Anonymous
I dislike cliques because I don’t fit into them and hate how the gay community is so exclusive to their respective social groups.
Remember when the Bear movement was all about bucking the trend of body fascism? I wish these “cliques” were more about identity and body-acceptance and less about exclusion and elitism.
Some folks (read: morons) feel that my survey has made segregation in the gay community worse, but I feel it’s simply turned a mirror on our own culture. Look at the absurdity of 18+ different labels. The only people who said “Looks don’t matter” are those who don’t align with any clique.
These pie charts represent a sample of ~100,000 gay Facebook users.
It’s disturbing that nearly 1-in-5 gay men are Conservative…or that anyone likes cats at all.
Update: Here’s the political breakdown by generation
bigbadbroseidon
There weren’t too many surprises, but here’s what stood out to me:
- After 35, guys start to hone-in on what they want and become more exclusive to that type.
- There are just as many tops as their are bottoms…unless you segment by clique. Twinks who are into other Twinks must have a very hard time finding enough tops to go around.
- Gay guys don’t understand statistics. (Something I discovered when I tried presenting the data by itself without commentary).
- There are regional distinctions between social groups.
- 1/5th of Gainers don’t have a sexual role
- The average muscle bear is a lot smaller than I imagined.
Browser and Operating System use by Gay Cliques
Using browser data from Gay Cliques Census respondents, we can see that the average Gay male is pretty tech savvy:
Nearly one-third of gay men use Macs, 80% use an up-to-date web browser and 10% took my survey on their iPhone!
Nevertheless, this is the average. Things get really interesting when we segment based on cliques:
- Otters are the techiest of Gay Cliques, with nearly half of all Otters using a Mac over a PC and >90% up-to-date web browser.
- Daddies are the least technical Gay Clique, they’re the highest users of Internet Explorer, and only ~40% have up-to-date web browsers.
- Cubs and Twinks prefer Android to iPhones
Sorry for not making any census-related updates for the past few months. I had started to get bored and was working on other meaningful projects.
Nevertheless, I can’t believe I haven’t done this graph yet:
What Cliques are people actually aware of?
This graph shows the top 17 cliques, ordered by the percent of people who are aware of each clique. At 93%, almost everyone knows what a Bear is, 1-in-3 know what a Chaser is, but very few people are aware of Bulls or Gainers.
This graph is pretty even across every dimension—age, clique, location, etc—except when it comes to Chickens.
What is a Chicken? WIth only 21 people self-identifying as Chicken I can’t say what an average Chicken looks like. Whatever they are, it seems to only be used by older generations and folks in the UK. It has completely fallen out of use by the younger generation:
Chasers, Gainers, Bulls and Muscle Cubs are the most clique-conscious (aware of 18+ cliques on average) while Twinks and people who don’t associate with cliques are the least aware (10 or less on average).
At what point do these labels become bonafide Social Groups? Bears and Cubs are certainly qualified with >90% awareness, but what about Bulls? Only 1-in-5 people are aware of their existence.
Anonymous
I had a few goals for the Gay Cliques Census:
- Define these social groups from popular consensus.
- Discover what cliques are actually in use (eg, Bears, Cubs, etc…) so we know what social groups don’t actually exist (eg, Lemurs, Moose, etc…).
- Find the relationship between cliques and attraction to other cliques.
- How do Tops/Bottoms range between groups.
- Annnnd what are the geographic differences between cliques.
So, basically, I just wanted to “shed some light” on the gay demo.
I should have done this from the beginning, but I’ve added the Density (or Body Type) to the infographic. This should make it much easier to understand what the physical definition of a clique is at a glance. Before, you had to guesstimate from height/weight/waist values.
I’ve also replace the “Height” attribute in the radar charts with “Density,” since height doesn’t play a role in what social group folks associate with. (Yes, even the two people who are “Giraffes” are average height).
The Gay Cliques Census is located here, for anyone interested in the results.
Remember that Gay Cliques thing I was doing?
In the survey, people could give me their sexual role on a scale of 1-5, 1 being a total bottom, 3 being versatile, and 5 being total top. There was a sixth option, “This doesn’t apply to me,” because sexual roles are social creations in the Gay Community.
The only clique who indicated that sexual roles don’t apply to them were “Gainers.”
Actually, ~18% of Gainers said top/bottom/versatile doesn’t apply to them!
This is absolutely fascinating. Does anybody know why nearly 1-in-5 Gainers don’t align with a sexual role?
Here’s an ugly preview of the regionality piece I’m working on.
When I break down my data by country, I can see how geography affects the physical definitions of cliques. Most social groups are (surprisingly) identical across countries, but Bears, Cubs and Gym Bunnies have drastic physical differences:
- Bears are bigger and younger in Canada, averaging ~250lbs and 35 years.
- Compare to the United Kingdom where the definition of a Bear is the lightest and oldest at ~220lbs and 40 years.
- If age weren’t a major factor in the UK, most Cubs from America, Canada and Australia would be considered Bears!
Based on the latest data from the Gay Cliques Census, Bulls are 60-100lbs bigger, taller, and hairier than Muscle Bears. Physically speaking, Bulls are like Super Muscle Bears.
Muscle Bears are one of the most selective cliques with 85% of them being into other Muscle Bears. Bulls are much more equal opportunity, liking Muscle Pups, Cubs and Pups more than other Bulls.
Here’s the two radar charts overlayed, Bulls are purple and Muscle Bears are yellow:
Gainers and Muscle Cubs have just appeared in the Gay Cliques Results.
Gainers are to Chubs the same way Cubs are to Bears:
- Gainers are basically smaller Chubs
- Gainers are really into Chubs
Additionally, the same differences exist between Bears and Muscle Bears as with Cubs and Muscle Cubs:
- Muscle Cubs are leaner than Cubs
- Cubs are younger and hairier than Muscle Cubs
Chasers actually appeared a while ago…you can read about them here.
The Interests Heat Map and Tops/Bottoms Candlesticks have been updated with these new cliques. I’ve also added an “Average” to the radar charts to act as a visual baseline for everything.
Anonymous
I’m working on that now, actually. Right now my heatmap only shows points (as 1 latitude by 1 longitude squares), but as soon as I figure out how to highlight specific regions it should be ready for launch. Here’s a preview showing the density of Tops to Bottoms:
Tops (blue) are scattered pretty sparsely, compared to Bottoms who are just about everywhere.
