When Interior of the Artist’s Apartment was exhibited at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, in 1949, five years before it was accessioned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the portrait was listed as “probably by Goya or one of his followers.” Today, it is recognized as a self-portrait by the French painter Joseph Ducreux (1735–1802). The portrait hangs above a bright blue settee and is surrounded by a cluster of five small landscapes. Prominently featured in this corner of the room is a large portrait of a man, grinning and pointing at the viewer.
Like, I’m talking every two hours.Interior of the Artist’s Apartment, made sometime after 1910 by the American painter and watercolorist Walter Gay, shows a narrow view of a sitting area in Walter and his wife Matilda’s Paris apartment at 11 Rue de l'Université, where the couple had moved in May 1909. She’s like the lesbian next door-if there was ever a town that actually had enough lesbians that two of them could live next to each other. Not to brag, but she *is* followed by Ruby Rose, who also gave hotmessbian a shout out on her social media. Hotmessbian is the first name that comes to many minds when it comes to lesbian memes. So, in my accumulated hours on the internet, I have been able to find meme accounts that may not be huge but that have had a huge impact on my development into the strong, self-actualized sapphic that I am today. No matter the topic, memers have the unique ability to tap into our most specific experiences and bring them to light for everyone to relate to. Some are light-hearted takes on dating or relationships that highlight the best parts of being a lesbian but also the worst parts.
Some are so deep that they hit me right in the gut and get stuck in my head for weeks. Some make me sit back in my seat and contemplate my feelings for hours. Because I have been a big ol’ homo this whole time!Įvery day, lesbian memes send me into a “That’s So Raven” style vision, but it’s a flashback to some gay shit that I did in the past that I didn’t even realize was so effing gay. I found out there was a reason why all of the goth girl cartoons were my favorite and why I struggled with trying to walk the seemingly thin line of platonic affection and “acting weird” towards my friends.
I feverishly followed as many accounts as I could in an attempt to replace the complete lack of lesbians in my real life and religiously checked for new posts and Instagram stories to see what new thing I could learn about myself. It was so surreal to find that not only did other people have the same experience that I did, they were able to articulate it in such a short, funny, and succinct way that answered so many questions that had plagued me for years. I found myself in a rabbit hole of lesbian memes that had me laughing until I was crying but also actually crying. Once Instagram figured out that I was gay, my explore page was inundated with lesbian content.