Mashup Videos and the Queer Archive

While queer teens have long occupied a marginal place in screen culture, recent technological developments have created an expanse of new spaces for representation. No longer limited to the traditional screens of the cinema and television, gender and sexual diversity now seems to be represented abundantly via online platforms. Investigating a series of queer-themed mash up videos sourced from YouTube, this article illuminates how the practices of the fan-led archive can shed new light on personal investment in queer representation. Reading several mashup videos through Ann Cvetkovich’s “archives of feeling”, this article draws attention to the creator’s desire to hold on to those fleeing moments of screen queerness. Within this article, mashup videos are thus positioned as a means of archiving queer ephemerality.