Ron Does Stuff

Much like Young Royals, I hesitated from watching Heartstopper because I wasn’t exactly sure if Netflix was even going to finish the whole thing. And I know this had its origins on Tumblr, but I had stopped frequenting Tumblr by the time this came out, I think, so I only found out that it was a comic because of the show. Anyways, all of that to say that I’m here now and starting my Heartstopper journey!

It’s an odd thing to be reading Heartstopper at my age. I recognize a time when I was like Charlie Spring — anxious, afraid to talk with straight guys in case they thought I was hitting on them, and stupidly attracted to obviously straight boys.

I can also understand why Nick Nelson would be attractive to Charlie. A hot jock who’s sensitive and willing to stand up for you and defend you from bullies or an opportunistic classmate? It’s what I wanted the jocks I crushed on back in high school to be.

If I read this as a teenager, I absolutely see myself talking about this nonstop with classmates or online. I’d be tweeting about it and reblogging it on Tumblr and everything. I get the fandom that enjoys it now. I know I’ve only read the first volume but I can see why teenage me would be so into it. It’s more about Charlie and Nick’s journey understanding their own emotions and sexuality and orientation and issues outside of that kinda take a backseat and isn’t that the truth for us as teenagers? We’re the main characters.

But at the same time, I’m no longer a teenager. I haven’t been a teenager for a long time now. And some of the things that they’re concerned about in this first volume are things that I’ve already resolved with myself or things I no longer care about anymore. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and stories like Charlie and Nick’s still need to be told for all the young people who will still have to go through what they go through. Which I think is bullshit, by the way, because you think we’d have moved forward as a society by now.

I get where the people who say that this is a sanitized version of the queer teenage experience is coming from, but what is wrong with presenting that? Just as long as this isn’t the only experience being told. This story, Charlie and Nick’s story, has to exist beside all the other stories of queer teenage experience. If the straights get a variety of stories about their experiences told, why can’t the same be done for the LGBTQIA+ community? We’re the ones with a rainbow for a symbol for crying out loud.

By the end of the first volume, even though there were parts of it that I liked and I was definitely kilig in some parts, I knew that I’m not the intended audience for this work. But for those looking for a story just like this one, I think this is a good place to start.