今日吃瓜

I went to Queer Thinking at the Seymour Centre, my first Mardi Gras event as an 鈥渙ut鈥� gay man in Sydney.

I was expecting a dynamic and interactive experience, after hearing about topics like Google Presents: Activism In The Internet Age and seeing a Sydney Mardi Gras tweet that read, 鈥淎t one of our events today? Don鈥檛 forget to use the hash-tags #queerthinking and #harbour12鈥�.

I was initially and continuously disappointed at the dwindling proportion of young people who made up the crowd throughout the day.

At one of the concluding sessions, Dennis Altman鈥檚 retrospective on his 40-year-old groundbreaking book Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation, I asked the author and his fellow panel members why they thought more young gay people had chosen to go Harbour Party over Queer Thinking to hear about topics like gay liberation.

After attending a few sessions, it seemed to me as though the event as a whole really didn鈥檛 embrace new technology, multimedia or any kind of social media interaction to entice young people to stay throughout the day.

The setting was quite dull, and to be perfectly honest, Google would have been my last guess as to who was the major supporter of the event. The #queerthinking hash-tag generated 29 tweets the whole day, so when you compare this to the also lacklustre but still triumphant 48 tweets for #Harbour12, it鈥檚 easy to see how the intellectual part of the Mardi Gras festival somehow missed the mark.

As Sydney Mardi Gras is a not-for-profit organisation, securing financial support to put on this event will always be a challenge, one that relies heavily on the hard work of much-appreciated volunteers. I have the utmost respect for all of the organisers and participants of Queer Thinking 2012, including Sydney鈥檚 Pride History Group and Sydney Mardi Gras.

But it might be as simple as scheduling Queer Thinking on a different day from Harbour Party next year. For many, it might not be a stretch to imagine young gay people choosing to go to a dance party over an intellectual ideas forum, but I say that鈥檚 a disappointing assumption of those who might want to go to both.

I think we鈥檇 have a larger and younger crowd that would stick around for the whole day if these events weren鈥檛 running at the same time.

Though it wouldn鈥檛 be fair to raise these points without shining a spotlight on my peers. I don鈥檛 feel as though pushing boundaries or promoting intellectual thought are celebrated actions for a substantial proportion of gay Sydneysiders in their 20s.

One of Altman鈥檚 responses was that not every homosexual in the 鈥�60s was a revolutionary political figure who fought tooth and nail for the rights we now enjoy. A fair point, as I鈥檒l admit I romanticise aspects of past revolution noteworthy enough to make the pages of books like Oppression and Liberation. Maybe that鈥檚 where this whole piece stems from.

But my identity as a young gay man plays a fundamental role in my life, and I choose to see it as an opportunity to inject more substance and ideas into the heads of those around me.

I do believe this event has the potential to be the most forceful part of the Mardi Gras festival, because we need intellectual thought for a continuously progressive society.

We live in an age where technology can help us present the stories of young and old in ways that have never been done before. Videos, sound clips, live tweet screens, roving mics, presentations and, dare I say it, controversial debates 鈥� could we imagine TEDxQUEER for 2013? I think these are the things that could attract more young people to the event next year.

I do wish more of my peers took the time to appreciate the history of gay liberation that day, and why it is that in 2012 we鈥檙e able to go to dance parties on Sydney Harbour to celebrate who we are.

And yes, I鈥檇 love to volunteer my time and energy next year into making some of this happen.

By BENJAMIN VOZZO