A History Of The Once-Ler, The Unlikely LGBT+ Icon You Might Not Have Thought About In Years

He's one of many Tumblr "Sexymen."

If you’re LGBTQ+ and were online in the 2010s, chances are you were involved with digital fandom. Where our cishet peers could gush about their crushes in real life, queer youths had few safe spaces for self-expression, and many of us flocked to sites like Tumblr, where we could be ourselves. As a young, neurodivergent queer with a difficult upbringing, online fandom felt like my real home.

But there is one fandom which had a greater impact on me than any other: The Once-ler fandom. Let’s back up a bit. You’ve probably seen this guy before:

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Meet The Once-ler. He’s the antagonist of the 2012 film The Lorax, based on Dr Seuss’ book of the same name. The book is a warning against destroying the environment, wherein The Once-ler is depicted as a disembodied pair of green gloves. But the producers gave him an upgrade:

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The movie Once-ler is shown as a guitar-playing, fedora-wearing ‘beanpole’ of a man: a twink in a waistcoat, and an instant fandom heartthrob. Once-ler fever spread like wildfire on Tumblr. AUs and ask blogs blossomed into a beautiful Once-ler-centric ecosystem, and I can only describe the vibe as deranged glee. In our digital fists we squeezed The Once-ler like a lanky Ken doll, sobbing over how smexy he was. It was a simpler time.This isn’t the only version of The Once-ler we see in the movie.

We witness The Once-ler’s descent into avarice when his product, the Thneed (an all-purpose scarf) becomes a must-have-item. To keep up with demand, The Once-ler razes down a forest of Truffula trees— the primary ingredient of a Thneed— and turns from lovable inventor to cruel capitalist.

He even sings a song about how he can’t be a bad guy, aptly called ‘How Bad Can I Be?’ Nowadays, this sexy villain anthem continues its life on TikTok, living it up in lipsync infamy. This transformation - complete with a stylish new look and those iconic green gloves - happened so fast, that the fandom considered him a separate character to The Once-ler, known as The Greed-ler.

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In fact, we considered these versions of The Once-ler so distinct, that we started shipping him with himself. 

It’s true: we conjured up a relationship between two versions of the same character. Oncest - the ship name for The Once-ler x The Greed-ler - exploded with cosplays, AMVs, and every kind of fanwork you can imagine. 

But we didn’t stop there. We created hundreds of AU versions of The Once-ler: a robot Once-ler; a swag Once-ler; even a cannibal Once-ler. The Once-ler went from a character people found attractive, to a character in a relationship with himself, to an infinitely changeable character shipped with countless different versions of himself. 

It’s okay to laugh about The Once-ler fandom. But the truth is, all those pieces of art and fic meant something to the people creating them…a good chunk of whom were young queers. What The Once-ler meant to me was probably something different than he meant to other people in the fandom.

Victims of this treatment are known as Tumblr Sexymen, with notable examples including Sans from Undertale and Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls. Sexymen share certain taits: they’re funny, charismatic villains or anti-heroes, well-dressed (Sans being the exception), with a tragic backstory, are incredibly powerful, and a bit weird.

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Here’s the thing. Tumblr Sexymen are often associated as being popular with teenage girls - which isn’t wrong! I was a teenage girl. However, today I am a non-binary person with friends from The Once-ler fandom who are now trans, ace-spec, or some other flavour of queer. Attraction to The Once-ler as a hot villain is only one piece of the Tumblr Sexyman puzzle.

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Consider not what The Once-ler was, but what he represented. Here was a sympathetic character who goes from an uwu cinnamon roll to a villain in three minutes flat. He has it all: a tragic backstory; a redemption arc; and undeniable charismatic flair. 

In retrospect, The Once-ler was less of a Ken doll and more of a Barbie doll. We were able to use The Once-ler as an emotional conduit: he became whatever we wanted him to be. In a relationship with a sexy villain? Sure. Surviving a zombie apocalypse? Absolutely. Mired in angst or fluff? Pick your poison!

This is how I view the phenomenon of Tumblr Sexymen today. For queer people, they are the ultimate fantasy. Maybe we want to be them. Maybe we want to be with them. Maybe we see ourselves in their otherness, and want to play safely with the possibilities of being loved, desired, powerful, humbled, or hurt. 

So, happy Pride to all you lovely LGBTQ+ people - and try not to be too hard on yourself for the things you enjoy. After all…How bad could it possibly be?