were mostly producing images of very masculine, buff, muscular, and well-endowed guys (I guess the word "twink" would be appropriate), whereas the queer accounts were more focused on femboys, traps, cross-dressing, furry stuff, etc.

Am I right in my assessment that the gay community is mostly separate from the queer community and that queer is more of a personality trait or a subculture/counterculture than a sexual identity? Like a cishet person could still be queer if they like to cross-dress for example. Again, I'm sorry if I come off as insensitive, but I'm just trying to educate myself on this subject.

I don't know the distinctions between the communities but I do know that Carly Rae Jepsen has been extremely successful in marketing herself to the LGBTQ community while not being a member of the community.

She had one huge hit that opened many doors. She modeled for Target and worked on Broadway. Instead of looking for another big hit she cultivated a loyal audience. She still tours with the original band members.

I didn't know that about Carly Rae Jepson. All I know is she made that one song and it became a meme. The song was almost like bubble gum pop in terms of its whole vibe. It's hard to say if it was the song itself or her overall personal brand that appealed to the LGBT community. If she was doing musicals, she was probably appealing to a different segment of the LGBT community than what I'm trying to target. I'm thinking more of weebs and gay furries for my target audience. I know this audience exists because pretty much every time I go to any sort of nerd hang-out, a ton of them are queer, furries, into anime, etc. I think it's more of an introvert thing than anything else.

https://youtu.be/ZOyO-nLkQHI

Hmm, I was thinking of something less in-your-face than that. I personally find these sorts of overt efforts to appeal to demographics to be kinda cringe. It's like she's employing tropes and stereotypes rather than trying to connect with people on a human level.

OP,

I've heard people talk about this on YouTube and in other online spaces. Usually referring to it as being gay VS being culturally queer. I think you're on to something here.

I'd agree about knowing your audience. For the record, I feel a bit called out by your post because I think you just described me. Stop being in my head.

Queer is certainly its own opt-in subculture with its own jargon and norms and whatnot. I'm bisexual, romantically a bit more homo than not, but I'm not queer. The term does nothing for me and the queer community makes me cringe sometimes when it tries to be subversive for the sake of it. Not everything needs Queering. But I do enjoy a good gay bar and drag is fun.

I think sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between subversiveness for "no reason" and subversiveness with genuine passion and thought put into it that we just don't necessarily connect with personally. There's a lot of things I find annoying and shallow that others can find tons of meaning in. I for one don't connect with a lot of "mainstream" gay media.

Not to say being queer can't be SUPER cringe, but coming from a bisexual who does consider himself queer, I also think that being odd and maybe even off putting is the point for some. I feel the same way about art in general. Not everything needs to be palatable to outsiders looking in.