YouTuber Jaiden Animations has officially come out as aroace, which is shorthand for aromantic asexual.
The popular content creator, whose channel has 11 million subscribers and is best known for animated gaming recaps, shared the news in a video, titled "Being Not Straight," on March 20. "This is probably the most open I'll ever get about my personal life," the animator shared with her followers.
Jaiden Animations went on to detail what exactly being aroace entails, saying, "I know what you're thinking. That's not gay, what the hell is that?" Per her explanation, aromantic describes "a person who feels very little to no romantic attraction to anyone at all" with asexuality being "someone who feels little to no intimate attraction to anyone" and AroAce being the combination of the two. Just like how sexuality is a spectrum, one can be asexual and not aromantic, and vice versa.
Jaiden recounted friendships she had growing up that she mistook for romantic relationships and how a pretty standard love song she heard on the radio helped her come to this realization "I just suddenly thought to myself, 'Wait do people actually feel these things towards each other? Like all these mushy lyrics are real emotions? They're not joking?' That's when I started feeling like something was different."
According to Jaiden, she's "never been magnetically attracted to the look or shape of a single person in my entire life and did not realize it was a real thing until very recently." Ultimately, it was through her understanding of these labels that Jaiden came to help her "feel much more confident and sure of myself."
Historically, Jaiden has been reserved about sharing personal details with the public, but she also understands that there is power in LGBTQ+ visibility. "I thought if I could help more people become more aware of this, then that would be awesome," she said in the video. "I was confused as hell for a while and could've used something like this."
Watch Jaiden Animations' full coming out video for yourself, below.
Photo via YouTube
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