“Supernatural” fans already know what I am going to talk about. 

According to dictionary.com, queerbaiting is “the practice of implying non-heterosexual relationships or attraction [in a TV show, for example] to engage or attract an LGBTQ audience or otherwise generate interest without ever actually depicting such relationships or sexual interactions.” 

Examples of queerbaiting can be found pretty much everywhere. The most common example can be found in the CW show “Supernatural.” 

The character Castiel was not introduced into the show until Season Four. However, he had instant chemistry with the character Dean Winchester. The show lasted for 15 seasons and throughout each season, the writers teased a relationship between the two characters. They flirted, they teased each other, they had a “profound bond.”  

It was not until the fourth-to-last episode of the series that Castiel admitted his feelings to Dean. And then, Castiel died before Dean could even admit his own feelings, upsetting literally every single fan ever. (And don’t come at me about spoilers, the final season has been out since 2020.) 

Queerbaiting is an extremely harmful practice. Companies bait the audience with seemingly queer relationships and then never actually give the audience what they want. And then they claim that it’s still representation. 

Real representation is so much harder to find. Real representation “acts or serves on behalf or in place of something,” according to vocabulary.com. It is not some barely thought-out storyline where we keep pretending that these two characters are queer but never actually fully represent the LGBTQ+ community. 

So, what is real representation in this sense?  

Look at newer shows like “Heartstopper” or “First Kill” (which should not have been canceled) on Netflix. These shows are very outwardly queer, which obviously helps with truly representing the queer community. But that doesn’t always need to be the case in order to represent the community. 

Look at other shows like “The Shadowhunters” with a gay couple, the “Scream” TV series with a queer character, “Teen Wolf” with a few queer characters and even “Good Luck Charlie” with that one lesbian couple.  

My point is that it really is not that hard to create characters that are queer. And, while yes, it would be amazing if every single show would have at least one queer main character, that is not a requirement. The world simply needs to create more characters that represent everybody.