Wired's Gay Tech Mafia Investigation Reads Like a Satire Written By a Tone Deaf Bro
Spencer Macnaughton | Uncloseted Media Weekly Newsletter
I’ve been there as a journalist. You’re obsessed with some part of society and culture, and—so badly—you want it to be newsworthy. But then you do some research, realize there isn’t a story and stand down.
That’s what Zoë Bernard and her team at Wired didn’t do when investigating ~Gay Men In Silicon Valley~.
Instead, they wrote a 6,000-word article titled “Inside the Gay Tech Mafia,” which is not newsworthy, dominated by anonymous sources, and offensive.
I literally thought I was reading a satire about gay life written by one of my straight bro friends (the one who is endearingly tone deaf on gay culture). Some of the most rindonculously not newsworthy excerpts from the article make Bernard sound like she’s David Attenborough uncovering a new species on “Planet Earth”:
San Francisco’s Barry’s Bootcamp in the Castro district is filled with gay guys with abs. “From what I’ve learned working here, gay men do love to work out,” confirms a female employee.
On any given week in San Francisco, Partiful invites float around the community. If there is a “regular Halloween party, the gays will have their own Halloween party, and Sam Altman will be there.”
This is a community that is “power-hungry, network-driven, and, at times, very horny.”
No offense, but has she ever met a gay? Who the hell genuinely thought it was breaking news to report that we go to Barry’s, love dressing up on Halloween and have libidos? We’re such a basic species that not even Attenborough has done a doc on us yet.
This story doesn’t pass journalistic muster and would not have gotten past the pitch meeting in the LGBTQ journalism course I teach at New York University. That’s in large part because there are stats that contradict Bernard’s key point.
While the subhead asserts that “Gay men have long been rumored to run Silicon Valley,” it’s not until more than 2,000 words in that Bernard lets us know that between 2000 and 2022, only 0.5% of startup venture funding went to LGBTQ founders.
It’s baffling that her editor did not lift this to one of the first few paragraphs in the story. Instead, they made me first learn from another anonymous source about how us gays “always cluster together,” and that we “become friends and vacation together.”
Rather than exploring why gay men in same-sex couples are 12% less likely to hold a STEM bachelor’s degree than men in different-sex couples, Wired deep throats the reader with rumors and gossip that perpetuate age-old stereotypes and that reduce gay men to animalistic sex fiends (we really aren’t all that horny!).
In other quotes, I genuinely thought Bernard may have called my Dad, a former frat bro turned business professor. “Straight guys have the golf course. Gay guys have the orgy,” the anonymous source—AKA my Dad—told her.
Bernard also says she hears more than once—from nameless voices—that anyone in Silicon Valley who has achieved outsize success is probably gay.
To me, these sources sound like the bitter strangers who have told me throughout my career that I must have risen the ranks because I can flirt with guys in the so-called gay media mafia. FWIW: At 60 Minutes, I was told by multiple executives that I was the only openly gay producer the show had ever had since it launched in 1968.
A third—wait for it… Anonymous!—source tells Bernard that the gay mafia is so strong that it’s comparable to QAnon, and if he speaks out, he believes he’ll be “killed.”
This article is low-hanging fruit for straight people hungry for misleading information about us gays. Information that satiates their appetite for evidence that any gay man who succeeds in tech must have done it because of his ability to flirt or fuck rather than because he’s talented.
In 2026, when the LGBTQ community is under unprecedented attack, is this really the queer tech story that warrants a 6,000-word cover story? I just reached out to 99 anonymous sources and—BREAKING NEWS—they all said “NO!”
If Wired is committed to great journalism, which they are absolutely known for (!!!), they need to Control-Alt-DELETE this article.
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Over the next week, be on the lookout for new Uncloseted reporting:
🆕 SATURDAY: Emma Paidra digs into the Association for Reformed Political Action, a far-right Christian lobbying group that has become an influential anti-LGBTQ force.
🆕 TUESDAY: For two weeks, Ablé Sanchez didn’t leave their home in South Minneapolis. Though a U.S. citizen, Sanchez feared being profiled amid a surge of ICE operations in their neighborhood. The stress disrupted their HIV prevention care—and they’re not alone. As immigration enforcement intensifies, Latino communities already disproportionately impacted by HIV are skipping tests, missing appointments and delaying lifesaving treatment. As clinics report steep drops in visits, public health experts warn the consequences could ripple far beyond Minneapolis.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to email me with questions, complaints and story ideas!
Spencer Macnaughton, Editor-In-Chief — spencer@unclosetedmedia.com
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You just completely summed up my reaction to that story. It was like reading something written by someone who heard from a friend that they have a cousin who knows someone in the Illuminati... maybe with just a little extra EDM playing in the background.
Wired has done some pretty impressive reporting in the past, but this definitely was... not that.