Editorial: Viral blog post not linked to LGBT rights

One anonymous big brother has gotten thousands and thousands of virtual high-fives this week. One anonymous big brother has gotten thousands and thousands of virtual high-fives this week.

A blog post by 20-year-old Kristen Wolfe has gone viral, causing people everywhere to hear her story about two brothers in a video game store.

Wolfe writes that a 10- or 12-year-old boy accompanied his older teenage brother to GameStop, where she works. She explains that the little brother said he wanted a game with a female character and a “girl color” controller.

The boy settled on a purple controller, and Wolfe said she helped him pick out “Mirror’s Edge,” a game with a female protagonist.

After a little while, the boys’ father entered the store. When he saw his son’s choices, he scolded him and said that he’d “whoop” him if he didn’t pick another color controller and a manly game with guns and fighting.

The older brother then proceeded to defy his father, saying that his younger brother should be able to pick the game and controller he wanted and that he would buy whatever game his brother decided on. His father glared at the older brother and stormed outside. The younger brother softly cried, and the elder one leaned down, kissed him on the cheek and told him not to worry.

Wolfe’s blog post has gotten a lot of attention for its heartwarming story. The Huffington Post even picked up the story and tagged it with “LGBT Rights,” and some commenters are posting about how awfully and judgmentally the father acted.

Wait a second.

We don’t think such a simple recounting of events particularly stands up for LGBTQ rights. Just because a young boy wanted a purple controller and a video game with a female protagonist does not make him gay, and it doesn’t make his brother an LGBTQ champion, either. It just makes him a guy who respected his little brother’s preferences.

We don’t think it’s appropriate to assign larger meaning to an event like this and go so far as to associate it with a movement that isn’t necessarily germane.

The issue of LGBTQ rights is a separate entity that isn’t encapsulated within a preteen’s color and video-game preferences. He could very well be heteronormative, as those preferences don’t indicate sexuality in any way.

It’s time to stop placing so much emphasis on gender, and fortunately, times seem to be changing. But it’s also important to remember not to read too much into stories like this one.

The teenage older brother could have chosen to stand up to his father for multiple reasons — the entire issue could well have been less about the little brother’s feelings and more about the older brother’s desire to establish his own autonomy. No one can truly be sure.

This story might be viral and heartwarming, but we think people should praise it for its intrinsic worth instead of tacking it onto a larger movement — with much more consequential issues at hand — that might not even be relevant.