Queer coming-of-age meets modern nostalgia in Grace Perry's debut book, The 2000s Made Me Gay. Through a series of essays, she examines some of the most iconic moments of the decade and how they imprinted on her young, Queer brain. It was a perfect project for Perry, who has previously written for The New Yorker, Buzzfeed, and The Onion.
"I like to write about Gay stuff, pop culture, and how the internet shapes how we see the world and each other. Those are the things I spend most of the time thinking about," Perry shared with the SGN.
"The book I wrote is a kind of memoir blending with cultural criticism," she explained. It combines her personal stories with well-known cultural moments she felt impacted her childhood. The result is a stunning amalgamation of both personal and cultural observations.
Coming out and coming-of-age
Despite having over ten years of professional writing experience, The 2000s Made Me Gay is Perry's first published book. While some struggle for years to find their voice, she found that the stories just seemed to flow out of her Sharing them was not only natural but cathartic.
"People say this a lot about first books: that you've been writing it your whole life. It all just comes out of you," she said.
The stories she included in the book were ones she had written and rewritten mentally. The topic that spent the most time living in her head rent-free was how 2000s pop-culture moments impacted her ideas around sexuality. The more she analyzed the decade, the more she realized it was pivotal in her coming-out experience.
"It was pretty clear that I wanted to write about how 2000s pop culture impacted my sexuality. That was already something I had been batting around in my head for a while," she said.
Upon further reflection, Perry realized that the 2000s were so influential to her because it was the decade in which she was a teenager. "As teenagers, we are sponges. It shapes how we look and feel and see the world," she said.
She believes the messages we receive as adolescents have some of the biggest impacts on who we become later in life. "We take in art and media as kids viscerally and ground them in our bodies and experiences. That's just how I ended up grounded in the middle of it," she explained.
A story that began as an objective cultural criticism of 2000s Queer culture soon became very personal. Perry realized she could not separate her own story from that of the decade. "It wasn't that I wanted to tell my coming out story, but it was more that my coming out story needed to be told, so I could explore these pieces of entertainment in the way that I wanted to explore them."
Grace Perry on Katy Perry
Two experiences Perry felt were essential to The 2000s Made Me Gay were her "crush" on The OC's Seth Cohen and her first reactions to "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. Looking back on her infatuation with Cohen, Perry realized she experienced a common Queer coming-of-age phenomenon. "I [had] the thing that so many Queer people experience: Do I want to be them, or do I want to fuck them?"
Cohen's masculinity and style were attractive to Perry in ways she couldn't quite explain. At the time, it seemed simple enough to write her feelings off as a crush, but with an adult perspective, she realized that she often wanted to emulate him to express herself through gender.
"It feels very 'internet' to say 'Seth Cohen is a Lesbian.' I gained some gender identity in this middle ground of wanting to behave more like a boy than a girl," she recalled.
Ten years after Katy Perry hit the music scene with "I Kissed a Girl," Grace Perry decided to reflect on how the song impacted her budding sexuality. The essay on Katy Perry was the first she wrote for the book. "This song fucking terrorized me. It was this super famous song playing everywhere. You couldn't escape it. The other part was that my grandmother's name was Katy Perry. This was the first time I had heard of Katy Perry, so it just felt like the whole world was playing a big joke on me," she said with a laugh.
After completing her first essay, Perry felt more confident in her ability to write a book. From there, she dove deeper into the music, TV shows, and fashion that shaped the generation that would eventually come to be known as the "Queerest" yet.
Connecting with Gen Z
Perry is a millennial. She thought other members of her generation would connect with her musings about the 2000s. However, she was surprised that her book didn't connect with millennials as much as she thought. Instead, older Gen Z kids are the ones reaching out to her with praise.
"It's funny. I thought, when writing the book, [that it] would be something that would appeal to millennials. It's 2000s nostalgia stuff. So I thought people my age would get a kick out of it, but the people I end up hearing the most about it tend to be younger. It's people who are college age or just out of college," she said.
Perry believes younger people relate to her stories so much because they have come out more recently.
"People who are either coming out or closer to the experience of coming out [really enjoy this book]. Anyone who has been out for a long time like me isn't eating up the book in the same way as people who are closer to that emotional experience for themselves," she said.
Even though The 2000s Made Me Gay didn't resonate with millennial readers as much as she thought, Perry is happy to help guide the younger generation with her anecdotes and help them see that they're not alone in their Queer experiences.
"That's the best thing the book could offer. Less about cultural insights and more about making people feel less alone," she said. "Just knowing the experience of having a warped closeted brain and how you can logic yourself into staying in the closet is a universal experience for a lot of Queer people."
Aside from connecting with young people, Perry's novel has become a hit simply because of all the hype surrounding the 2000s today. From Y2K fashion trends to reboots of some of the most popular TV shows of the time, the 2000s are certainly having their moment. "We're always going to be obsessed with what happened 20 years ago, because the people who were children then are now in their twenties. Now they're looking back with nostalgia and adult eyes for the first time at things that were ridiculous," Perry observed.
Lessons learned in hindsight
Obsession with what happened 20 years ago is nothing new. "I remember growing up, people were obsessed with the '80s, Perry said. "People talked about the '80s all the time in the 2000s. There was always '80s-themed shit. I think it has more to do with [the fact that] whoever is in their twenties at the time is going to be looking back nostalgically. The 2010s are going to have their moment [next]."
While the 2000s are big now, Perry hopes people will realize that the decade was far from perfect. "I won't say it was high culture. Post 9/11, everyone was dressing like shit, looking like shit, and afraid to say anything too controversial. We saw what happened to The Chicks. I don't know, it was just such a weird time for Americans," she said.
Despite the many criticisms sociologists and political scientists might have about those ten years, critiquing the many poorly aged moments of the time was not her intention.
"I'm not interested in going back and looking at things through the progressive and social justice—oriented lens we now have in 2023, looking back at something from 20 years ago and going, 'Wow this is super homophobic, this is super racist.' That is important, but I try not to do that in the book. [But] sometimes it's impossible not to."
While she thinks readers can clock the racism, homophobia, and sexism of the day on their own, Perry does hope they can come away from the book reflecting on more subtly harmful topics.
"Maybe the best thing can come from looking back at the insane rush of early reality TV. People can say, 'Wow, that was poorly done. How can we do this better?' I hope there's not an overromanticizing of it, because there was a lot of shit that was fucked up. Make better stuff."
Making "better stuff"
Perry is now trying to make better stuff. When she's not writing analytical essays, she's looking into ways to break into a new medium. "I'm trying to do TV and film stuff. I live in LA, so everyone is," she said.
She also has ideas for more books. "I might write another book. If I do another, I'm interested in writing about grief more. My brother died three years ago. I'm interested in writing about that, but it's going to take me time," she explained.
No matter what she does next, she's sure it will still be Queer. Eventually, she plans on examining a popular topic in Lesbian media. "I'm interested in the trope of the lecherous Lesbian. Not only how that has played out in pop culture but how that's also played out in my life and how that intersects with our understandings of masculinity and topping and bottoming and control and all that stuff wrapped up in gender," she said.
No matter what Perry does next, one thing is certain: she is now one of the many names shaping culture for the next generation of Queer people.
Perry's debut book, The 2000s Made Me Gay, is available now. Grab a copy and read along with us at the SGN book club.