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By Hugo Greenhalgh
LONDON, April 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As LGBT+ charities advise young people to stay in the closet during coronavirus lockdowns, Sebastian Wood and Monty Keates say they recognise the importance of being a visible young gay couple in Britain’s first TikTok house.
“It’s good that we represent the LGBTQ community,” Keates, 17, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Thursday.
“We’re a really diverse group (in the house) and we’re good to look up to, especially for younger members of the LGBTQ community who are maybe closeted and don’t want to come out yet.”
Earlier this month, Britain’s Albert Kennedy Trust said young people might want to “press pause” on plans to come out, as being cooped up with families under lockdown might exacerbate negative reactions.
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“We do make sure that we get the representation that’s needed out there, we do make videos about our relationship,” added Keates, who has 440,000 followers on the short-video media platform, with almost 16m likes for his posts.
“We’re in a healthy gay relationship and that’s a good thing to be seen, especially today.”
The couple are stars on TikTok, the short-video social media platform that has become a digital phenomenon with almost 2 billion downloads since it launched in 2016 in China, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.
Popular user content ranges from ubiquitous cat videos to Oscar-winning actor Judi Dench dancing with her grandson.
