I remember in the 6th grade the first time I was called “gay.” I can’t remember what it was for. Maybe it was that I combed my hair a certain way or that I didn’t wear the right clothes. Regardless of the reason it was the first time that I had ever heard the word and I embarrassed myself further by asking what it meant. The thing was that the two kids who called me gay couldn’t explain it to me - they just pressed on with how gay I was.

There were a lot of moments growing up where my family and friends thought that I was gay. My dad feared that I was gay when I didn’t ogle over a woman who was washing her car in a miniskirt. My grandfather feared I was gay when I didn’t pitch a tent after flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. My friends at school feared I was gay when I didn’t participate in locker room conversations or “who would you do” discussions. None of this stuff ever mattered, but they were made to seem like they mattered by people who were far more invested in the subject than I was.

When I got into my mid teens I was called another new word that I hadn’t heard before; queer. As a slightly older and somewhat smarter kid, I decided to look this one up and hoooooboy did the floodgates open.

In spite of all the telltale signs, I am not gay - but I am queer, and, unlike when I was young, I make no apologies for it. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized how stupid it was to be anybody other than myself, and I owe it to that 12 year old boy, too afraid to be himself, to never make that mistake again.

As an adult I now wonder - why the hell did any of this matter? Why would anybody care about what I liked? Why would anybody care about who I loved? In a world that is so plagued with hate, why would we discourage love at all?

What does this have to do with Super Sad Squad?

Everything. The characters, the subject matter, the situations they find themselves in - it’s all from the heart and not filtered or distorted to please any specific person. It’s what I would have made in my youth if I weren’t afraid to be myself back then.

Super Sad Squad is deeply rooted in self expression and will remain queer as fuck until I keel over.