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If there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s frothy drama – the kind that elicits endless speculation and a boatload of hair-brained theories. Online gossip might not seem to have that much in common with the idea of representation as a moral good, but it turns out people want their idols to be messy as much as they look for virtue. 

Last month, the lesbian internet exploded when a certain pair of exes sat down for a recorded conversation. Shannon Beveridge, a popular YouTuber who got her start in the Tumblr days, invited pop singer Fletcher, her ex-girlfriend, onto her sex and dating podcast “exes and o’s.” Fans had been requesting Fletcher as a guest since the podcast was first announced, so the news that a Fletcher episode was finally happening was met with major excitement. 

Shannon and Fletcher aren’t just any exes, and in case you’re unaware of their storied history, here’s a little primer. In 2017, Fletcher released the music video for her song “Wasted Youth,” which featured Shannon as her love interest. Not only did the video mark Fletcher’s first instance of coming out to the public, it also featured real-life footage of her and Shannon falling in love, something they discuss on the podcast. Though the video made it pretty clear that something was going on between them, Fletcher and Shannon never confirmed they were in a relationship for the three years they dated. 

Of course, it was pretty obvious they were dating, and some fans even recorded and posted all the Snapchats and Instagram lives they did together on YouTube. (They would sometimes appear in friends’ videos as well, and even when Shannon and Fletcher would ask these friends to delete the evidence, they were often archived on Tumblr already.) The other piece of the puzzle here is Shannon’s first relationship with Cammie Scott (also a YouTuber), which was very public and hugely important to the lesbian and queer community on YouTube. When they broke up, you’d think someone had died based on the kinds of comments people were leaving and the effect it had on fans. In grad school I wrote an academic article about their breakup (in addition to Kaelyn and Lucy’s), discussing how and why these fans had a real emotional investment in these couples, who felt like a part of their everyday lives. 

Though Shannon and Fletcher never spoke about their relationship publicly, fans were similarly invested in the narratives surrounding them, whether there was any truth to them or not. Then, during the height of COVID in 2020, Shannon and Fletcher announced their breakup with an EP entitled THE S(EX) TAPES, which they collaborated on while they were quarantined together post-breakup (seriously). Shannon directed all of the videos for the EP – which was comprised almost entirely of songs about her – and even appeared in some of them as well. As you can imagine, the EP blew up among queer fans, who went wild for this combination of messy drama and horny angst.

If you can believe it, the drama doesn’t end there. Shortly after their breakup, Shannon began a relationship with a woman named Becky (not a public figure, though she is the sister of singer Donna Missal). A picture of Becky wearing one of Shannon’s t-shirts inspired Fletcher to write a song called “Becky’s So Hot” – released in 2022 – where she oscillates between wanting to hit Becky because of how good she looks and wanting to sleep with her. The song immediately sparked discourse, as many fans wondered if Shannon (and Becky) were in on the project. Through a series of back-and-forth TikToks, Shannon revealed that the song was not a PR stunt and she wasn’t involved, though she did later sell Becky’s So Hot t-shirts in response.

This is getting long-winded now, but there’s one more chapter in this story. In May of 2023, eagle-eyed sapphic Swifties spotted Shannon and Fletcher at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and the photos and video of them hugging sent shockwaves across the internet. As the pair detailed in the podcast, they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in years before this impromptu meeting. Running into your messy ex at a Taylor Swift concert is such a wonderfully pithy distillation of lesbian culture, and the richness of the text wasn’t lost on fans. It wasn’t lost on Fletcher either, as she sped to the studio to write and record the song “Eras of Us,” which details their unexpected reconciliation. (The meaning of the song was patently obvious to any fan logged on to Twitter or TikTok, and Fletcher confirmed these theories right away.)

That brings us to March of 2024, when Shannon and Fletcher delivered fans an absolute feast in the form of their two podcast episodes. (The first episode premiered the day after both of their birthdays because yes, they have the same birthday.) As Shannon tells it, she wanted to have Fletcher on the podcast so they could come together and clear the air about their relationship, something they never did during the years they were together. This secrecy led to a lot of misconceptions – particularly about the “Becky’s So Hot” situation – and Shannon speaks of wanting to regain control of the narrative.

In the first episode, they get into the timeline of their relationship, detailing the making of the “Wasted Youth” video and why they decided to keep their relationship private. They discuss the breakup and quarantine era, THE S(EX) TAPES, and how chaotic the last period of their relationship was. The episode ends with a cliffhanger, alluding to a discussion about “Becky’s So Hot” that fans had to wait a tortuous week to hear. The second episode – entitled “closure” – delivers on this promise, as Fletcher discusses her decision to write and release the song and Shannon explains her reaction. Shannon puts to bed any rumors that she was involved in the promotion of the song in any way, noting that she felt really hurt and used after the song was released. Fletcher apologizes and Shannon forgives her, and they later play a mildly salacious game of “Truth or Drink.”

Viewers and listeners of the podcast were utterly shook by these episodes, and there was much discussion, excitement, and speculation in the comments section and on social media. Many fans referred to this bombshell event as the “lesbian roman empire,” suggesting a level of obsession that rivals straight men’s fascination with that particular historical period. As Shannon and Fletcher note in the episodes, the fact that they never discussed their relationship likely made fans even more interested in it. Their fans have been hungry for content from the duo for so long, and even four years post-breakup, the fascination hasn’t waned. 

Of course, there’s another element at play here, and that's PR. In addition to the podcast conversation, Shannon also photographed Fletcher’s GAY TIMES cover, a callback to their S(EX) TAPES collaboration. The first episode of the podcast came out the same week as Fletcher’s new album, In Search of the Antidote. The Fletcher episodes were undoubtedly a boon for Shannon’s podcast as well, which climbed to #5 on the Society & Culture chart on Spotify following their release. And yet, though fans aren’t ignorant of the PR opportunities here, the episodes weren’t perceived as inauthentic or manufactured. 

Authenticity is the crux of the matter here. For those outside her sphere, it might be difficult to understand what an important figure Shannon is for lesbians online. Her rise to popularity began on Tumblr, where she was one of many lesbian accounts users flocked to. Much of her initial YouTube fame can be credited to her relationship with ex-girlfriend Cammie (who now hosts a podcast with her wife), but Shannon was beloved by viewers both before and after that relationship. (Even Fletcher admits to following Shannon and having a crush on her before they ever met.) Though she’s cool and talented and has hot girlfriends, Shannon has always felt relatable to her fans, like she could be one of us sitting at home – or maybe a friend of ours, a big sister. A converse-clad tomboy who doesn’t hide her awkwardness, Shannon has amassed a loyal following based on her perceived authenticity and vulnerability. 

And then there’s the Fletcher of it all, which fanned the flames of their cumulative celebrity status. Fletcher is a pop star, which would seem to make her less available to fans than a YouTube personality like Shannon. This is true to a certain extent, as Fletcher is her stage name and Cari Fletcher is the woman behind the persona. Fans have the same desire to uncover the truth behind her music as they do with Taylor Swift songs, but there’s clearly a big difference between the two artists. Fletcher’s not a billionaire who flies on private jets – she’s a singer who dated a lesbian YouTuber and accidentally liked her new girlfriend’s photo on Instagram. She feels more accessible than Swift (who nonetheless has made a career out of forging connections with fans), and these podcast appearances help to cement this appearance of honesty and self-disclosure.

These public offerings of vulnerability only strengthen the sense of connection fans feel to these women and the idea that they are somehow representing what we’re looking for as viewers or listeners. The drama is fun, no doubt, but there’s something more compelling and even enriching going on here. Some of the intense reactions to their dynamic can be explained by the framework of a parasocial relationship, ie. a one-sided relationship one might have with a celebrity or public figure. Fans feel they know and can trust these people because they’ve shared aspects of their lives with them, and as Horton & Whol put it, offered themselves up as “objects of love.” 

Fans had emotional reactions to the podcast episodes, in some ways mirroring the outpouring of emotion that followed Shannon’s breakup with Cammie. In the comments section on YouTube, fans wrote that they found the videos “healing” and that the conversation gave them closure as well. At the same time, other viewers continued to speculate about the nature of their relationship, despite Shannon and Fletcher’s passionate plea that fans stop shipping them together. Viewers took it upon themselves to analyze body language and mannerisms, with some concluding that Shannon is over the relationship but Fletcher wants to get back together.

Perhaps this is an overly charitable reading of standard internet sleuthing, but one gets the sense that Shannon and Fletcher’s relationship matters to people because they desire a love story like that for themselves. Shannon has spoken about wanting to embody the queer representation she believes is still sorely lacking in the media, and fans have certainly taken that message to heart. It’s not that all of Shannon’s fans are desperately lonely or have nothing else going on, but they are invested in Shannon’s life and how that factors into a vision of what their life might look like. 

I promise this isn’t Freudian psychobabble but rather insights from someone who’s spent many years being gay (and sure, kind of lonely) on the internet. It’s not unhinged to be invested in someone else’s relationship, though there certainly should be boundaries when it comes to respecting people’s privacy. It’s rare to receive a gift such as this – a full account of a lesbian relationship lived under the watchful gaze of the rabid lesbian internet; a first-person report on gay love in the age of social media. When digital archeologists dig up this archive of lesbian drama in a thousand years, will they understand its significance? One can only hope.