Why 'Sanders Sides' Is Important to Me

Today is a special day because three years ago today, a man named Thomas Sanders decided to post a video entitled “My True Identity.” Little did he know this video would become important for many people across his platform and the world. What had been a video for fun with characters based on his past Vines would later grow into a wonderful, complex series called Sanders Sides where Thomas would explore self-growth, different phases in life, and much more. In honor of the anniversary of the series, I would like to share how I came across Sanders Sides, why I enjoy the show, and how one person changed my life for the better.

Before I explain my present, let me delve into my past and how I first came across Sanders Sides. When I was younger, I was a big fan of Disney. I grew up watching Disney movies, Playhouse Disney, and I went on trips to Disney World a few times. The stories and characters always brought joy to me and I fancied the idea of a prince coming to sweep me off my feet, no matter how unrealistic that thought is. As I grew older, Disney stayed with me. I had trouble connecting with my peers from a very young age, but where people lacked, Disney filled in the gaps. This continued when I transitioned from Playhouse Disney to Disney Channel and began watching shows like Austin and Ally, A.N.T. Farm, Good Luck Charlie, and many others. I found characters I related to and I began to find interest in acting for the first time. I finally found a passion I had a genuine interest in, and this made me happy. Sadly, my peers didn’t see this the way I did and they did not share a connection to the shows I enjoyed. Some even choose to mock me for my interests. While the insults hurt, I stayed true to myself. Though the way people treated me did cause my parents to want to be more protective of me because they did not appreciate people harassing me. Their solution was for me to just not share my interests. If people didn’t know, maybe they would accept me better. While this did not pan out as well as my parents or I initially assumed, I continued to have a love for Disney Channel shows, though my social anxiety also started to become more apparent. There was however a silver lining, because one July day in 2012 proved later on to change the course of my life as I knew it.

In July of 2012, my family decided to take a vacation to Hilton Head (this is very important, so stay with me for a second). On one of the afternoons after we had gotten back from the beach and my family was relaxing, my sister and I decided to watch TV. My sister is younger, so I allowed her to choose the show that we would partake in enjoying for the next couple hours before dinner. We both are big fans of Disney, so she was scrolling through shows on different channels Disney owns. To my surprise, she decided on a show I had never heard of before titled Gravity Falls. I learned that this was a brand new show and the episode we first watched was the second episode, “Head Hunters.” I was immediately engrossed in the show, the mystery, and the lore. However, when my family and I left Hilton Head, I forgot about the fantastic show because I did not have cable, and I carried on as if I had never watched it. Fast forward four years, my sister and I were at home during the summer break, yet again looking for a show to find interest in and my sister suggested that we watch this show she found called Gravity Falls. I did not pick up on it right away, but as soon as I heard the theme song, memories of that past trip to Hilton Head resurfaced in my mind and I remembered having previously watched the show. I was so excited to be able to watch more of the episodes, but also sad when I learned the show had recently ended. Even so, I fell in love with the animated show all over again and researched more on the fandom. I discovered past theories, fanart, fanfiction, and more. Watching the entire expanse sparked a desire in me to draw fanart. I always did have an interest in drawing but I never took the time to hone my talent, but for some odd reason this one mysterious show gave me the courage and passion to pick up a pencil and draw. This is the time when I created my first piece of fanart, which was a drawing of Wendy and Dipper standing in front of the Mystery Shack. I was so proud of the result that I decided to post the picture on my Instagram. Even with all the time that has passed, my parents were still overprotective over my interests, so they requested I remove the posts from my Instagram and not to share my interest of Gravity Falls with my peers. I was very confused and also hurt because I loved the show but was not allowed to share that interest even though so many other people also enjoyed the show. This is when I got the idea to create a new account, one that no one would know about where I could share my passion for Gravity Falls and whatever else I pleased. On January 1st, 2017, Gravityfalls54612 was born. I came up with the username because Gravity Falls was the reason I started the account, 5 as a reference to my love for the band R5, 4 and 6 to represent Four and Tris’ numbers in the book Divergent, and 12 which represented District 12 from The Hunger Games. This account became my safe place to share my interests without having to worry about my peers or parents making fun of me. Though what started as a dumping ground for my fandom interest very quickly became a place where I was able to also interact with other fans of the show. Not only that, but I quickly gained followers, rising to 500 followers by March or April the same year. Amongst all of these random followers, I made a few friends, one of them being my current internet twin, Molzy (@Molzyfanart). I found people I could relate to and that shared the interests that I assumed were absurd or weird. I no longer felt alone because I found friends, even if they were hundreds of miles away.

As time went on, I continued to post on the account with random polls or fanart I created though as my account, so did my interest. One of these days, I was looking through random posts when I came across an animatic for a song called “Candy Store” and I was very intrigued. After searching up the song on youtube, I discovered the song originated from the musical Heathers. I had never heard of it before, but I fell in love with the soundtrack and continued listening to the musical. One video that kept popping up in my suggestions box was a cover for the song “Freeze Your Brain” sung by Thomas Sanders. Now mind you, I had never heard of Thomas Sanders before and I was biased of the original soundtrack, so I disregarded the video. I never watched it no matter how many times I kept coming across it. Around this same time, I also learned of the existence of Jon Cozart and Malinda Katheren Reese through people at school and I enjoyed listening to their music as well. Having their content on my radar, I also followed both of them on Instagram. This would contribute to when, around November of 2018, I came across a tumblr post on Instagram for a series titled Sanders Sides. Never having heard of this before, I went to my trust research tool, Youtube, and I first video that popped up was “Learning New Things About Ourselves,” so I decided to watch the video and I was genuinely impressed. I was not sure what was going on but I one thing I knew for sure was that I loved every minute of the video. I was impressed with all of the different characters Thomas Sanders used, similar to Jon Cozart’s “After Ever After” songs, and the message hidden in the video blew me away. I felt a connection with the characters and related partially to different aspects of each of them. Another thing I realized was that he was the same person I kept seeing a cover pop up of “Freeze Your Brain” a couple years ago so I made a mental note to check the song out later. For the time being, I wanted to binge watch Sanders Sides. With each new video, I fell more and more in love with the series and the storyline I learned about the different characters that represented Thomas’ Morality (Patton), Logic (Logan), Creativity (Roman), and Anxiety (Virgil). I definitely felt I related a lot to Patton because I am very emotional and care about my friends, but of course I loved all of the other characters just as much. Though upon reaching the two part episode “Accepting Anxiety,” I started to pay closer attention to what was being said and more importantly, I paid more attention to the character Anxiety. Something began to register in my brain and a realization hit: I may have anxiety. I was thinking back to how I also had trouble connecting with peers, I would randomly be too scared to speak, and presentations were a mess for me. All of these problems that I thought were unusual I learned were all just symptoms for social anxiety and I felt as if a part of myself had come to light. So many things that once seemed impossible to overcome, I now at least knew the source of the problem and maybe could learn how to alleviate my situation.

After having watched all the current episodes, I started looking for fan pages across Instagram. Here, I discovered many fanart pages and cosplayers that I inspired me to start drawing fanart for Sanders Sides. I had previously had artist block, but upon engrossing myself in this new fandom, my imagination was up and running again. Before creating Sanders Sides fanart, I decided to recreate one of Thomas’ short videos starring the character, Sleep, (which is a metaphorical representation of Thomas’ sleep patterns). The short was titled “Trouble in Bed,” and it was a visual representation of how people are always so tired in the morning. I did my own version of the video in cosplay and that evening Thomas Sanders noticed my video and I was over the moon happy. The fact that he liked and commented on my video blew me away because no creator I knew did that for that fans. This moment of gratitude encouraged me to continue creating art and cosplay not just for the chance of him seeing it, but also because I enjoyed doing it and I wanted to contribute to the fandom. So I made an effort to create different cosplay videos and fanart of the characters. I even later made a Sanders Sides skit for a literature project and reacted to a few of Thomas’ videos, all projects he noticed upon me posting. Not only this, but I became acquainted with many other Fanders and gained new friendships along the way. I found a fandom I loved and that loved me. I created work that I was proud of and I found a creator who reminded me to stay true to myself and that bad days do not have to define me. This not only affected me positively online, but also in real life. I gained some confidence and started working through my anxieties, I’ve become more productive, and I learned one more new thing about myself: my sexuality.

A big aspect of the Sanders Sides/Thomas Sanders fandom is self acceptance as well as acceptance of others, regardless of their sexuality, gender identity, or any aspect of themselves. Given that Thomas Sanders himself, as well as many of his friends, are in the LGBTQ+ community, he is a big promoter of LGBTQ+ rights and love towards people in the community. Of course I already was aware of the community and many of the different orientations, but I never thought to consider myself in the community due to my religion, though I always supported people who were. That being said, there had been many times in my life when I had signs that I may not be straight though I was either too young to realize that or I just assumed I was making the thoughts up. I also did not have many friends that were LGBTQ+ prior to joining the Sanders fandom, so I never thought much of the community. After learning about Thomas Sanders and the people who are fans of his work, I got to learn more about the community and it also got me to thinking more about my own identity. I began to pay closer attention to feelings I had myself. Of course this was not an internal conversation that occurred over night, I gave countless hours of time and energy into self exploration of my identity. Being in the Fanders community with how much love and support the people share definitely helped learning to accept parts of myself other people may would want me to repress or think are wrong. I thought back to when I was younger and I would not only have quick crushes on guys but I may also have caught myself thinking for more than a quick moment that a few female classmates were cute. I considered how I sometimes imagined life with either a female or male partner. I even questioned why I would keep asking myself the same question if I was 100% straight. Then, in June of 2019, I finally sat down with myself and thought inside my mind, “I, Breanna, am bisexual.” And I immediately felt a part of me was brought to the surface, my personality becoming more complete. It was the greatest feeling ever and I never have regretted coming out to myself. I came out to a few online friends a week or so after my personal coming out and I also shared the news with my best friend in real life. I am still not out of the closet to my family or in public because while I know my close friends and the Fanders are accepting, I still have anxiety as to what other people might say in response to me being bisexual. Some people do not consider bisexuality a real orientation and others do not accept the LGBTQ+ community in general. One day I will be more confident in my orientation, but for now I am grateful to have more knowledge of myself that I did not know a few years ago.

Overall, Thomas Sanders has done many things to help me out without even realizing it. One video he made opened the opportunity for me to be led down a path in life where I eventually stumbled upon the Sanders Sides series. I could have easily done one thing different in my life and never have been exposed to his content. I could have decided not to create my Gravity Falls fanpage. I could’ve decided to ignore the post I saw regarding Sanders Sides. I could have found interest in basketball or softball and not even watch TV. My sister could have chosen a different show to watch that day at Hilton Head. Instead, all of these events did occur and I did discover Sanders Sides and I do love the show. Watching this series has helped me to gain friends, inspiration to hone my art and cosplay skills, and acceptance of myself and my identity. I’ve learned through the character Virgil in Sanders Sides that I have social anxiety and am making strides to combat the problems anxiety brings. I’ve learned different life skills that will continue to help me in the future. Thanks to Thomas Sanders and his wonderful support, I have an external motivation to keep striving to reach my goals and not give up on life. I have had many pitfalls over the years of my childhood and I will continue to have struggles going into adulthood, but Thomas has helped me realize that I’m not alone and these problems do not in anyway define me. There are people who can help me and there are always chances for situations to improve, I just have to find the strength to keep going and push through the storm. So thank you Thomas Sanders for your wonderful series, Sanders Sides. Thank you and your team for creating this world and these characters. Thank you for giving me and so many others a beacon of hope and happiness for when life looks bleak and we need a good laugh. Thank you for the community you’ve helped to create that led to the friends I’ve made. Thank you for giving me a voice when I feel speechless in this big, scary world. Thank you for giving me the courage to accept myself. Thank you for just, everything. And as Thomas always says, “Take it easy guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Peace out!”