For anyone who has participated in an online fandom focused on a closeted celeb or couple, certain patterns emerge rather quickly. Besides the inevitable mental abuse of gaslighting (using psychological means to manipulate others by having them question their own sanity), there are the 24/7 trolls who harass, ridicule and try to marginalize those who are not willing to toe the party line of management.
Besides the constant queerbaiting that aggressively pushes an implied homophobia (because according to The Powers That Be no one willingly closets themselves), there's also a tried and true technique of divide and conquer to partition and pit one group against another (often believers [hats] against hets) to hopefully use peer pressure to crack down on what is perceived as subversive talk. In actuality this "troublemaking" talk is really nothing more than non-obliging people expressing an independent opinion about what is being seen and heard and refusing to be silenced.
Probably my favorite closeting technique and one that Jake Gyllenhaal and Austin Nichols' team use on a regular ad nauseum basis is that of photoshopping while also recruiting other performers, media outlets and personalities into shipping the "stories" they are trying to sell the public. Most recently, Prairie Girl and I have written about the Women's March on Washington and the myriad of photographic peculiarities associated with the day regarding the extent of Jake's "participation." But, as is often the case with paranoid bullies, management simply can't allow any dissent. They must have the last word, particularly when others' observations are dangerously close to uncovering the truth. Subsequently, a few more hilarious attempts happened since last Saturday's coverage that are most entertaining.
Of all the stunts that took place last week, the one that stood out the most involved CNN and actually kicked off the day's narrative. As a quick refresher, the push back efforts on the part of Jake's team all started when Narnia Dispatches had the audacity to question why Jake was the only celebrity the network announced to be at the DC march, but who didn't want to be seen or interviewed on camera. Like clockwork, the on the air pronouncement was quickly followed up with the necessary social media documentation:
— EB (@adartproducer) January 21, 2017
Not surprisingly, Jake's people were concerned about Narnia's insights about why Jake was the only celebrity singled out by the network so just three days later on Tuesday, January 24th, a highly cropped cheek to cheek photo emerged out of nowhere of Jake and CNN's Van Jones:
When no one took the bait, another hilarious second photo of Jake and Van Jones appeared. No doubt the strategic intention was to stop any further questioning on this topic by supplying a another bit of visual evidence that Jake had indeed interacted with CNN that day. The familiar "look people, here's another photo of Jake with a high profile liberal commentator from the network, just like we said" response. The only problem was that the second fauxtographic image provided was even more bizarre than the first one:
— Jake Gyllenhaal BR (@gyllenhaalbr) January 25, 2017
When no one took the bait, another hilarious second photo of Jake and Van Jones appeared. No doubt the strategic intention was to stop any further questioning on this topic by supplying a another bit of visual evidence that Jake had indeed interacted with CNN that day. The familiar "look people, here's another photo of Jake with a high profile liberal commentator from the network, just like we said" response. The only problem was that the second fauxtographic image provided was even more bizarre than the first one:
Looking closely, the most hysterical aspect of this image are Jake's legs. Get a load of how his knees are practically on the ground, his lower limbs actually blurred to hopefully hide the distorted body alignment. What's even funnier is someone must have panicked because by Friday the account that had posted the best buds together at the DC march photo (daniebb3) deleted it from her Instagram. Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
After surviving the mire and muck of that nonsense, let's cleanse the palate a bit by reminding ourselves of what reality actually looks like. No smoke or mirrors needed here because this is the kind of simple storytelling that needs no rewrites. No edits.
Tenderness. Adoration. Lust. Love.
Whew! Looks like there is nothing wrong with our eyes. Or the ability to see what's real. No photoshopping necessary.
Our Playlist: For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
Welcome to the Show - Adam Lambert, featuring Laleh
