ABOUT #GAYNRD
GayNrd LLC was created by best friends Savas Abadsidis and Timmy Rheault in 2018.
Abadsidis is a creative who develops compelling, innovative content, and offers creative solutions for the multi-media, multi-platform social media driven world. Rheault (Timmy.com) is the co-founder of RHETROACTIVE, a global leader in theme parks, museums, retail, food & beverage, and hospitality, and principal of FARBOUND, real life gamified.
Photo above: (from left to right) DC Comics NEW 52 launch, with Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, Abadsidis, and DC Comics CEO Jim Lee at Midtown Comics, New York City, 2011
Abadsidis’ unique approach was responsible for the first mainstream brand to combine playful, irreverent, intellectual content with sex and youth in a beautiful, high-art magazine format, a formula that created the most successful branded content vehicle in the history of fashion retail: The Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly.
While attending Hobart College, Abadsidis interned for producer Joel Silver at Warner Bros. He further honed his entertainment industry experience under producers Dan Petrie Jr. and Peter Hume working on the pilot for Toe Tags for ABC television.
After gaining advertising experience with Paper Magazine he became executive assistant to fashion creative director Sam Shahid. It was in that position that his talents were recognized by Shahid’s biggest client, Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries.
Contently: “From 1997 to 2003, Abercrombie & Fitch printed A&F Quarterly as its cultural manifesto—at once a magazine and a catalog. The idea is familiar to us now, with publications like Net-a- Porter’s Porter and Casper’s Van Winkle’s… But surprisingly, Abercrombie & Fitch showed up early to the content marketing party, a decade ahead of its time. In 2014, Savas Abadsidis, the Quarterly‘s [founding] and former editor-in- chief, told Racked that he worked closely with CEO Mike Jeffries to “pioneer the most dramatic retail theater in the business.”
Photo above: (from left to right) stylist Thom Priano, Mike Jeffries, Abadsidis, and Sam Shahid at the International Center of Photography (ICP) Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony for Bruce Weber, 2004
His success at A&F caught the attention of fashion designer Marc Ecko who recruited Abadsidis to develop Complex magazine and serve as its first Executive Editor.
By 2006, Abadsidis suspected the imminent dominance of superhero movies at the multiplex and convinced Wizard magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Scott Gramling of the need for a west coast office, which he oversaw. A heavyweight in the comic-book industry, they published Wizard, Toyfare, AnimeInsider, and Inquest Gamer.
At Wizard he took the initiative to bring Hollywood executives and publicists to the table while also innovating the Wizard World convention business.
Photo above: Visit to the set of X-Men 2 in Vancouver. Left to right: Executive Producer Tom DeSanto and Abadsidis
Soon after, in 2007 Abadsidis was again tapped by Abercrombie to oversee the launch of a special limited edition of the A&F Quarterly timed to the opening of the U.S. retail chain’s first international outpost on Saville Road in London.
Photo above: Comic-Con International, San Diego 2004 with Hayden Christensen
He then served as Executive Editor for Antenna Magazine before teaming up with British fashion photographer Phil Knott to produce and serve as Editor-In-Chief of Tally Ho! magazine.
In 2011 he and Peter Ian Cummings teamed up to launch the successor to XY Magazine — B Mag — for 18-25 year old gay men.
Photo above: Producer Sophia Geidt and Abadsidis at the New York Premiere of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs in 2002
Beginning with his first professionally published story, in legendary skateboard magazine, Thrasher, when he was 16 years-old, Savas has written for Boy’s Life, Sassy, Fangoria, Out, The Pappas Post, The Advocate, Interview, Hudson Valley, VIBE, Odyssey: The World of Greece, The National Herald, Hudson Valley One, Gannett Newspapers, Gawker Media, The Greek Reporter, The Huffington Post, Maxim, Stuff, FHM, Good Men Project, Blaze, and Rolling Stone magazines among others.
Above: Artist Regine Thorre, Abadsidis, stylist Maria Seccia, Patrick Carone, and Gary Kon Long Island 2003
In 2014, Savas used his voice to advocate for the world-wide LGBT community by producing and strategically marketing the PSA “Russia Declares Discrimination Newest Olympic Sport” with director Michael Rohrbaugh, which protested Russia’s draconian anti-LGBT laws in anticipation of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi for The Fair Games Project. The PSA resonated and rocketed to over a million views in 24 hours.
This led to Abadsidis being named Chief Media Strategist for Connected Health Solutions Inc., a progressive new-media public health company that produces social marketing campaigns for the LGBT community, at- risk and minority teens, and other vulnerable populations.
Specializing in addressing systems that informed marginalized communities, HIV incidence, trans discrimination, HIV med-adherence, cyber-bullying, and many more social and public health strategies: they worked to amplify and disseminate the PSAs to the largest audience possible. It was while he was there that he worked in tandem with both CHS, Public Health Solutions, the NYC Department of Health, and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University: writing, producing, and executing the media strategy for a series of PSAs promoting Gilead Sciences HIV treatment drug Truvada for approval by the FDA for prescribed use as an HIV prophylactic.
The resulting 2015 campaign was a highly successful and rocketed awareness for the then largely unknown pre-exposure prophylactic aka PrEP.
For the spot, Abadsidis hired young adult actor JD Phoenix.
Towleroad reported on the PSA: “When straight guys have a lot of sex, they’re called studs; but when gay guys do, they’re called sluts,” says gay adult performer JD Phoenix, in a new campaign from Public Health Solutions to educate people about PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis). “I like to party…and I like to be safe,” adds Phoenix in the spot, which shows him picking up a man at a club, cruising on Grindr, and taking the PrEP pill at home. Abadsidis told Towleroad: “J.D. is the embodiment of perceived young gay male sexual autonomy. He represents his generation’s unexpected, and for some vexing, response to the epidemic. And whether we like it not, there are plenty of young gay men using drugs and having barrier free sex, not at all unlike their heterosexual counterparts. But debasing gays for being human while in a higher risk group seemed at best like a double standard and at worst a highly unethical and ineffective means for keeping them healthy. J.D., a man who has and seemingly enjoys sex.”
In 2016 Abadsidis was hired by veteran LGBT journalist and Pride Media CEO Diane Anderson-Minshall as senior editor of their print suite of magazines including legacy LGBT news journal The Advocate, HIV Plus Magazine, OUT, Out Traveler, and Chill magazines.
During his tenure he oversaw production of the 50th anniversary issue of The Advocate for which he also penned two cover stories: one on Neil Patrick Harris and the other on Bill T. Jones. He also served as Digital Director for HIVPlusMag.com.
While Digital Director the site was recognized as one of the top HIV blogs by Healthline in 2018 — a first in the publication’s 20 year history.
Among the many cover stories he wrote at Plus, they included pro-basketball player DeMarco Majors coming out HIV+ and Olympian Gus Kenworthy’s AIDS Ride. He also broke the story of the CDC’s tacit endorsement of Undetectable Equals Untransmittable (U=U), which remains among the highest read stories in the history of the company.
While at Pride Media, Abadsidis was part of the team that developed, conceived, and launched Chill, both as a quarterly magazine and website, aimed at reaching same gender loving men of color.
Chill was recognized as the best new launch in its category at the 2018 Folio Awards.
Working at Pride he had the opportunity to manage a creative and nimble staff that had to switch gears and pivot quickly as part of his responsibilities was to both turn out four print publications — while also maintaining compelling content on their sites.
Above: crosscosplay at SDCC 2010
In 2017, Abadsidis was tapped by Israeli entrepreneur Daniel Joseph to consult and help perfect the UX interface of his intended Grindr killing dating app Hookd.
That fall he was asked to be the key note speaker at the ribbon cutting ceremony of Hobart & William Smith College’s new LGBTQ+ Resource Center, where as an undergraduate he made profound contributions to the community.
It’s opening coincided with the 15th anniversary of Hobart and William Smith’s Critical Sexuality and Queer Studies program, the first of its kind in the country.
Above: Abadsidis and his mother Regina, the Acropolis, Athens, Greece, 1979
In 2018 he, along with Luke Hudson, Ethan Remillard, Cole Hayes, and Xander James developed the concept for the trans boy band docu-series Born Stars.
Despite generating tremendous press and interest, they were unable to successfully execute the show given limited financial resources.
People of trans experience dominate the headlines on the daily–yet visibility and knowledge of trans folk remains virtually invisible, especially of trans masculine lives.Enter Born Stars. The show follows best friends & band mates Cole, Xander, & Ethan.follow born_stars_tv on ig pic.twitter.com/9HbuXiZIj1
— Xander James 🏳️⚧️ (@XXXanderJames) September 15, 2018
Abadsidis left Pride Media in 2019, after being made an offer to run Towleroad News by founder Andy Towle. As Managing Editor of the news site, it put him at the helm of a platform that reaches more unique viewers, more affluent, and engaged male consumers than any other LGBT site.
Photo above: Matthew Camp and Kevin Douchkoff for B Magazine
While at Towleroad, Abadsidis and Rheault developed and launched #GayNrd a news, art, and culture site for 18-25 year-old gay men.
Abadsidis’ impetus for creating #GayNrd was twofold: he found much of the rhetoric in the LGBT movement had become adversarial — enmeshed in a cultural war being waged from within, where identity politics and notions of inclusion were ironically sowing division and acrimony. That coupled with an alarming spike in HIV rates among boys and men under 18 suggested a dearth of sexual education for adolescent and teen MSM populations.
He also recognized that despite the extraordinary gains made for gay rights — there was no media outlet whose raison d’être was a resource for young men (cis & transgender).
Above: Toni Morrison and her sons Slade and Ford.
Inspired by novelist Toni Morrison’s collaborations with her sons to create art and literature for Black youth that was liberated from negative stereotypes or insidious remnants of institutionalized racism, he thought that should be of paramount concern for young gay men too.
#GayNrd would when possible show positive images, smiling young couples, and celebrate being young and gay. It would be sex positive and a resource for queer sexual education. As a news outlet it wouldn’t shy from covering serious or difficult subject matter but it would overall leave readers with a feeling of belonging, pride, and confidence.
The thrust of #GayNrd’s editorial edict is based on the Constitution’s First Amendment in particular, its guarantee of the freedom of speech which protects the rights of LGBT people to speak and express themselves openly in ways consistent with their identities. Together with the 14th amendment, which prohibits the government from interfering with equal access to certain fundamental rights — rights so important that no amount of process is sufficient to justify their deprivation— like marriage. These two amendments are the fundamental underpinnings which underscore our understanding of contemporary gay identity.
Thusly #GayNrd does not condone any impetus towards silencing or “canceling” other voices given the liberties these rights afford us.
Howard Z. Rosenman, the out Hollywood producer of Call Me By Your Name, says of Abadsidis: “Savas is not only a precocious and legendary editor who is adored by his staff and collaborators. But also able to understand the message’s real world ramifications as well as able to conceive and execute creative visions. He is also exceptionally charming and understands intrinsically the matchmaking and the coddling of egos that it takes to run a large enterprise.”
Abadsidis is heavily featured in the Netflix documentary White Hot directed by Alison Klayman (Jagged) which examines 90s teen culture through the lens of Abercrombie.
A longtime member of GALECA: The Society of LGBT Entertainment Critics, he is also the author of two forthcoming books: OnlyFans, Pronouns, and the Argument for Gay Exceptionalism: Essays on Growing Up Gay in America Today and Partying ’n’ Playing Through the Pandemic: The Gays Who Zoomed To Cope with COVID.
He is the subject of two recent high profile features in British GQ and Los Angeles Magazine.
Born to Greek and Polish immigrant parents in Poughkeepsie, New York, he attended both Vassar and Yale for undergraduate studies and received his B.A. from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Abadsidis is represented by Kevin Iwashina (talent) and Thomas H. Andrykovitz (legal).
From: The Pain We Carry—Gay Trauma and the Value of Being Earnest
In the 1990s we emerged, a new gay generation of gay men. Something the world had never seen. Among us, the best and the brightest, all possessed the kind of life stories that drive clicks and garner Wikipedia entries.
Despite the odds we’d made it.
Or had we? As we aged, many of us, too many began dying.
AIDS had wiped out a previous generation. But we had vanquished the plague. All while one more insidious emerged. One psychological as a opposed to viral. A plague whose epidemiology has consistent and identifiable features.
The litany of symptoms are familiar: mental illness, PTSD, suicide, depression, and substance abuse. But what accounts for what’s killing us? Killing our friends and chosen family.
I believe it’s complacency. Despite the veneer of success, we are not okay.
While LGBT+ identification has risen to new heights, we need to recognize the unique features for those of us who identify as gay. The rhetoric around sexual orientation suggests a freedom to express multiple sexual identities: bi, pan, polyamorous, what have you…we are not limited to a binary. As if being gay was a simplistic and outdated way to identify.
Yet when legislation is wrought the message is clear: Don’t Say Gay.
But for those of us who identify as gay, sexual orientation is paramount, most claim that it is extremely or very important to our overall identity.
It’s why many us believe in gay exceptionalism.
We are smarter. Gay men earn undergraduate degrees at the highest rate of any group in the U.S., according to a study on sexual orientation and academic achievement. Over 52 percent of gay men in the U.S. have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 36 percent of all adults and about 35 percent of straight men. Across data sets and across the different educational outcomes gay men outpaced straight men by substantial margins and by virtually any metric. Our academic achievement shows resilience in the face of victimization, aligning with research from Harvard and Yale, that led to the “best little boy in the world” hypothesis which holds that gay men respond to homophobia by overcompensating in achievement-related domains like art, business, education, science, and technology. Our unique experiences make us innovators.
But it comes at a price.
There is a powerful case to made for post-traumatic stress being part of our identity. The foundation of trauma begins as little boys, little boys with a secret. We are precluded from being our authentic selves. We have to hide who we are, or risk being picked on or harassed or worse.
Born into a hostile environment there is a reason that many of us identify with the mutant characters of Marvel Comics’ X-Men.
The conventional wisdom and analogy often made to mutant and human identity is that of race. It suggests Charles Xavier and Magneto’s adversarial relationship is akin to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X during the civil rights movements.
But it’s different. The reason is that we are different from our families.
We bear witness to the ugly naked bigotry of our own mothers, fathers, and family members. We know they wish us dead. That they themselves would proudly execute us should they learn our secret. That want to fix us. Make us not this way and for our own good. We are secret agents from a world invisible to many. A world where if you are straight you are encouraged to express freely, fall in love, kiss, and publicly display affection with pride without the fear of engendering violence and death. It is this constant reminder to hide that depletes our self-image, increases social anxiety, and keeps us from living our full truths.
It is a constant re-traumatization.
Bobby Drake, Ice Man’s mother gets at this in 2002’s X-Men 2 when she asks him: “Have you ever tried not being a mutant?”
And Jonathan Alexander, the author of Dear Queer Self masterfully articulates it when he says, “I feel like a survivor— the survivor of a culture that was trying to kill me. I think many of us who went through those early days of AIDS and governmental indifference — fuck, not just indifference: we’re talking about calls to send people like us to ‘camps’ or to tattoo our HIV status on our asses — you don’t live through that and come out fully well-adjusted. But you do come out if you’re lucky, activated — and by that I mean not just aware but willing to struggle not just for your right to exist but for the inherent beauty and glory and fabulousness of your existence.”
Moreover, the few places considered safe to come out are limited to bars, clubs, and social settings, places alcohol and drugs flow freely— no wonder many of us abuse substances.
We struggle with our authentic selves. When you’ve learned to keep your life secret, saying it can be uncomfortable to reach out and share our feelings with others is a deadly understatement. We go through our lives carrying an invisible backpack. As each trauma strike us like bricks, we collect and carry them.
And if we don’t check to see what’s back there, and empty our backpacks, inevitably we fall over.
***
Photo above: Abadsidis’ Editor-in-Chief profile picture, A&F Quarterly, 2003 (30 years-old)
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