While gay characters have been proliferating on TV (think Modern Family, The New Normal, or Happy Endings), their stories tended to all look similar to Goldman. He's quick to point out that there is no one definition of being gay, and that every depiction is valid. But, by way of example, he said he had vowed that he would watch the New Normal until it made a Madonna reference. It took less than 15 minutes into the pilot for that to happen.

"I'm not necessarily knocking what's on television," Goldman says. "I just think there is always room for more well-rounded stories."

So, with the help of a couple friends last year, he started telling those kinds of stories, in a Brooklyn-set dramedy (yes, there have been Girls comparisons) about two men moving on after breaking up with each other. Goldman plays Mitchell, battling loneliness with the help of his hard-drinking best friend Oona (Sasha Winters), and Hunter Canning plays his ex Jack, who enters "a slutty phase" after the split. It's a premise that perhaps wouldn't have been funded ($22,000 via Kickstarter) or found an audience (15,600 Facebook fans) without the Internet.

"The democratization of media is really exciting," Goldman says. "Particularly for minorities or underrepresented people. You don't have to wait for a studio to say now we are going to make your show. You can look to everyone and say, don't we need this? And if they say yes we do, then you get to make it."

During its 2012 run, gay sites like Towleroad, Out.com, and Queerty followed The Outs religiously. Time Out Chicago called it "addictive" and the Huffington Post said it was "poignant." Paper Magazine christened it "the best web series ever," not "the best gay web series ever." Tony-winning acting vet Alan Cumming became a fan, signing on for a bit part in the final episode ("At 10 o'clock in the morning I was making out with a 21-year-old boy in a wine shop," he told me over the phone. "It was really lovely."). The premiere episode racked up nearly 180,000 views on Vimeo.

But Goldman wants a bigger audience than that. With the show's closing "Chanukah Special" now posted, he's been talking about The Outs with studios, hoping to get it picked up for a TV pilot. Goldman says he's been taking meetings and is optimistic he will be able to keep telling the story.

Sure, he could probably have another Kickstarter campaign, but it's a model that he says "wasn't really working."

"The Outs was really a labor of love, and nobody got paid what they deserved," Goldman says.

It's seemingly an auspicious time for shows like this to find a home. HBO this year picked up a pilot about young gay men living in San Francisco, based on a script called Lorimer. The Fosters, an hour-long drama produced by Jennifer Lopez about lesbian parents raising an adopted family, will soon premiere on ABC Family. Jane Espenson's Husbands, about two men married to each other, recently became the first web-only series to get a review in the New Yorker.