What's queer about Internet studies now?

Queerness owes much to the past, a past we can see playing out again and again in physical and online spaces. More than seeing the Internet as a tool for LGBTQ activism alone, our collective dialogue asks: what’s queer about the Internet? The interventions by queer theory and LGBTQ studies into Internet studies begets a new turn of phrase and a renewed queer studies in a terrain that queers have always made their own, i.e., online: Queer Internet Studies (QIS). The proceedings for the Queer Internet Studies Symposium 2 (QIS2) in Philadelphia in 2017 and the papers inspired from that gathering make up the heart of this collection. We also include a recommended reading list of sources that have inspired us in QIS. We planned the symposium and special issue without a prediction of what participants would say or do, and we were (and remain) shocked and encouraged by the excitement for making and sharing a space with, for, and about queerness. In its practice, QIS is a radical, fluid practice and project that remains porous still, even in the naming that we grant it here