Post #858587

2026-03-01 12:09 UTC

Maybe one of the more surprising things about the current live coding waves is how queer-lead it has become. I wouldn&#39;t have said it was ever particularly masculine/macho, but live coding was very cis male-dominated and hetronormative in the early days. Now as far as I know all the people blowing up on tiktok and instagram are LGBQT, and the most active live coding software and community platforms for music and visuals include LGBQT people leading core development (I say leadership here but in a very collaborative/open style that doesn&#39;t necessarily look like leadership, I guess English lacks the words for this..). Like live coding&#39;s basis in free/open source software, I&#39;m not sure if this is really talked about, it&#39;s just part of the environment where live coding best lives. It makes sense to me though because I think gender norms hold back creative technology MASSIVELY in all sorts of ways, so it seems that queer people are natural leaders in taking it forward.

Replies (3)

@celesteh@hachyderm.io 2026-03-01 12:26

@yaxu I think the queer embrace is tied to the role of error. Trans people were into noise because noise is rubbish. And then into vaporware because the materials are also related to rubbish. Then something emerges that embraces error, like the queer art of failure. Also, everything I get into eventually becomes a trans stereotype …

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@tuban_muzuru@ohai.social 2026-03-01 12:30

@yaxu This much we can say - gender "norms" have never served the best interests of creative professions.

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@PeaEyeEnnKay@mastodon.social 2026-03-03 13:53

@yaxu Every now and then I come across communities that take me back to the greenfield workshops at 70s and 80s festivals, where I grew up. Being part of the Free Party and Indie Gig scene in the 90s, where I made noise, or IRC in the 90s and 00s, where I joined a few global villages. All those places were made greater by a diversity of creative expression. All of the more interesting spaces were queer in some way. That's much how I now feel about the live coding scene.

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