Rob Anderson exposes stereotypes (and makes fun of them) in ‘Queer Science’

Rob Anderson exposes stereotypes (and makes fun of them) in ‘Queer Science’

In 2021, handsome comedian Rob Anderson was baffled by the number of queer men who indulged in iced coffee in the middle of winter. He Googled why and came up with nothing, so he decided to write his own explanation using what he calls “fake science”—that is, applying accepted scientific theories to cultural stereotypes to come up with his own hilarious conclusions. Though Anderson wasn’t a scientist (Anderson had had success in social media marketing), he realized that if he infused enough science into a subject, his answer could seem real, or real enough.

The result was a YouTube video series called “Gay Science,” in which Anderson asks questions about cultural queer stereotypes and scientifically analyzes them to come up with hilarious fake answers. The series became so popular on YouTube that Anderson decided to compile his favorite answers into a book called “Gay Science.”

Anderson has written a book that covers about 60 topics and is structured like a high school textbook, replete with charts, illustrations, graphs and quizzes. Among the stereotypes he explores are “Why can’t gays sit properly in chairs?”, “Why are there no lights in lesbian movies?”, “Is college turning people bisexual?”, “How does gaydar work?” and “Will bottoms survive the apocalypse?”

The multitalented Anderson spoke to EDGE about “Gay Science,” which quickly hit the New York Times bestseller list upon its publication.

corner: How did your journey to explosive popularity begin?

Rob Anderson: In 2020, I was working at a company called The Infatuation. As the head of marketing, I made a TikTok video about granola bars being sold everywhere. It wasn’t an original joke, but it was fun and very TikTok-ish in the way it was done. To my surprise, it was a huge hit, so I started making jokes on my own TikTok account, mostly about gay culture. It just took off from there. I had so much fun that within a month or two, I quit my job and started doing it full time.

corner: Tell us about your bestselling book, Gay Science.

Rob Anderson: I did a series in 2020 called “Gay Science.” I’ve been posting videos for about three or four years now, and I have over 50 episodes where I take stereotypes and either make fun of them or prove them true with fake science. I thought this would make a really good book. It’s like a satirical textbook that looks like a textbook and feels like the textbooks you got in grade school or high school, complete with different chapter names and little subsections like, “Try this experiment at home” and “Here’s a quiz you can take.” It was a big job, but then Penguin approached me to do something like this. I knew I was going to do it even before they contacted me. I spent 15 months writing it. I’m really excited for you all to read it.

corner: How do you come up with topic ideas?

Rob Anderson: All of these exist somewhere. I didn’t make them up. They exist from actual stereotypes that have been inflicted on queer people, either maliciously or while being bullied. For example, why do we run like this? Why do we write like this? And why do we talk in a high-pitched voice? A lot of them are taken from Twitter, where gay people are making up stereotypes about themselves. Queer people love stereotypes. It’s so weird. These things are so fascinating, and so ridiculous. Throughout this process, I asked myself many times: “Where did you guys come up with this?” So I took all of them from existing jokes and made some of my own.