Animation-storytime YouTuber Jaiden Animations came out as Aromantic-Asexual in her latest YouTube video.
The animator made the revelation in her recently uploaded YouTube video Being Not Straight, which currently sits on 2.7 million views. In the video, Jaiden shared stories of her childhood where she was unable to develop crushes, unlike her fellow classmates who frequently gossiped about the ones they liked. This made her feel like she was falling behind her peers in terms of relationships.
“I decided I needed to have a crush because that’s what just happens to people and I very robotically chose this random kid in the class whom we can call Pikachu. He didn’t mean anything to me and I didn’t do anything about this crush like I didn’t tell anyone or anything. It was just a headcanon thing for me to feel up to speed and like I was hitting my normal human emotions quota.”
For the uninitiated, an asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction whereas aromantic is an orientation where one develops little to no romantic attraction. As for being aromantic, Jaiden mentions this fluidity of the aro-ace spectrum in her video.
“Yes, there is a difference between romantic and intimate attraction, little side note. I will say you can experience romantic attraction to someone but no intimate attraction. Or you could experience intimate attraction but no romantic attraction. You could be one and not the other, it’s not necessarily a package deal. Most people feel both, and I do not feel either.”
Jaiden acknowledges that she can tell when one looks conventionally attractive, but she is never drawn to such people. She also said in her video that after reading up what aroace was, it helped her feel confident and sure about herself contrary to some who felt lost or broken when they discovered the same.
Jaiden also mentions that sometimes, it’s hard for others to understand asexuality due to it being different from the rest of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and how some even think that it doesn’t count. However, according to her, she describes being aroace as one of “the coolest and most confident orientations out there.”
“Not needing a single gram of romantic or intimate validation from anyone is so cool. All you need is yourself to be happy, maybe friends and family too… and birds.”
Jaiden doesn’t have plans to talk more about her experience being aroace and just wants to bring the orientation to light in hopes that it gets more representation as well as to help others feel more valid.
Jaiden Animations is an American animation-storytime YouTuber with more than 10 million subscribers. She has been active on YouTube since 2014 and has accumulated 1.9 billion views. In 2020, Jaiden won a Streamy Award in the animation category. This is not the first time when the popular animator has shared details about her life. In 2017, she released a video called Why I don’t have a “Face Reveal” where she talked about her eating disorder. She later collaborated with musician BoyInABand in 2018 to create a song about the topic.