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House Rules

Just like last time, I’ll be using a tier list to rank these divas. Before we get started, here is a reminder of what a diva is:

Being a diva means that you are for the girls and gays. You’re classy, fierce, strong, witty, cunt, and you are absolutely THAT BITCH. That is what it means to be a diva! Now as for the categories…

Here is how our supernatural beings will be ranked:

The D Listers are known as “Harpo, Who Dis Woman?!?!” Anyone who isn’t a diva even a little bit is going straight into this tier. We don’t know these ladies; they don’t even get the privilege of being called ladies cause they’re clearly dorky men.

The C Listers are known as “Chronically Cishet.” These are cool but primarily for the straights and not camp or cunt in any way.

The B Listers are known as “The Beloveds.” They are campy and culturally relevant to the girls and the gays in some way.

The A Listers are known as “A Diva.” They took the Beloved tier and went up into being a staple diva. You know these divas are always a part of the conversation.

The S Listers are known as “Supreme Diva”. The true divas that raised us and not only are a part of the conversation but create the conversation and send the invitation to who else gets to come.

Hopefully that makes sense; if not, idk what to tell you other than to step your pussy up.

Harpo, Who Dis Woman?!?!

• Dwarves

A short man with muscles

• Gnomes

A short man with a pointy hat

• Goblins

a short man with a potbelly and skinny limbs

• Trolls

an ugly man

Chronically Cishet

• Gargoyles

Cool but not for the divas at all.

• Giants

Same as the goblin but big as hell.

• Zombies

This is very hetero; I shouldn’t have to explain.

• Sasquatch

I’m sorry, but in my mind this is just a boring werewolf or hairy giant, which gives it some points but nowhere near diva status.

The Beloveds

• Skeletons (Gashadokuro)

Skeletons at their best are camp cause of all the potential comedy, but they’re on a thin line of being for the boys.

• Elves

Elves are nice, and because of RPGs I can only picture them as being archers or healers, which are diva roles. However, Elves themselves just have pointy ears and varying cultures usually surrounding nature but no actual cuntiness.

• Unicorns

What’s cuter, a horse or a horse with a horn on its head? Unicorns are cute at best, what they can do with their horn matters a lot to their ranking but at their base level of just being a horse with a horn and vague magic abilities give them beloved status.

• Mimics

So this is one of your guy’s requests, and I had no idea what this was, but when I looked it up, I realized that it actually has a name for it. You know those TikToks where people out in mountain wilderness areas will hear these screams that are coming out of the darkness? Well, the theory is that those are mimics. Beloved tier!

• Orcs

Stay with me here. Those of you who are 18+, are y’all familiar with bara? Orcs are very popular amongst the gays, and for that reason alone they can sit comfortably in the beloved tier.

• Biblical Angels

You know what’s funny? While I’ve seen biblical angels, if you look them up, some of these designs are fucking crazy. In one of the many art history classes I had to take in college, I remember us talking about how angels, when greeting people, would always start by saying “do not be afraid” or “fear not” cause they’re presence frightens people. And art humanized the look of angels to make them appear less demonic. This is a pretty cunty fact, so beloved tier.

• Werewolves

Again, stay with me here. Those of you who are 18+ are y’all familiar with the omegaverse? Werewolves are also very popular amongst the gays, so acknowledging that is required to properly rank them. Werewolves themselves aren’t cunty and actually have terrible lives that are far from bougie and glamorous. But a lot of media that isn’t even about werewolves have utilized werewolf lore, so they definitely deserve something.

• Basilisks

Giant cunty snakes? I don’t like snakes AT ALL, but basilisks look pretty, so I’ll give them beloved tier.

• Ghosts

The prime example of a beloved tier. Ghosts are pretty versatile as they can have a wholesome story about them like in Ghost Whisperer (do y’all remember that show? so many tears were shed) or have a story where just fucking with humans by haunting them. But overall, ghosts don’t have an extra thing to really take them to A tier.

A Diva

• Fairies

Fairies have range. They can be tricksters pulling pranks on people, healers of nature, childish pixie-ass brats, or elegant protectors. They are very camp, almost too camp, so they often don’t get that much representation in supernatural media unless it’s high fantasy. But they still hold their weight, A tier!

• Chimeras

The lion, goat, and serpent sometimes dragon hodgepodge of destruction is cunt as hell, and I always thought that.

• Gorgons

Medusa does so much heavy lifting for her species that she got her girls in A tier despite being the only bitch with hit stories.

• Sirens

Yes, I know mermaids and sirens are different, but I don’t give a fuck cause in my mind, sirens are just mermaids who recognize that men ain’t shit. While mermaids have very limited stories, they’re always consistent. Great singers who are either scorned by love or a desperate, hopeless romantic are a great setup for a story.

• Pegasi

A horse with wings is more diva than a horse with a horn, and I don’t care what y’all try to say! Cause I know I’m motherfucking right; wouldn’t you rather have a pegasus than a unicorn?! …Exactly!

Supreme Diva

• Dragons

Now I don’t love dragons a whole lot, but I will admit they’re staples in the high fantasy side of the supernatural creatures. And they’re everywhere. You go to any bookstore and even just glance at the fantasy books, you’ll see dozens of dragons on the covers. That’s for a reason. Are they payola divas? Perhaps! But they’ve earned their spot as a Supreme Diva.

• Vampires

Vampires are extremely flexible, being able to fit into any genre really, but primarily a grounded fantasy. You can tell stories like Twilight, Interview with the Vampire, Sinners, or Vampire Diaries. Now I will say, why the fuck do vampires always seem to be tied to Confederacy? Now these bloodsuckers are afraid of vitamin D and have tragedy literally built into their storylines, but I kind of like it. Also, it’s crazy how werewolves are their rivals, but vampires just completely dwarf them in power. These are serious payola divas!

• Witches

MY FAVORITE BITCHES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING TIERLIST AND NONE OF THESE OTHER HOES CAN HOLD A FUCKING CANDLE TO THESE GIRLS!!! The real divas of every single story they are in! They can fit into high or grounded fantasy. Be as simple as shooting fireballs or be as complicated as needing 57 ingredients just to do a love spell. These girls are versatile; they go both ways, top and bottom! Witches lead the league when it comes to supernatural anything cause they’re 10 times out of 9 the most helpful bitch in the room. S-tier divas!!!

The Ranking Is Cemented In Stone!!!

This is my ranking, divas; therefore, I ain’t changing shit lol! However, I’d love to hear all your rankings and see if we compare. Happy Halloween to all of you. I hope you have lots of fun if you’re going out or just watching spooky shit at home. Stay safe, and next week I’ll be back with something else. Bye divas!

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She cleared the room with you hoes…

And I’m so serious. When I first read this, I literally cracked the fuck up for like 5 minutes cause it was conveniently right after I posted on Twitter that Tate McRae’s choreo never matches her songs. And to continue being messy, let’s discuss and breakdown her statement:

“A lot of girls last year definitely done the complete image I used to have when I was younger…and yo that’s cool but at least mine was real… I was that nerd in school that was real as hell…the world has become fake… people who are actually real get hated on… which is a shame… ok.” This long-ass run-on sentence, anyways, Big Mama is letting it be known that she’s real like that JLO song. Now I don’t know why Britney calls herself a nerd, because when I read her memoir, she was a country girl on the basketball team lol.

“I’m actually too kind in real life, and that’s the problem. To all the girls who say I’m History…I’M PROPHECY. I’m the original apple B school girl who did backflips and backhand springs and fell in love with people on every set I ever went to… these years were precious, so young and naive…the world has been hateful to me, and I’m still standing, living, and dreaming.” In quite a few of my other articles, I’ve discussed how we talk about veteran/legacy artists and the idea that they must be replaced. I believe no other artist has gotten this type of treatment more than Britney Spears.

The Britney Clones

As we’ve gotten a bunch of new pop girls who are great dancers and blonde (both natural and dyed), the narrative of the new Britney has increased drastically. Artists like Tate McRae, Addison Rae, and Sabrina Carpenter have all been marketed as following the Britney trail. So let’s take a quick look at all these girls.

Tate McRae Compared to Britney

Probably the most viewed as a daughter to Britney more than the other girls, Tate has gained her image as the “New Britney” due to her dancing ability. She has the girlish tomboy aesthetic that Britney had in her prime and “some” choreo that is similar, like the spins, gymnastics, and hairography. However, the comparison really stops there. Tate’s music isn’t similar to Britney’s. Her production is less bombastic and dynamic, and more sleek and static. Britney’s music has her personality and life practically embedded into the stories of her records, while Tate’s music feels detached from her and not in a fun alter ego way, more of a “this is what people like, so I do it”. Tate and Britney both have weaker voices, but Britney has a distinct, easily recognizable tone, a requirement to be a pop star. Every pop star needs a voice that you recognize amongst the other artists on the radio and playlists. Tate McRae doesn’t have that; in fact, her voice often bleeds into the production and gets lost. Going back to choreo, Britney’s choreo always matches the song and often used to enhance it during her live performances, while Tate’s choreo isn’t as synchronized to the song.

Addison Rae Compared to Britney

Unlike Tate, I find that Addison is one of the closer matches to being Britney’s musical daughter. When you listen to Addison’s music, there’s the electronic dance pop that is dynamic, personal, and meant to be danced to. While again the voice isn’t there, her tone is more distinct than Tate’s but again not too much. She dances, but not as well as Britney and does do similar tricks with the spins, gymnastics, and hairography. But I think what tethers Addison to Britney is the connection of their personal lives and public image to their music. A song like Fame Is A Gun is reminiscent of the various songs Britney has where she’s singing about her fame both negatively and positively, probably best shown in a song like Piece of Me. Where Britney sings about how everyone wants a piece of her cause she’s that girl, and simple things like getting groceries or slipping add to her fame.

Sabrina Carpenter Compared to Britney

Sabrina overall is nothing like Britney. Sabrina makes completely different music, more in line with primarily pop, country, and a few disco elements, and Sabrina dances but not as the focus of her performances like Britney. Sabrina is the most like Britney in the way she understands visuals and narratives. Britney is often infantilized as a victim to the people around her, and gets forgotten as an artist who was smart and understood that a pop star’s greatest strength is their image. Sabrina understands this incredibly well with her Man’s Best Friend cover, her songs blending her public image with her personal life, and her performances being both camp and challenging traditional pop. I think what made Britney great is that she knew the nude color bodysuit at the 2000 VMAs would be a moment; she knew the snake in the Slave 4 U performance would be a moment; she knew that kissing Madonna after the narrative of her being a cheating whore would be a moment. But still, with all this said, Sabrina can’t be Britney, Addison can’t be Britney, and Tate (definitely) can’t be Britney.

The Miseducation Of Britney Spears

What the “Britney Clone” narrative and marketing strategy the media isn’t understanding is that Britney wasn’t just a blonde who twirled and backflipped. That’s her from a very rockist point of view. When we study Britney’s work from a poptimist perspective, we see that the work she made was well crafted. She knew what producers to work with, when to push the envelope and when to fall back, but a big thing that people don’t understand is that when Britney’s imperial phase happened she led the league because she was an innovator.

I think out of all the Britney Clones we talked about today, Sabrina is 1st place innovator, Addison 2nd, and Tate 3rd. When Britney debuted, all the other little teen pop girls debuted in her dust, being compared to her. Xtina, Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Mandy Moore, Hillary Duff, Avril Lavigne, etc all were made to be the anti-Britney. And most of these girls started flopping cause let’s be fucking real, the music started sucking after their debuts (Except you, Christina (and Hillary)) because they didn’t have any real vision besides following Britney’s shadow.

These girls who are being marketed as the “New Britney” the most are doing the worst, while the vaguely similar girls are doing the best. It’s important when making art to not just follow someone else’s footsteps cause at some point, while an impression can be well done, eventually people will recognize that the classic is just better. We have to let the Britney Clone narrative go because even Britney herself is weirded out by it now. Britney, a while ago, came online to tell us how she grew up viewing Janet Jackson as her hero. And as a person who recently started doing a Janet deep dive, I totally see the impact, but Britney didn’t just do Janet B-sides for albums. She took inspiration and made it into her own thing, and these young artists desperately need to do the same.

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This article is short this week as I’m preparing for next week’s article that is going to be about the divalogy of supernatural beings/creatures for Halloween and genuinely didn’t have to much to say on this topic. So tell me what you think of what Britney said about her disciples and as well you’re favorite supernatural being/creature and I’ll see you all next week.

Side Note: I’m saying queerphobic because it includes all queer people, not just gay folks.

Trigger Warning: homophobic slurs. religious trauma, i got angrier the more i wrote

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The Slave Owner Made You Queerphobic

In my religious psychosis article (which I’m assuming y’all read already since it’s my most popular post, thx for the support), I discussed how religious psychosis is when reality loses credibility. Everything becomes God this or God that, but you rarely see the main point of Christianity being pushed. Which is kindness and patience toward everyone, isn’t it? But when we look at the history of how Black folks got so attached to religion, it goes back to slavery, genocide, and colonization forcing us into submission. Africa had a completely different take on faith. Pre-colonized Africa was more spiritual and open to queer sexuality and identity. Ironically enough, so were Native Indigenous people, who also were colonized.

When we talk about Black communities being queerphobic, it starts with religion and how faith was misused to shame others. But then you also have to take into account slavery and how rape and assault were used to punish and breed enslaved people. One of my favorite books of all time, Beloved, talks about how Sethe experiences immense amounts of PTSD from her time as an enslaved person. I won’t spoil the book cause I want everyone to go read it, but she is so traumatized that her relationships with her children are strained, and they experience trauma as a result of her being their mom. While yes, it is historical fiction, it tells such a realistic story of how generational trauma works and started for Black American people.

When enslaved people, both women and men, were being raped by their white slave owners and even forced to be raped by other enslaved people, we get a couple of traumas out of it that affect the Black community still to this day. Interracial dating is still seen as an “ick” because of this, but also queerness is seen as the big “ICK” in the community due to a history of rape and being bred like cattle by white folks. This was known as “buck breaking,” when an enslaved man was punished by being raped, usually by the male slave owner or other enslaved men.

This history takes us into the future after emancipation but still not free due to the Reconstruction era, the rise of the KKK, and the Jim Crow era coming into effect. All of which, queerness and homophobia still lived through just in the background. Cause through this new era, we see the development of the Black community that exists today. It had always existed but was quietly started during the Underground Railroad, where cornrows were secret escape maps and songs/hymns were secret codes (Wade in the Water). But after 1865, we started seeing Black spaces, neighborhoods, HBCUs, and most importantly (for this conversation) churches!

The Black Church Made You Queerphobic

Whew, that was a lot; I couldn’t even tell jokes in that last section. Now we’re in the section of the article that I have boots-on-the-ground experience with cause I was once upon a time a church sissy lol. I’ve told y’all this part of my life before, but the CliffsNotes here is I grew up in the church because my father was a deacon. I wasn’t a preacher’s kid, THANK GOD cause that’s a prison I couldn’t even imagine, but I still experienced certain PK things. So I, of course, was in Bible study and did all the little events and stuff in the church, and was there every single Sunday from birth to around 15/16.

So much of my first queer awakenings/otherings happened within the church. The first penis I ever saw was at the church urinals, from a boy who was older than me. Why was this preteen boy showing me, a 7-year-old, his dick? I don’t know, but I do know I wasn’t too bothered by it. I actually kind of liked what I saw. I don’t even remember his name and barely even his face, but I do remember him smirking at my reaction to his dick. It wasn’t until recently that I remembered this moment in my life and realized, “Oh, he was testing me”. That smirk was basically a “hah! I knew you were fag”. At the age of 7, I just thought it was a weird thing boys did. (more on that later)

Around this time, I was starting to notice the way grownups treated me vs. kids my age. Both groups seemed to carry this judgment towards me, but grownups ultimately liked me more cause I was quiet and didn’t make a bunch of noise like the other kids in church. I would bring my Mickey Mouse backpack and sit next to my Dad or Mom depending on how I was feeling (my dad had to sit in the front of the church) and fill in my coloring book. Half paying attention and half living in my own world. While grownups liked me, I’ve always been hyper aware of the “whswbwswhshhshw” or whispers everyone would do whenever I would get done talking, walking, or honestly even just breathing. I began to resent being the focus of people’s attention and self-conscious of how I was coming across to people. Quite frankly, I still do (perhaps I should go get diagnosed with something lol). As I got older and was in my “something’s wrong with me and I’m either going to kill myself or run away from home” middle school era, I learned what those whispers were, and I recognized that the whole time people would ask me questions, it wasn’t out of curiosity but out of nosiness. Nosiness about whether the deacon’s youngest child/only son was a fag or not.

At this age, I also started paying more attention to what the pastor was preaching. Sermons about sin and asking God for forgiveness pierced me, and whenever there was even the briefest mention of queerness, I felt the eyes glance in my direction from what felt like every single person in the room. When talking about how the Black church makes people queerphobic, I discussed it deeper in my religious psychosis article. But the section of that article where I deconstruct Shaiie’s homophobia is all the takes that I’ve heard to my face and behind my back. So while I’m speaking anecdotally, just know that I have heard it all. But when I wasn’t around other church folk, I noticed a different type of homophobia. It was less passive-aggressive and much more direct.

The Black Community Made You Queerphobic

Sigh, now let’s talk about other Black spaces. I think the first time I ever heard people address queerness without God being involved was in the barbershop. But it wasn’t spoken about. It was one of those situations where a person who was very queer-presenting was in the barbershop, and after they left, everyone started laughing at them. I was young at the time, and hadn’t even heard the word “gay” yet. But I did hear the word “sissy”. My parents put me through a lot of sports, although I didn’t show much interest (probably trying to groom the gay out of me), and when I would play soccer, baseball, karate, golf, basketball, and Boy Scouts, I would often hear that word “sissy”. Which I was smart enough to finally discern that it was a flamboyant person, but I learned that calling a boy a sissy was an insult.

Now I need y’all to follow me thoroughly, and don’t try to put words in my mouth here; I’m simply speaking from experience. When I went to school, which every school I ever went to was predominantly a PWI, I was met with BOTH racism and homophobia. However, I experienced more homophobia from my peers. Now I’m NOT saying that one bigotry is worse than the other, but when I reflect on those events in my life, most of the homophobia I got was from people who looked like me. I’m NOT saying that my white peers were never queerphobic towards me, but with them, the racism ALMOST superseded the queer part (I might talk about this at a later date). I also want to add that while I experienced both forms of bigotry at school, I was experiencing homophobia everywhere else, which might’ve been what caused me to believe that Black folks are more queerphobic than others. But it was later confirmed to me when I went on a college tour trip with my college prep group I was in during high school. My room group was me, 2 other fem queer men, and 1 straight guy who was comfortable with it.

While they weren’t the nicest to me, they were my first example of queer men being catty towards each other for no reason. I do remember us during this trip venting our frustrations about our families and friends who just didn’t get it. In that college prep program, the other black boys didn’t mess with us. Even though we were taking African American history classes and learning about intersectionality, it was still very much so “those fags can go over there, and we’ll be cishet over here”. So while I have my issues with them, I appreciate having that experience cause it proved to me I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

Addressing The Potential Counterarguments

1. “AJ, you can’t just claim that Black folks are more homophobic when other groups of people can be homophobic too!”

I’m aware that other cultures have issues with homophobia. However, I’ve witnessed white/non black people be able to access everyday spaces without harassment or aggression, but not with black queer folks. The experience of being black and queer gives me a different point of view where I see the privileges others have. White queers get a different reaction from cishet white folks cause while religion affects them as well, they don’t have the generational trauma of slavery that I was talking about earlier.

2. “How dare you say your Black ass experienced more homophobia than racism in a PWI? Are you some kind of coon?”

That’s not what I said. Please reread what I wrote if you believe that’s what I said.

3. “But Black folks primarily vote democratic, so it’s not a community issue. Are you trying to make Black folks look bad?”

You know most Black people vote Democrat, but that doesn’t mean the Black community is woke central. When it comes to racial discrimination, most of us are very progressive, but when it comes to ableism, fatphobia, transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, and don’t even get me started on abuse…we’re pretty conservative. Most Black folks “vote blue no matter who” because there is a clear understanding that right-wingers are racist and want Blackness to be eradicated. A lot of Black folks voted for Obama and loved him but were upset because they felt as if he contributed more to queer people than black people. Which again goes to show that a lot of black folks refuse to acknowledge the existence of black queer people.

So Why Did I Write This?

When thinking about how I would approach this topic, I knew I had to talk about the history of queerphobia’s connection to slavery first to clear the air. When I saw this crop of white liberals saying that Black folks aren’t more queerphobic than any other group, I knew that they were speaking from a place of privilege and racial blindness. Which is what prompted me to write about this. I wasn’t super detailed on my experience in the church here, but to put a nice bow on it, one of the biggest reasons I stopped going to church was because I was drained by the hypocrisy. Being queer is a sin, but abuse isn’t? Being queer is a sin, but sleeping with that married man/woman isn’t? Being queer is a sin, but fucking in the church isn’t?

Something that you might’ve noticed is that I didn’t discuss the transphobia in the community. It’s not because it doesn’t exist; it totally does, but I personally, as a gay boy who might be some sort of nonbinary, just didn’t feel like it was my place to discuss. But I’ll talk about it a bit here. I think that in the eyes of a person who is homophobic, trans people get lumped into the group as well (which makes it just queerphobia). If you don’t like the gays, you sure as hell aren’t respecting people’s pronouns and identity. Black trans people likely have a similar experience with the community, but I don’t feel like I’m the right person for that convo. I suggest tuning into TS Madison, Hope Giselle, Kat Blaque, and Dominque Morgan for that. Sorry, I don’t know of any Black trans men who discuss the intersectional experience, but if you do, please let me know.

Lastly, I just want to clear the air on what I’m sure will be the big negative force against my viewpoint. I didn’t write this out to make Black folks look bad. I understand where the queerphobia is stemming from, but as we see what is going on with this regime the Tramp has built off of bigotry towards immigrants and trans folk, I want us to do better. The post that I made addressing homophobia almost always has a Black person who claims to worship Christ at the forefront. And it shouldn’t be that way. When we look back at history, Civil Rights wouldn’t have progressed the way it did without Black queer people like James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin, Angela Davis, and the countless others who contributed to the rights that are now being worked on getting taken away from us.

I remember when DeRay Mckesson, a gay Black Lives Matter activist, was met with Black men saying they couldn’t look at him as a leader because he was gay. Y’all, I’m so tired. I’m so fucking tired of being ostracized by people who look like me. I’m tired of fighting for the Black folks who are murdered or “mysteriously” go missing just to have the small voice in my head tell me that “if the same thing happened to you, these niggas wouldn’t give a fuck about your gay ass”. Can the Black community ever heal? The answer is no, at least not until niggas learn that you can’t be pro-Black and queerphobic at the same time when the high horse you’re sitting on was gifted to you by those fags you shame and shun. If you’re Black and dare to be queerphobic, you might as well call yourself a white supremacist, because you’re the same in my eyes. The slave master taught you to be queerphobic, and you listened.

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What Is A Celebrity Beef?

As usual, I have to explain what a celeb beef is and its history. Celebrity beef is simply two or more famous people not getting along. It becomes a little complicated when we discuss that some celeb beefs are doctored while others are real. Doctored celeb beefs are often pushed by the media and often come with a trope vs. trope setup. The good girl vs. the bad girl, the veteran vs. the newcomer, the vocalist vs. the dancer, etc. The reason why celeb beefs are utilized is that they are a great marketing tactic.

All of the tropes I named have beefs that were doctored by the media that exemplify them. The good girl vs bad girl beef I think is best exemplified by Brandy vs Monica. Two R&B teen princesses who were put against each other by the media, and it benefited both of them with their shared signature song, The Boy Is Mine. Unfortunately, their fake beef became real when, at the 1998 VMAs, Monica “allegedly” hit Brandy in the face backstage, but hey, they’re friends now, so it’s all good.

The veteran vs. the newcomer is often a strategy used by the media and possibly encouraged by the newbie’s team and record label. An example of this is Whitney vs. Mariah. Whitney, who debuted in 1985 dominated the rest of the 80s and with Mariah debuting in 1990 and both having the vocalist title, naturally comparison was made. Whitney in the 90s started acting while Mariah dominated the music industry for the entire decade. The “beef” between them was never real; if anything, it was just a little shady. During Mariah’s debut era, Whitney, when asked what she thinks of Mariah, simply said: “I don’t think of her. Do you think of her?” Lol, I love Whitney RIP.

Mariah addressed the comparison to Whitney by saying she understands that people need someone to compare her to so they know how to view her, and she’s right. A big reason why the veteran vs. newcomer narrative happens is that people need insight on why they should pay attention to the newbie. Think of it this way: when Olivia Rodrigo debuted, she was immediately compared to Taylor for her songwriting ability. Not because they make similar music, but because they have similar skills that people can respect. And elitists love a singer-songwriter; I wrote about that a few weeks ago. So naturally, a newer artist’s team and label would want to gain that credibility by being compared to someone credible.

I think we get the point of celebrity beefs, but let’s go back to the point I was making at the start of this. And that’s the cultural impact of celebrity beefs.

The Pop Culture Of Having An Enemy

So many of the viral moments we love include some sort of rivalry or beef being exploited. Think of the shady cameraman of award shows. That is essential to what makes award shows unique, as well as where we get so many GIFs out of. And with the VMAs being so fucking boring last week, it’s likely because there’s no fun people with drama coming to these award shows. And worst of all, celebrities nowadays have reputations that are too tightly stitched together.

Celebs always have a distinct role or image they fit into. Both actors and musicians. Zendaya is always going to play the cool, mysterious, complicated girl to match her cool, mysterious vibe in real life. While Charli XCX is a party/circuit girl who makes music for other party/circuit girls and gays. But the best parts of these roles are when we see the tightly stitched image loosen up. For example, most of Beyonce’s solo interviews suck because she is so focused on saying the right thing, doing the right thing, looking the right way, and scared of coming across as negative in any way. But when we go back and look at the Destiny’s Child interviews, she clearly wasn’t fucking with Farrah lol.

As misogynistic and exploitative as it is, the Britney virgin image spawned so much historical pop culture. And it all exploded when she and Justin Timberlake broke up; he slut shamed (even though he was the cheating whore) and humiliated her in front of the public to boost his career. Of course, Britney didn’t deserve any of that treatment, but we got so much tea from this. 1. She starts partying hard with Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan. 2. She embraces the bad girl image by kissing Madonna at the VMAs, which also gives us the shady cameraman panning to Justin’s reaction and blocking us from seeing that Madonna kissed Xtina too. 3. Christina started being real shady towards Britney after this performance, and even slut shamed Britney like she didn’t kiss Madonna too. 4. Years later, Britney spilled the tea in her autobiography that she lied about being a virgin cause she actually fucked her brother’s best friend way before she even debuted. The girls were fighting, their sales were booming, we were getting the tea, and I was getting my life being nosy as fuck. Everybody wins lol!

The way we see celebs beef with each other now, it’s like everybody is afraid to talk their shit or views talking shit as wrong.

Some Of You Are Babies

Bring back bitches hating each other! And I’m so serious. Do y’all remember when Taylor was shredding Charli up like pork on that song Actually Romantic? Now I recall in my review of The Life of A Showgirl saying this:

I disagree with this now. When I do initial album reviews, I write my thoughts out quickly without looking at other people’s opinions online. So after I posted that, I started seeing ppl go on and on dragging it like Taylor slapped Charli’s mama. And after the album came out, I watched Olurinatti’s very funny video discussing the album’s backlash where she actually ended up liking it. And she brought up how people don’t appreciate pop girl beefs like we used to.

And to that, Olay, I AGREE!!!! When I wrote that initial review, those 2 sentences were all I had to say, but now I have more thoughts. I understand that Taylor Swift is the main pop girl of the decade, so naturally she has a lot of power. And my opinion still is the same: it seemingly came out of nowhere cause we haven’t seen Charli publicly bash Taylor, but the song Actually Romantic implies that Charli was talking shit behind the scenes. And as a bitch who hates being in it but loves knowing other people’s drama, I’m here for it lmao.

I think that pop music lovers forget that celebrity culture is intertwined with the media unlike any other music genre. The concept of a pop star is to be polarizing; while all the other genre artists stay in their lane, you get to be a little controversial. There’s another genre of music that understands the importance of hating a bitch, and that’s hip hop.

Whether it’s Nicki vs everybody or Drake vs Kendrick, rappers know how to talk shit and keep it pushing. We don’t all gotta be buddy buddy kissy kissy with each other. Rap culture includes bragging, showing off, asserting dominance, and challenging your competitors because it almost requires it. While it does exist, most people don’t wanna hear rap music that ain’t talking shit. When I need to go down to my dead-end job in those early mornings to deal with people who piss me off all day, I listen to rap music to get me motivated to cut a bitch (with kindness).

When we talk about celebrity beefs like Kendrick vs. Drake, everyone seemingly is ok with it. But when two female celebs don’t like each other, all of a sudden it’s feminism this and feminism that. Now I’m NOT saying feminism is wrong, but I am saying that if a bitch is a bitch you have every right to smack that bitch. Idk maybe I’m too southern for this discourse, cause I ain’t never heard none of my elders say to let somebody whoop on you. I was getting at this in my last article about the feminism of Beyoncé’s self-titled album, where I said:

Obviously not all celeb beefs are going to be this complex, cause here I was talking about the misogyny of people telling Beyonce to retire and just be Jay Z’s broodmare when she had Blue Ivy. But I still think this holds. What is it about expressing how you feel about someone that makes it wrong? We have so many artists who make love songs about people we all know about, cause again celebrity culture is tied to pop music. So what’s wrong with being a little shady towards your opp? Artists make breakup songs and whole albums about their exes all the time!

Like most things wrong with modern pop culture, though, it’s the fans who ruin it. Instead of simply being Team A or Team B. People want to send death threats to the other side, go fight each other, and act like a complete and utter fool. I need y’all to get a grip; we’re too fucking grown. I already wrote plenty of articles about stans and their parasocial behavior, so I’ll just add this: You’re all ruining the fun. At the end of the day, the point of a celebrity beef is to entertain us and bring iconic moments. Rihanna telling Ciara “good luck with bookin that stage u speak of” and Kendrick rapping Not Like Us at the Super Bowl are simply entertainment.

If I were a pop star, I would have so many fake beefs, but the gag is…I would have “beef” with another artist than release a duet with them where we’re dragging each other. Why the fuck are Brandy and Monica the only girls who were smart enough to turn their beef into a paycheck?! If any of y’all wanna be my public enemy/secret diva in crime, DM me! Bills are high, let’s get this check LMFAO! Anyways, I just wanted to make something fun and light for the girlies. See you next week!

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What Happened Between Bday and Beyoncé?

I’m not planning on making a feminist analysis track by track on all Bey’s albums, as only BDay, Self Titled, and Lemonade have enough gender politics in them to warrant studying. However, all of Bey’s work has feminist concepts. I talked in the BDay analysis about how her debut, Dangerously In Love, showed her vulnerable side but also how she depends on herself when men disappoint her. Bday tells a story about how a powerful woman obsessed with the power couple fantasy realizes that powerful men suck too. The album that I don’t plan on writing about is I Am…Sasha Fierce explores Bey’s true self and her alter ego. Bey is the soft girl who sees the “Halo” in her loved ones but also wishes she was a boy (If I Were A Boy) who had more control in her relationships, while Sasha Fierce is the girlboss who challenges the men who claim to want her (Single Ladies) and intimidates her competition by being the best (Diva).

I Am…Sasha Fierce further explores how Beyoncé turns to masculinity to show dominance. This era explodes her career cause now the white people recognize her as the star she is and not just us. So she goes on hiatus for a year, gets married, fires her dadager (dad who is also your manager), and travels the world all to come back with one of her best works, “4”. The album’s lead single is “Run the World (Girls)” a bombastic pop song about how women are the best. But the rest of the album is an eclectic R&B album literally designed to challenge the EDM Dance music that was dominating the charts at the time. 4, while recognized as a great body of work, wasn’t too successful due to being leaked early as well as ahead of its time. Also, this was the era that Bey became pregnant with Blue Ivy, her miracle after a series of miscarriages, so the era was more focused on her personal life and pregnancy than the great music 4 had to offer.

After Bey gave birth, she experienced lots of hate towards her newborn daughter and whether or not she was the biological mother. Which I would argue is the shift in how she’ll handle her fame for the rest of her career. When 2013 comes around, the top of the year starts with Beyoncé doing the Super Bowl Halftime Show. A perfect capstone of her electric stage presence, perfectionist dances, and powerhouse vocals that set up what the next few years of her career will look like. She goes on tour for 4, and in the promo for the tour there’s this song that plays called “Bow Down,” a diss track response to the people who were accusing her of not birthing Blue Ivy, as well as the narrative that she should “slow down “ now after becoming a mother and wife. This promo song for the tour was met with immense hate. But it would shape what would happen in December of 2013.

The Friday release of the “Beyoncé” album was a total surprise, so much of a surprise that there were no physical copies planned to be released initially and only digital with music videos for every single song. Because the release of Beyoncé was on a Friday, it prevented leaks. You see, before 2013, new songs (in the US) were released on Tuesday, but on different days depending on the country. This made leaks extremely common in the music industry. So releasing music on a Friday worldwide for everyone means fewer leaks but also more culture and stats around it, as “New Music Fridays” becomes a thing, and a whole 7 days of tracking allows for better first-week numbers. Nowadays we can’t fathom an artist releasing any song on any other day but Friday. So yes, Beyoncé is a living legend as she literally changed the music industry and Billboard charts. Now that the backstory is out of the way, it’s time to get into the actual album. (Side Note: since every song has a music video, I’ll likely mention the video but won’t dwell on it as we’re primarily talking about lyrics and concepts).

Pretty Hurts - perfection is a disease of a nation

Before we get deep into this album, I just want to mention again that Beyoncé clearly made this record during and after having Blue Ivy. Meaning I think a lot of this album chronicles her experience being a new mom, having a new body, and experiencing postpartum, potentially postpartum depression. Beyoncé in documentaries in this era, mentioned how she worked hard to get her body back and feel sexy again. And knowing that she was working her ass off to lose weight just so she could go on tour makes me believe this song is representing her thoughts during that time.

Pretty Hurts is a song that explores what it means to be a little girl and how the world will critique your body throughout your whole life. “Pageant the pain away” is a reference to Bey’s time as a pageant girl. This lyric, in conjunction with the video being a pageant that the future her resents being a part of, is a powerful statement. Showing us how this patriarchal system that was painful as a child worsened as she became a pop star with even more eyes than just Houston on her.

“Blonder hair, flat chest. TV says, “bigger is better”. South Beach, sugar free. Vogue says, “thinner is better” is a great few lines that show s the complex narrative of different forms of media. Some media outlets will say a more Aryan look is the most beautiful, while others will claim a racially ambiguous look is the most beautiful. Bringing in the perspective of black womanhood makes these lines so much deeper. “Perfection is a disease of a nation” also shows us that Bey is aware of her perfect pageant girl image she is often mocked for. So in this album, she’s going to show us the real her.

Then the outro of this song shapes what the rest of this album is going to be about: “When you’re alone all by yourself, when you’re lying in your bed. Reflection stares right into you. Are you happy with yourself? Stripped away the masquerade. The illusion has been shed. Are you happy with yourself?… yes.” The rest of this album is the real Beyoncé, not a character like in BDay or her alter ego Sasha. The masquerade and illusion were stripped away, and now it’s her in her rawest form. So what does Beyoncé unfiltered sound like?

Haunted - reflection of the past and carnal lust

This song sets up a common Beyoncéism that will stay the rest of her discography. Beyoncé often has songs that are combinations of 2 or more songs. This album has a few like this. The first section of Haunted is actually called “Ghost,” and it starts with Bey singing about the world around her and her place in the music industry. “When I’m looking off the edge, I preach my gut; it can’t help but ignore it. I’m climbing up the walls cause all the shit i hear is boring. All the shit I do is boring, all these record labels boring. I don’t trust these record labels, I’m torn…Soul not for sale. Probably won’t make no money off this, oh well. Reap what you sow. perfection is so, mm”. I feel like in this section she’s showing us her process with releasing this album. The mention of her probably not going to make money off this is a real thought she had. In a fan Q&A event, Beyoncé stated that she was terrified of releasing this album without any promo cause she thought it would ruin her career. But because she (in 2012-2013 at least) saw the music industry and even her first 4 album eras as boring, she decided to take the risk for the excitement of it.

The next section of the song is the main part, and it’s the carnal lust part. She wants dick!!! LOL. This section has her singing about sex like it’s dirty or some sort of evil. “My haunted lungs, ghost in the sheets. I know if I’m haunting you, you must be haunting me.” If you replace the word “haunting” with “lusting,” then it’s very clear what she’s singing about. She wants sex, but it feels almost dirty, which isn’t something that stays on the album. This record is largely exploring sexual themes, but none of those songs sound like this. So it makes sense for the first song on the album to explore sex to be the most erotically dark, as it feels taboo for her to share with the audience who never saw this side of her. Bey has songs about sex pre-2013, but they’re never carnal like this or the other songs.

Drunk In Love - Miss Yonka, what were you thinking?

Now I just want to start by saying this song is great till Jay Z opens his mouth. This song is about her and Jay Z having drunken sex. It’s teasing yet serious, sexy yet playful. There are lots of sexual references in this song, with lyrics like “then I fill the tub up halfway. then I ride it with my surfboard” is about riding and “I been drinking watermelon” which apparently is slang for cum. Idk where they call cum watermelon, but where I come from we don’t do that. I don’t even like watermelon lol. But then we get into Jay Z’s verse…

At first it’s ok, he’s just rapping about how they were drunk coming home and fucked all over the foyer. Ok cute, groundbreaking…but then he says this: “Beat the box up, like Mike in ‘97 I bite. I’m Ike Turner, turn up baby, no, I don’t play. Now eat the cake, Anna Mae. Said, Eat the cake, Anna Mae.” If you’re not familiar with these names, you wouldn’t understand these off the first listen. Jay Z compares sex with his wife to Mike Tyson, a very aggressive boxer who was accused of abusing his wife, Robin, and also bit the ear of Evander Holyfield in 1997 during a boxing match.

…….ok. But the worst part is the Ike Turner lines. For those of you who don’t know, Anna Mae is Tina Turner’s real name. “Tina” is her stage name; obviously Turner became her actual last name when she married Ike. Ike Turner was extremely abusive towards Tina. So much so that in a famous scene of Tina’s biopic and one of my favorite films ever, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”, Ike is upset that Tina is getting more attention than him from white audiences (it was the 60s, so crossover fame was extremely important for Black artists). So in this diner with their friends, he shoves cake in her mouth, and when she rejects it, he slaps her around and repeats “eat the cake, Anna Mae!” as all the white people in this diner watch and do nothing, and her only friend tries to help just to get hurt herself.

So Jay Z referencing 2 well known abusive men on an album that is supposed to be celebrating the sexuality of women is extremely tone deaf. Yes, I’m Beyhive, but I’m also a progressive thinker who works every day to deconstruct the patriarchy. If you don’t critique your faves’ mistakes, you’re a pushover to me. And it actually does give me the ick that these lines were never removed from the streaming platforms, especially since Beyoncé has always referred to Tina Turner as her hero. The bare minimum she did was do the Dubai riff in the live performances of this song since all the backlash, but if she really wanted to stand on business, she would’ve removed that whole verse. Anyways, let’s move on cause I hate this song.

Blow - apparently the coon is a munch

Now this is my shit right here! Honeybee is getting her pussy eaten by Coon Z, so thankfully his mouth is too full to speak. “I kiss you, and you lick your lips. You like it wet and so do i…i know you never waste a drip. i wonder how it feels sometimes. Mmm, must be good to you.” Miss Yonka is letting us know it all lol. When I tell you this is so straightforward and unfiltered, “I can’t wait till I get home so you can tear that cherry out”. I love this song, and also this is definitely a preview of what Renaissance would soon become. I ain’t got no gender politics to decipher here, so let’s just move on. What’s understood ain’t gotta be explained. Sit on his face, Miss Yonka!

No Angel - we both ain’t shit

I look at this song like an inverse of the power couple fantasy she sings about in the BDay album. In this song, as she made it clear that this whole album is about her actual life and not a character, she lets us know that her relationship is flawed. Mind you, this album came before Lemonade, so Bey and Jay’s relationship was benefiting from the power couple image. Nobody knew Jay Z was cheating, although I have a theory on that I’ll explain later. No Angel explains how she is complicated, but so is he, and that’s why they work. Girl, bye- this is that ride-or-die bullshit I don’t live for. Yes, love comes with challenges, but diva, too much struggle ain’t love; it’s just trauma. But I’ll meet you where you’re at, 2013 Beyoncé.

In this song, she says, “I know I drive you crazy, but would you rather that I be a machine who doesn’t notice when you’re late or when you’re lyin’? I love you even more than who I thought you were before.” This is the strongest lyric of the song, as she knows everything about him. His flaws and strengths make her love him more. The veil of him being the “King” doesn’t exist for her as she gets to see the real him. This song is positioned as makeup sex of sorts, with lyrics like “First both my legs go back on your head, and whatever you want yeah baby I bet…tell me I’m the problem. No I’m not the girl you thought you knew and thought you wanted”. This makes it seem as if Jay Z doesn’t know what he signed up for when getting with her, but he should, because she didn’t know for him but loves him more because of it.

Partition - this is on my list for top 10 Beyoncé songs

I think out of all the sexy “fuck me now” songs on this album, this one is the best. Beyoncé describes this song as being her sexual fantasy after seeing strippers in a club. So in the video, it’s exactly that. While the song itself is about her having sex with Coon Z in the back of a limousine. I’m telling y’all Miss Yonka was so fucking horny from those pregnancy hormones, and she wants us to know BAD lol! “Driver, roll up the partition, please. I don’t need you seeing Yonce on her knees. Took 45 minutes to get all dressed up. We ain’t even gonna make it to this club. Now my mascara runnin’, red lipstick smudged. Oh, he so horny, yeah, he want to fuck. He popped all my buttons, and he ripped my blouse. He Monica Lewinsky-ed all on my gown.” C’mon visual storytelling lmao.

I think now is a great time to address the risk of this era. Beyoncé doesn’t really have a “good girl gone bad” era, as she has always sung about sex, but seeing as this album is her first time displaying herself as having sexual prowess, I would say this is the closest we can get. Most pop stars, when they start embracing their sexuality in the public eye, get backlash and experience massive amounts of slut shaming. While yes, Beyoncé did experience misogyny and slut shaming, I often find that she didn’t get it as bad as other fem pop stars. And I think the biggest reason for this is her long-term relationship with Jay-Z.

“AJ, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I know it sounds weird, but bear with me here. I think that because Bey has been in a long-term heterosexual monogamous relationship, she’s protected from patriarchy in a way. Not completely, obviously (let’s not be dense), but because the world knows that she’s with Jay Z and ALL of these songs are about him, it gives her a “lighter” lashing than a Rihanna or Nicki would’ve gotten during this time.

Back to the song: let’s skip straight to the bridge, which is where Beyoncé’s feminism starts to be introduced. The bridge is in French, so I’ll show y’all the translation that reads: “Do you like sex? Sex. I mean, the physical activity. Coitus. Do you like it? You’re not interested in sex? Men think that feminists hate sex, but it’s a very stimulating and natural activity that women love”. I mentioned how, on this record, Beyoncé is showing her sexual prowess, and with this song she’s also letting us know that this isn’t for the male gaze. Yes, she said that she wanted to be like the strippers in that club for her husband. But also that she wanted to do this because it made her feel sexy after having her baby.

Jealous - sigh

There was once a time that Beyoncé dating Jay Z was seen as her being the clean-up crew for his dogshit reputation in the late 90s and early 2000s. The Foxy Brown, Supa Head, and Aaliyah stories, whether you believe they’re true or not, don’t do him any favors. So when listening to this song, I reflect on how Bey’s crystal-clear image makes Jay Z shine by proxy even though he still acts like a fucking coon. In this song, Jealous, Beyoncé sings about how she secretly resents dating a man who is famous like her cause he’s always getting attention from everyone. I would take this even further and see this song as her being in the house after birthing his child and him being out and about doing his thing. Now I don’t know that to be true! However, let’s discuss the lyrics that make me think this.

We start with “I’m in my penthouse half-naked. I cooked this meal for you naked. So where the hell you at? …Wish that you were me. So you could feel this feeling. I never broke one promise. And I know that you’re not honest. Now you got me yellin’. That’s because I’m jealous.” Bitch, y’all talk about how Lemonade made y’all hate Jay Z; this album made me hate Jay Z 3 years before we even got Lemonade! The “and I know that you’re not honest” line tells me that they’ve had infidelity issues way before Lemonade was even a speck in Beyoncé’s brain. Coon Z…when I catch you.

Moving on though, this song is reminiscent of Bday. So much so that Bey references a song from Bday (Freakum Dress) and does a very typical Beyoncism (attempt to get her lick back). “Freakum dress out of my closet. Yonce filling out this skirt. I look damn good, I ain’t lost it….I ran into my ex. Say what up to his bestest. Now we’re reminiscing about how we used to flex in Texas. Don’t be jealous!” The line of her saying “she ain’t lost it” tells me everything I need to know. This nigga was doing fuck nigga activities while Beyoncé was pregnant and/or postpartum.

Stone him…..

Rocket - sister why is this song here of all places?

This sequencing is crazy. Partition is her being a stripper for her man, Jealous is her being upset that he gets to be fuck boy while she’s raising a newborn, and Rocket is her “making love” to this mother fucker. “Oh brother, this guy stinks!” I shouldn’t have to explain these lyrics to y’all. “Rocket ‘til waterfalls.” Us grown folks know what that means. She’s letting us know she’s a Water-type Pokémon; Squirtle ain’t got shit on her lmfao.

I will say that in the outro of this song she sings “We’re so much more than pointless fixtures. Instagram pictures.” I interpret this as her going back to the power couple fantasy that she loves so much. For clarity, I just want to point out Beyoncé is one of the only pop stars I hear sing about how much she loves having a man on her level. Most pop stars date private citizens or celebs who are way less famous than them. Beyoncé on every goddamn album gon tell us how she loves a nigga whose check got the same amount of zeros as hers lol. Sista, we get it, no brokies for you, damn!

Mine (ft. Certified ****) - back to post partum depression

The sequencing is insane on this album cause now we’re back to the postpartum stream-of-consciousness type of song. Um, take Drake off this song. If y’all never heard the version without him on YouTube, I highly suggest it cause his voice makes me nauseous. But anyways, let’s get into this song, which is probably the clearest sign that Beyoncé wasn’t feeling great after having a baby.

“I’ve been watching for the signs. Took a trip to clear my mind, oh. Now I’m even more lost… been having conversations about breakups and separations. I’m not feeling like myself since the baby. Are we gonna even make it? Oh. Cause if we are, we’re taking this a little too far.” This is the closest we get to something not being right with the relationship but also with her.

Postpartum depression is defined as a mood disorder that develops after birthing a child. It causes intense melancholy, anxiety, and exhaustion. When a woman has a baby, we often only address the baby. And never the human being who experienced bringing the child into the world, which doesn’t make being a new mom any better. In this song, Beyoncé is talking about how she’s taking trips, feeling lost from herself, and contemplating leaving her husband. The lines “we’re taking this a little too far” make me think that they actually might’ve broken up or were separated.

XO - now we’re wholesome again

This is a pretty standard love song with an electronic, almost ballad-like sound. Another Beyoncéism is singing about how, no matter what they go through, their love will always prevail. That’s exactly what this song is about. “In the darkest night hour, I search through the crowd. Your face is all I see. I’ll give you everything. Baby, love me lights out.” Which I interpret as loving her when the cameras and flashing lights aren’t on her. When she’s not on stage or the carpet, she needs him to love her fully. Very wholesome cutesy song, not much to say here, unlike our next song.

Flawless - BOW DOWN BITCHES!

She’s talking her shit here and clearing the air on the speculations about her life. Bow Down is the first part of this song where she famously says, “I know when you were little girls, you dreamt of bein’ in my world. Don’t forget it, don’t forget it. Respect that, bow down bitches! I took some time to live my life. But don’t think I’m just his little wife. Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted. This my shit, bow down bitches!” This tells us a lot. 1. That Bey is aware that people think she is benefiting from being Jay Z’s wife. There’s this stupid rumor that all of Beyoncé’s accolades were bought or given to her because of Jay-Z. And my issue with that is that look at Jay-Z. Does he seem like the type of man who would have access to give himself accolades but instead give them to his wife? Like, let’s be serious. Men like him want to be at the top; if anything, he would be the most awarded artist in the world and Beyoncé second place to him. But she’s not just “his little wife”; this is her shit!

The second thing I’m getting from this song is her not giving a fuck about the backlash Bow Down got for not being “feminist”. Now, as a gay man, I should know my place, but I’m gonna say wtf I want regardless. Is it feminist to diss women who are talking shit about you? Cause let’s be real here, when Beyoncé was hearing all these people saying that she should settle down now and just be his little wife, it was coming from predominantly women! Because whether you like it or not, a lot of women love the patriarchy. A lot of mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, aunts, and grandmothers teach the young girls in their lives to submit to it and the young boys in their lives to lead with it. In the Bday analysis, I mentioned how Beyoncé is a millennial cause she was born in the 1st year of that generation, but she’s still on the cusp of Gen X. Lots of Gen X women have this working woman mindset that was extremely popular in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, but simultaneously the old school submissive housewife trope of the pre-70s era (Except for Black women who’ve always had to work and couldn’t rely on their Black husband’s paycheck cause he was getting paid less than the white man).

Is it feminist to diss women who are talking shit about you? I would argue yes. Hear me out. When I was in high school, I was in this summer college prep program, and one of my professors said this: “Not all skin folk are your kin folk”. When I tell you this completely reworked my mind, cause for the life of me I couldn’t understand why Black folks are so homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic when intersectionality means that a lot of queer and fems are Black too! But it clicked that not everybody is willing to fight against their oppression and would rather make someone else beneath them. I still have more to say, so let’s get back to the song.

The connector of Bow Down and Flawless is this iconic quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that reads: (screenshots cause it’s long)

When I told y’all I could teach a college course on Beyoncé’s politics, I wasn’t fucking joking cause the textbooks are all on streaming. I’ll keep my thoughts brief, though.

Chimamanda is stating the plight of growing up a girl. You can be this but not TOO much of that cause that’s threatening to the patriarchy. This speech takes us into the Flawless portion of the song where Beyoncé is declaring that she woke up flawless and her loved ones around her shaped her into who she is today. And she encourages other women around her to see themselves as flawless and tells them that they “look so good tonight”. It’s an anthem for feeling good about yourself.

I also want to bring up the last part of Chimamanda’s speech where she says what a feminist is: “a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”. With this definition, all reasonable people should be feminists, but the word has been bastardized so much that Beyoncé calling herself a feminist during the year 2013 was a big deal. I grew up in the generation where my 5th grade teacher being a feminist was treated like serious recess gossip. Feminism has been misconstrued as an evil thing so much that a big name like Beyoncé letting everyone know that it’s actually just being a humanitarian made it seem more approachable for people to get into.

Superpower - safe zone

The “our love can survive anything” Beyoncéism strikes again. Here I would like to talk about the video a bit more, as in the visuals, it appears that Beyoncé is rallying up the troops to stand up against police brutality. Which again makes me think of intersectionality and how Black women are often the best at bringing people together to stand for something. Even when we don’t do the same for the struggles Black women experience, they always do for others.

Heaven - a depressing tearjerker

So in the music video, you would think that this song is about a friend, but with the context that Beyoncé experienced numerous miscarriages before Blue Ivy, this song has more weight to it. It shows that this experience completely changed her perspective on life, which she has talked about in the documentary Life Is But A Dream.

“Heaven couldn’t wait for you” isn’t something you say about someone who died of old age or peacefully. That’s something you say about someone who died young from an accident or incident. Which makes this song sadder, especially when you hear her singing to these babies she’s lost by repeating “you” as if she’s physically speaking to them face to face.

Blue - a wholesome tearjerker

If you didn’t think Heaven was about her miscarriages, well, this song Blue is about her rainbow baby. She sings about how she often feels lost or overwhelmed, but Blue Ivy grounds her and gives her something to live for. “Sometimes these walls seem to cave in on me. When I look in your eyes, I feel alive.”

When a pop star has a family, they often sing about how it’s the best experience of their life. I assume because their lives are so luxurious and exploited that a little breaking of the living room vase gives them a reminder that they are still human beings. Being a mother allows her to have a normalcy in her life that sustains her and makes her feel human.

Who is Beyoncé at this point?

Well, we have to remember that after, before, or around this album’s production and release, Jay Z cheated on her. She left him for a bit (kept that a secret from the press), but they got back together. Which is how we got the 2 On The Run tours, which the Beyhive jokingly calls their couples therapy. The elevator incident happens between these two records, and Beyoncé does a lot of research in preparation for her next album, Lemonade. Which is an album that I’ll do a track-by-track another time, but as of now, let’s talk about what this album did for her.

First and foremost, this album made her a legend. We throw the word legend around too easily in modern pop culture spaces. I firmly believe that you should NOT be called a legend until you contribute visible change to the music industry. For example, Michael Jackson made people give a fuck about music videos, and Madonna made different eras an expected thing for every pop star after her. If Beyoncé never made another album again after this, changing the day new music gets released is enough of a contribution to make her a legend.

Second, did this album achieve the rebrand Beyoncé was looking for? 1000%, Beyoncé in her earlier works was always critiqued for not being deep or vulnerable. She often tried to counter this discourse with I Am Sasha Fierce and 4, both attempting to show her vulnerable side, but people latched onto her Sasha Fierce side. So she combined her vulnerable side with the Sasha Fierce side everyone loves, which is how we get all of these songs. It shows her relationship to her body, motherhood, sexuality, and husband.

In my previous Beyoncé’s gender politics analysis, I pointed out how she was only 25 at the time. Of course her politics were gonna be young ho beliefs. But with this record, Beyoncé was 32 years old and a girl mom. I didn’t talk about it much here, but I do believe that seeing herself in Blue Ivy made her rethink her place in the world. Which is why she doesn’t do video interviews anymore (except in those rare moments she does, like the Met Gala or 2025 Grammys), focuses on making culturally relevant music over commercial success, and has started evolving into a visionary on top of her already exceptional live performing skills. I love this album so much; I’ve loved it since it first dropped when I was 10 years old. Yes, I was listening to Beyoncé singing about getting dick appointments at the age of 10. Maybe that’s why I’m a [REDACTED]. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this breakdown. I’ll see you next week!

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I think I spent more time editing in the “é” in Beyoncé than actually writing this lol.

Her first trio of albums (Yours Truly, My Everything, and Dangerous Woman) showcase her skills and place in mainstream media. Her second trio of albums (Sweetener, Thank U Next, and Positions) made her accessible by allowing space for parasocial bonding and making her a household name. Now we’re in her third trio of albums (Eternal Sunshine, Petal, and whatever album she makes next), both of which reflect on how the obsession with nostalgia is harmful to her and the people around her.

While Eternal Sunshine was mostly a concept album that hyperbolized her divorce and experience of recovering from that relationship failing, it had a small saga of songs that contextualized her relationship to the cheating allegations. true story, the boy is mine, yes and?, and we can’t be friends (Hampstead in the deluxe) made a little short story of how she’s aware of what people say about her and now knows that it isn’t healthy to be so public. With numerous things happening since Eternal Sunshine, Ariana decided to make Petal, which explores this concept in more rageful but also melancholic detail.

We will be doing a track-by-track of the nuances of this record and what it means to be so known yet so misunderstood.

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kiss me - the outlier in Ariana intros

Every intro song to an Ariana album has a specific sound. If you’re an Arianator, you already know what I’m talking about. Honeymoon Avenue, Intro, Moonlight, raindrops, imagine, shut up, and intro (end of the world) all have this whimsical fairy princess-like sound that often differs from the production of the rest of the album. Ariana, I’m sure by now, is aware that this is kind of an unspoken fact about her discography. So what’s happening with Kiss Me?

Kiss Me features Ariana turning to a common topic she goes to in love songs, and that is “true love in a dystopian world”. While it’s usually only a music video setting like in One Last Time or a few lines in a song, here the song is filled with lyrics that imply Ariana is planning to leave. And I would further argue that what this album very cleverly does is discuss her relationship to fans and the public as if it’s a toxic boyfriend (keep this in mind as we go through every song).

Kiss Me starts with the lines “society, desperate for remedy. empathy, fix this reality. you know i don’t believe i belong, you know i don’t believe this” that tell us she’s addressing that we are living in a world with no empathy and she feels like this space isn’t meant for her. Speaking of space, I’d also like to add that while Ariana’s music has always had some sort of ethereal, alien-like quality, this is the first intro of hers that does.

“Gimme something to love, gimme something overwhelming…something just to obsess me, it’s do or die, bring me to life.” In this song, she’s looking for a sense of grounding, normalcy, if you will. “Kiss me like you know this is goodbye “ I think is hinting at a desire to feel like she belongs but also hinting that she doesn’t want to desire it anymore.

hate that i made you love me - ooh she’s sick of y’all

It’s actually so funny how the title and message of this song didn’t stop it from being a hit. I’ve seen many people misinterpret this album, but especially this song. Since the title is so provocative, people assume she’s dissing her fans, which isn’t the full story. Obviously, the elephant with the ponytail in the room is that Ariana has been getting hounded online for the past 3 years (more on that later). And a common thing people are saying is that they miss the “old her”. In this song, she’s saying that she hates that she made everyone fall in love with a part of her that she exaggerated to fit the pop star mold. For example, Ariana had issues with her hair for years because of consistently dyeing it for Nickelodeon’s Cat Valentine character. So in her early career, she would often wear her hair up to hide the damage. It became a joke that she never let her hair down, and she played into it by exaggerating it. Now it’s become synonymous with her, and anytime she doesn’t have it, people act like she’s disrespecting them for not having the iconic pony.

Hate that I made you love me (girl, this long-ass title, I’m sticking to the abbreviation htimylm) has self-explanatory lyrics, but a verse I want to focus on is the second one where she says “what’s happening now? you studied my crown and borrowed my body. warm, kissed by the sun. then cold like the wind. a bee stuck in honey,” then the hook changes where she says “know that i will find my way from you. i guess it’s kinda cute, how you like me where you are”. Oh bitch this is deep. “Deeper than a pussy of a bitch six feet” - Lil Kim.

Anyways, let’s discuss this. In the second verse, she’s saying that she was basically dissected and borrowed. At first it was warm but quickly turned dark-sided. I believe this to be a reference to the people who use her image for nefarious things. There’s this popular Ariana cosplayer, known as Paige, who does sex work content dressed up like Ari, for example. Us Arianators joke all the time about how Ariana can’t stand that girl but doesn’t want to cause a scene by suing her. Ariana apparently sent Paige DMs that she should try doing her own thing, to no avail, as Paige just made content off it. In the line “a bee stuck in honey,” it brings up imagery of the artist being trapped within its own art. When you think of Ariana, you likely imagine her with the ponytail, the Cat Valentine voice (or the blaccent), an oversized sweatshirt, and the thigh-high heels. And what she’s saying here is that she’s tired of feeling like she can’t grow from that.

Side Note: in regard to the Blackiana era. I don’t care…Yeah, I said it. As a black queer man who grew up in the Midwest, I often saw white girls with hideous, tacky-looking tans. So that didn’t phase me much. I also wanna add that I remember being in high school, mentioning that I love Ariana, and one of the white girls in my class said that she was a blackfisher. Mind you, this white girl was so microaggressively racist to me throughout the entire school year. So when I see non-Black people talking about Ariana being racially problematic, I just assume they’re probably the same lol. And honestly, when it comes to cultural appropriation (regarding BLACKNESS cause that’s all I can talk about), I ain’t never seen Ariana say the n-word or have cornrows. Therefore, I was never offended lmfao.

Let’s get into the bridge where she says: “I’ve held your projections when you’ve felt so insecure. Tell me why it is this way, why you so hate to see women endure? Is it really my fault you all gave me your hearts on your own accord? I don’t really think so!” Big mama is letting you bitches know that she isn’t on y’all’s level. This bridge gets into a commonly known fact in pop music: that female artists are heavily critiqued. Now I do like this song, but I wish it had just a few words changed to be a little more direct and was the power ballad lead single that I always wanted from Ari. I think the words “projections” and “endure” could be changed to “obsessions” and “grow up” because that is what this song is about. The obsession people have with nostalgia. People keep expecting Ariana to be the same person she was at 23 because they’re scared of change, and it makes them feel insecure in their own lack of change. Which Ariana sings about deeper in the next song.

petal - it grew on me

As an Ariyoncé stan (both Beyoncé and Ariana stan), whenever my girls release a song I don’t like or understand, it usually just takes a live performance to make me like or at least understand why they released it. Petal is extremely experimental, exploring messages Ariana is getting from…everyone but her fans. I don’t think this song is about the general public but about industry professionals, labels, and critics. The music video features Ariana auditioning for a role multiple times, through which she continuously changes herself to meet the next critique. She quickly realizes that she can’t appease them and murders them out of rage. The reason why I don’t think this song is about fans is cause fans will like you for whatever it is you give them unless you show them that you’re capable of something different. Ain’t no Lana Del Rey fan expecting her to start twerking cause she NEVER gave the impression that she would/could.

“All of my favorite stories end in some kind of catastrophe. But I don’t need someone to save me, cause this music, and I will never die.” She’s saying that while all of her success gets changed into something horrible, she isn’t a victim and her connection to music will never leave her. “Long as she gets the ovation each night, heartbreak won’t bite. This is paradise,” which I’m sure is something her former manager Scooter or her label might’ve said to her. Who cares if her reputation is hanging by a thread as long as she’s bringing the money in that’s paying our bills. This song is about the industry and how she’s a flower growing between the cracks of the pavement.

Later on, she says, “Tell me who to blame: is it the people or myself? But this time feels so very different; this is not a cry for help. couple million for my thoughts, I’ve got plenty. But I’m not a victim bitch I’m practically drowning in my blessings. It’s bye, this time for real. Tired of painting endless pictures of a life that isn’t mine. trying different boys on for size. If this is my curse I’ll let it ride.” That was a really long quote, I know, but every single line was important lol. Here is where we see the nuances of this album start. She’s conflicted about whether to leave or let it ride. She says she’s not a victim but also says she’s trying on boys for size. The chorus of the song is “I hear them all say ooh, ooh, ooh”; they’re watching her in awe and shock, not actually paying attention to what she is saying.

Sigh. Alright, now let’s address the other elephant with the thigh-high boots in the room. I’ve thought very carefully about what I wanted to say here; if I offend anyone, I apologize, but I’m just gonna do what I always do, and that’s talk my shit.

….

The discourse on Ariana’s body is deranged. In the Petal music video, Ariana is noticeably thinner than she was even in the htimylm music video. She likely has some sort of condition or ED; I want her to get better and be supported by the people who love her. And that’s it. I think people are talking about this touchy situation with no caution. Mental health and eating disorders aren’t spoken about with care, especially NOT online. The way I interpreted the Petal music video was that the high expectations placed on her are the culprit for whatever she’s experiencing with her body. But the way y’all are talking about this woman is just evil. While I’m sure most of them are bots, or just people who suck, I’ve seen people I actually respect talk so badly about this girl like she was actively trying to give y’all’s nonexistent kids EDs.

I don’t wanna dwell on this, so I’ll just say this. Ariana Grande is a business, so regardless, she has contracts to complete. She still has to record her voice lines for that Dr. Seuss movie and do promo for the Focker In Law movie. So we will be seeing her till the end of the year. When Ariana announced that she was going on a break after it all, a lot of people were saying horrible things like “oh good she shouldn’t be seen until she looks normal again” and many other stuff. Sigh. Ariana Grande shouldn’t be sequestered from society like Quasimodo all because her appearance makes you uncomfortable. Did we learn nothing from The Hunchback of Notre Dame? This discourse reminds me so much of the BAFTAs situation where people were saying that the man with Tourette’s just shouldn’t have been there to begin with. Which isn’t right, and a very loud MAGA dogwhistle! How can you say something like that and not realize how you sound like these hateful republicans?! A lot of you need to extend grace to people who are struggling with EDs. Ariana deserves to recover without constantly getting weight checks and fake concerns, cause that could just make recovery harder.

I just hope that Ariana actually takes a break and doesn’t pick up any new projects so she’ll have time to heal. But that doesn’t mean she has to be locked away or owe us an apology for severe weight loss. Some of you are insane beans for brains ass bitches! Anyways, let’s go back to positivity.

stay - she’s conflicted

Stay shows Ariana being conflicted with whether or not she should “stay”. Stay where? With who? Well, that’s the thing; I believe this takes us back to her connecting her relationship to the public to a toxic boyfriend. She’s debating throughout this song about if she should stay with this man. She doesn’t tell us anything about this man, just that she hesitantly likes him. For what? We don’t know, but based on what she’s telling us, this “man” hurt her repeatedly before.

“Really just don’t wanna be temporary. I just wanna stay this time, but can you keep me safe this time?” Implying that their relationship was temporarily good but at some point got bad. And she hopes that if they do get back together, he’ll keep her safe. She’ll later go on to say, “I don’t want to be just another corrective experience… I don’t wanna be anywhere but by your side”. A corrective experience is defined as a psychological process where a person re-experiences trauma with precautions to reach a healthier outcome. But Ari is saying she DOESN’T want to experience the worst of the worst again, but she also doesn’t want to be without her fans this man.

oh well - chronic people pleasing

This song is a little weird, lyrically. Sonically, I’m obsessed. She discusses how her “dead ends are gathered around dressed as friends,” which makes you think she’s about to sing about fair-weather friends. But then she says, “good things can replace dysfunction, obsession, friends I used to need but now,” which leads me to think differently. That this song is about her being a chronic people pleaser. Think of it this way: in order for a character like Pepper in the Petal music video to exist, you have to have the high-functioning desire to be liked by people. We all have that desire to varying degrees, but high quantities of that desire are what make us people pleasers. In this song, she expresses how all that obsessive and dysfunctional thinking can go to hell.

She expresses a lot of sarcastic anger in this song by saying, “feel like i’m a thousand light years ahead but I play all the parts that i’m supposed to, right? and I just throw a Band-Aid on my whole damn life”. She’s angry that she’s expected to smile through it all. Which counters her anger towards being deemed a victim but also is a callback to her song Fake Smile. Where she sings about refusing to lie about how she feels. The fans/toxic boyfriend comparison continues with her singing “it sucks because i love you forreal, i want to believe that the love I never got is real. so i find it in you but don’t worry, cause you’ll keep getting breakup songs about you”. All these lines confirm to me that my comparison theory on this album is true.

I think the line “I want to believe that the love I never got is real” goes by way too quick cause it’s so good. Especially in conjunction with the last line “let’s see who I can be without you,” which went viral on TikTok. The trend is that people show themselves at a low point of sorts, and when the beat drops, there’s a highlight reel of their best moments, so to speak. And I think that’s the point of the song, oh well, to highlight how she’s done people-pleasing and never ignoring her own desires again.

big feelings - and ignore her own desires she DIDN’T lol

Big Mama is popping her pussy! Ooh, thank god, after all this sad-ass music I thought I was going to have to beat someone’s ass on her behalf. I literally wrote in my notes app to this song, “oh she runs a strict program, that little Boq SquarePants boy was eating her pussy for hours on end”. This song doesn’t continue the main story; this is a side quest munch appointment lmfao.

“pussy so sweet a tear fell from his eye”, “they’re only big feelings, I know I give him big big”, “whether we’re on the phone or real life, I got you babe”, “this sex about to make a grown man cry”, and my favorite line “come swim in these waters, I been told I’ve healing properties”. My sista really straight up told us that her “water” has the power to heal n****s. C’mon, Katara, the best healer on the planet LMFAO!! It’s so funny cause some parts of this song she’s real vague, and other parts she’s real blunt.

But regarding “this sex about to make a grown man cry”, Ariana….(holds Ariana’s hands) did your coochie really make SpongeBob cry while inside of you? If so, teach me your ways. Or is this about Mr. Bunny Hop? Ooh! Let’s move on lol….

freak - back to depression

Now I still don’t love this song, but it gives us a lot of a start to this mini arc that shows us just how pissed off Ariana is. “baby will you come with me nowhere before they shoot me down?” Woo, girl, we coming in hot. Who’s shooting at you?! I’m joking, but seriously, she’s going back to that love in a dystopian world trope she loves. The chorus repeats “can you do it now? what can you give me now?” referencing the constant demand that pop fans have for new music from their favorite divas.

This song has a lyric that says “someday all the seeds will open. all of the life I’ve been denied of will bloom all around unfrozen. how will it feel?” I believe this to be her way of saying that someday “seeds,” being people she inspired, will build careers of their own. I find this song to be doing 2 things. She’s fucking pissed about what’s going on in the present day, but hopes that all of this bullshit she’s experiencing will be worth it when she’s in her legacy era, and young artists credit her as an inspiration.

At least that’s how I see it when we get to the bridge that says “lost without your light, i can’t leave your side. it’s so peculiar.” and “can’t imagine life without you in it’s human nature so i can’t leave you now”. Which makes me think that she fucking hates what she’s experiencing, but when it’s good, it makes her feel good. Again, that toxic relationship comparison coming back. Cause let’s be real, big mama didn’t need to go on tour, but she wanted to…so even though she resents the hyper-critical (and hypocritical) discussion around her, she knows that a lot of her fans and supporters make her feel loved. She literally says she can’t imagine life without fans, likely cause she’s been famous since she was a teenager, so abandoning it doesn’t feel like the solution either.

warning signs (interlude) - now why wasn’t this the full song?

Now we can go through almost all of these lines here since it’s short. “you call me when your numbers slide” this has to be about the higher-ups or management telling her to make new music. “my pain is music to you” that’s a jab at the public. “wear me like your new tattoos and yet your favorite muse just simply disappears” this is a call back to htimylm’s “borrowed my body/bee stuck in honey” artist stuck in past art line.

She says, “Monday i got you all over me, you love me like ecstasy. make me see colors i haven’t seen for a while. Friday you’re suddenly ghosting me, my wisdom has fled the scene. my voice plays in a taxi passing by.” This creates this sequence of events that almost feels like a breakdown of sorts. She feels loved one day, then completely hated the next, and feels stupid for falling into a false sense of security. Just to hear her voice and songs anywhere she goes. She’s ubiquitous and ingrained in mainstream culture, but how she’s treated depends on the day.

Ariana ends this interlude by singing “you don’t deserve me! you know you don’t you never have! but i want you to feel me, i wish someone could hear me!” She’s screaming and hollering to be heard, but no one is. She knows her music carries weight, so she sings about it, but no one listens, and the cycle continues.

like i do - CUNTIANA CLEARED THE ROOM

Mother is pissed. She said, well, if the cycle is going to continue, I might as well talk my motherfucking shit lmao. She had something to prove with this one. “I’m making friends with my consequence”, way up high like my consciousness. She’s accepting the consequences of her fame. High consciousness is defined as an elevated mental state where you’re more aware and empathetic. So she’s saying at the beginning of this song that she’s making peace with the life she has, but not before she clears the room lol. Because then she says, “keep my heels tall, my ego small, but I’m still grande,” but she pronounces it “GranDee”. Which is how her deceased grandfather pronounced their last name when he 1st immigrated to America to assimilate. It’s an ode to her heritage but also an acknowledgement that she is that girl.

Lashing 1: “thru thick and thin, you’re so locked in. you hate to love me”. A cheeky response to how a lot of you actually aren’t concerned about her weight; you’re just obsessive.

Lashing 2: “you need me like I, you. cause no one fucks you as I do”. She’s again comparing fans to a toxic boyfriend. Saying that they need each other cause they’re all aware she’s the only artist that gives them exactly what they want. She pleases them consistently, and the previous songs she mentions how her fans bring her pleasure as well.

Lashing 3: “I’ve been busy keeping your girl inspired. I know my brain gives you ideas.” I see 2 separate things going on here. Option 1. She’s throwing shade at Dalton’s new girlfriend who lowkey is starting to dress like her.

Option 2. She’s letting these new girls know that she’s the big kahuna around here lol. Very much so, Beyonce in Bow Down where she says, “I know when you were little girls you dreamt of being in my world. Don’t forget it, respect that. bow down bitches!”

Lashing 4: “ya you still watching from the sides. ya, you still still show up first in line. ya you act like all your love is mine…i guess you really love me.” You’re always watching from outside the club you’ll never have access to, but you keep showing up first. Then you act like you actually love me, oh ok sure. It’s a very sarcastic line where she’s calling you hoes fake.

never get over me - come slip inside a real bitch lmfao

Another side quest song: shading all of her exes for funsies here lol. Big Sean, Ricky (who succeeded), and Mac (RIP)…just couldn’t get over her. This is messy boots lmfao! She’s saying they always come back. “I know it’s tempting to be in such close proximity to something so sweet” the sweet something being her coochie, oh Ari, you freak! “come slip into something real” i interpret this line as her saying “come slip inside a real bitch cause I know those hoes you fucking ain’t got good pussy”.

This song is so funny. Highlights of the song are “the grass is way greener since i been beneath ya” and the bridge where she says “with how sweet it is you’ll be dreaming about the taste of me. but look, at least you’ll have the memory”. She’s taunting them, saying how she knows they want her back, but she’s playing hard to get.

This song is even funnier when you know she isn’t lying cause right now she’s back with Ricky, and there’s that infamous pic of her and Big Sean in the car “chilling” years after they broke up.

bad thing (bunny hop) - we bunny hopping back to a man

Since my girl is a hopeless romantic water sign, she of course had to give her redo boyfriend a dedicated song lol. Dare I say it’s the best of the album? I need this to be a single YESTERDAY! Picture this: Ariana does the Super Bowl Halftime Show, and she just got done singing Dangerous Woman, so she goes out singing this song as a closer. You can’t tell me that you don’t see the vision! This song doesn’t even really need a video (cause I know it would be real hypocritical for me to say this girl needs a break than beg for a music video); it could be an animated music video, send the song to radio stations, get the song in some teen dramas and romcoms, and we would at least go Top 5.

Anyways, let’s talk about this song. She positions this song in a very funny way because never get over me is her taunting the boys who want her back, and this song is her singing about the boy who got her back. “Have you been this fine the whole damn time?” She forgot he was hot after they broke up. And she repeats how this is a bad thing throughout the chorus. Likely because mama be moving to the next n**** with no brakes and never U turns. But we know she’s singing about Ricky cause she sings “meet you by the staircase where we fell in love let’s do it twice,” implying they told each other love confessions by a staircase the first time they dated.

I also think this song is so fun cause throughout this whole album there is this sense of Ariana taking back control in some way. “You’ve really been such a good boy” is so fucking funny to me. Calling a man who is twice your size a “good boy” is something I like to do as well. This song also has the common trope of “nice guys finish last” going on. “through all of this noise” comes right after the good boy line, implying that Ricky might’ve been checking in on her throughout all the scrutiny she’s been getting.

nowhere, nobody - bitch, did you read my diary?

Even though this song comes right after a love song, this isn’t about Ricky. This is about herself. A self-love song about how she wouldn’t want to be with anyone else but herself. “deep breaths, honey. There’s no more running . And there’s nowhere with nobody else that I’d rather be…with”. This line doesn’t really give that impression, but verse 2 does. “been holding hands with so much complexity since I was five. but we’ve done alright. tell why i keep on climbing just to reach the ground?” This isn’t something you just casually say to another person; this is something you would say to yourself when you’re trying to ground yourself after a breakdown of sorts.

The chorus talking about deep breaths and that she has till morning (I’m assuming to relax or calm down) brings up the idea that you’re your own lover sometimes. And loving or at the very least liking yourself is how you learn not to tolerate bullshit from others. When we die, we die alone, so it’s important to enjoy the time you spend with yourself more than ever. Have y’all ever spoken to a lonely elderly person? It’s quite depressing, right? Which is why you have to find a space for yourself that brings you happiness. Hypercodependency is unhealthy!

Justice For Petal

I’ve seen many people call this album a flop, say it’s boring, say it’s therapy speak, blah blah blah blah blah, etc. etc., etc. Lots of nonsense is being said about this album, and I think it’s because nobody is actually listening to what she is saying. In my initial petal album review I said this:

This entire track-by-track breakdown features me proving myself wrong. Petal features her singing about the most challenging unresearched relationship to discuss that all celebrities have to navigate. As we see Ariana lean more towards acting, I can’t blame her. Actors don’t experience parasocial fans the same way as musicians do. Writing and singing so much about your personal life opens a door for people to have a perspective on you that can sometimes be harmful. Actors don’t have to experience that; the closest they get is playing a character people misconstrue as the real them (think how Jack Gleeson got a bunch of hate for playing Joffrey Baratheon “too well”).

So as Ariana moves into this phase of healing and recovery from whatever is going on, I hope she never makes any new music till she actually wants to. Petal is one of my favorite albums out this year, and I’m glad that I get to share my love for it with all of you. If I said anything that you liked, feel free to share. If I said something you disliked, feel free to comment. I love to argue digitally. Make sure you join the sub chat for sneak peeks of what I’m up to and gossip on whatever I’m not in the mood to make a full article about. And lastly, make sure you subscribe if you want to see me hit 300 subs by the end of this year. I’ll see you all next week!

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I wasn’t planning on making this right now as I wasn’t sure what I quite wanted to say yet. But then I read this incredible post by :

writing to the void

the role of curator vs. writer in pop music

“We’re used to thinking of artists as painters. They sit down and create one piece at a time by hand until they have a collection. Beyoncé is a museum curator. Or, if Taylor Swift is a screenwriter, Beyoncé is a director”. [Ok_Area9367…

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2 months ago · 51 likes · 12 comments · hannah ♡ ✧

She wrote about how Beyoncé is a curator, and Taylor is a writer, but both should deserve credit for their work equally. In her post, she references the 1st part of my Beyonce’s gender politics series (part 2 coming soon), as it opened her eyes to audiences who aren’t interested in autobiographical stories in their favorite music. I hear discourse on Beyoncé not being a good songwriter/storyteller all the time, and it’s a big reason why I wanted to do the series on Beyoncé’s discography. In that article, I frequently joked about how Beyoncé in interviews, claimed the Bday album wasn’t about her but what she wished her character, Deena Jones in the Dreamgirls movie, would’ve said. But if you listen to that album deeply, it’s clearly a mix of nonfiction and fiction inspired by the nonfiction.

But nobody takes that type of storytelling seriously, because it doesn’t look the way they expect songwriting to look. In this week’s article, we will do a deep dive into lyricists. If you want full context of the language I’m going to be using in this post, go read the initial Pop Pillars article (I also have a deep dive on vocalists and great entertainers you can read, but it isn’t required to understand this).

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The 3 Cs of Songwriting

“A lyricist is a master at conveying tone through words” - me, myself, and I. Here’s the thing about songwriting: people assume that if you’re not writing about the Byzantine era and how it impacted the history of art, that you’re not a good songwriter. I’ve always seen good songwriting as being able to write lyrics that are creatively concise and catchy. The 3 Cs, if you will. This allows for songs to have colors and differ from artist to artist. The most successful songs are songs that have something to say, but it is quick and an instant earworm.

What people qualify as well-written music often is the songs that are self-serious, and there’s no room for humor. But I think a category of artists who do the 3 C’s of songwriting well are rappers.

Rappers Are Poets!!!

Dare I say HISS is one of the most well-written songs of all time?

In my Pop Pillars post i stated this:

Rappers’ entire careers are built off of lyrics, as they’re the holy grail of rap culture. A big part of being a rapper, though, is being able to deliver the lyrics with the right cadence and flow. The other two holy grails of rap music that everyone gets mixed up about. In rap music, cadence is your tone and delivery of words, while flow is your rhythmic speed. For example, Megan Thee Stallion often gets critiqued for being a “one flow ho”, but that’s just not true. Megan often has the same cadence in her songs, but she doesn’t have the same flow in every single song. If she did, then that would mean all of her beats would be made to match her instead of her matching the beat.

Since the beginning of rap music, writing your own songs is essential to gaining respect. However, not all rappers write their songs. Artists like Lil Kim and Cardi B have been critiqued for years for not writing all of their work. But it’s their cadence and flow that make them great artists. While rap music is a genre that highlights songwriting, what is going on in other genres and their relationships to songwriting?

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The Singer-Songwriter Era

In my article on girl groups, I talk about how the singer-songwriter era came in the late 60s through the 70s and has been a popular pop star trope for decades. Dolly Parton, may she rest in peace, started off as a songwriter in 1964 and transitioned into a country artist for her debut album in 1967. The singer-songwriter era would take off in the 70s as we got artists like Joni Mitchell and Elton John. Do you notice something about this picture I chose? There’s a guitar in Joni’s hands. Now I’m going to show you a promo pic from Mariah Carey’s early career.

When promoting a pop star in their early career, you want to subtly show off their skill. Now, if I told you that Mariah, no middle name, Carey, has written all of her songs since her debut, would you believe me after seeing this picture?

There’s this interview compilation that every Mariah fan jokes about where Mariah constantly has to state that she is a songwriter. Something that I never truly thought about was that there is an elitism to songwriting. In a 2003 (the year I was born) Vibe Magazine interview, Mariah says, “If you’re not strumming a guitar or playing a piano like Alicia Keys, people assume you’re not involved.” When we look at pop stars in the 70s, it was disco or singer-songwriters, and when we look at pop stars in the 80s, it was the balladeers and singers who are much better at dancing. Michael, Janet, Whitney, Madonna, Luther, and George all were dominating the charts throughout this decade. And the love for balladeers and singers who are better at dancing would continue into the 90s. So in 1990, when Mariah debuted with this huge vocal range and whistle register, her manager/future abusive husband, Tommy Mottola, modeled her after Whitney.

But if Mariah could play an instrument, she definitely would’ve been marketed differently. And her writing all of her discography (besides the covers) wouldn’t be a question. Which leads me to my next point…

The Pressure To Write

At some point from the late 2010s to now, there’s been a shift in pop stars pushing themselves into being songwriters. There are two reasons as to why I think this is, and the first reason is credibility. In that Pop Pillars article, I briefly mentioned how artists who brand themselves as lyricists get much more fanfare with critics and the higher-end award shows. When I say higher-end award shows, I mean the Grammys and Oscars. The Oscars, for example, have a Best Original Song category that awards the writers and producers of the song but not the singer who actually brought it to life. For this reason, many singers who try to get an Oscar make sure to have writing credits on whatever song they submit (Lady Gaga did it with Shallow, Beyoncé did it with Listen, many more will do it in the future).

But then you have award shows like the Grammys that prioritize artists who have little to no outside songwriters in their work. Grammy darlings like Taylor, Billie, Adele, and Olivia all are pretty much guaranteed some sort of recognition as long as they have an idea that is even slightly interesting and only 1 or 2 co-writers. There’s an elitism in the way these higher-end award shows highlight the singer-songwriter trope that other pop stars have caught on to (briefly, I just wanna say more casual or “lower-end award shows” like the VMAs highlight more diversity in pop star tropes).

The other reason that I’d argue is the biggest one for pop stars getting more into songwriting is the financial stability it offers. I was explaining to a friend of mine how pop stars only get livable money from brand deals and tours, and that songwriting is the best way to actually sustain a life. Towards the end of Whitney’s life, she struggled a lot with money, and while she tried to tour, it wasn’t successful because her vocals were weaker. If Whitney had writing credits on I Wanna Dance With Somebody, I Will Always Love You, How Will I Know, etc., she sure as hell wouldn’t have had to go on tour.

Producers get a royalty cut of the song, songwriters get a royalty cut of the song, and the label gets a royalty cut as well. So the performers of the song only get paid on its success and live performances. As the 2010s started coming to a close, we started seeing more and more artists leave their writing teams or have more of a role in the process. Ariana Grande’s been doing all the writing on her last 3 albums, Sabrina Carpenter has a very consistent songwriting team, and Taylor Swift as well as Olivia Rodrigo ain’t never let nobody else touch that motherfucking pen lol.

None of these pop stars want to be forced to tour even when they don’t want to. Some pop stars have no interest in songwriting and just want to sing, so they’ll go into acting or settle for lots of brand deals and touring. And that should be ok!

The Elitism Of Songwriting

To be elitist is to believe that you are better than others because of some quality. I’m not gonna name any names, but I once saw this YouTuber making a reaction video to a female pop star who had a songwriting credit on her hit song. In the reaction, he jumped to the conclusion that this pop star probably only changed a word or something. Even though there’s no actual proof of that whatsoever. The only reason why this man said that was because this artist doesn’t fit the singer-songwriter trope; she sings and dances and makes cheeky references to sex in her songs. The pop star was Sabrina!

While misogyny is always at play in this space, you might’ve noticed that I’m focusing a lot on pop music. And that is 100% because of genre prejudice. Poptimism, while stronger than it ever has been, still has lots of negativity surrounding it. Rock stars and country singers don’t get their songwriting skills questioned, but pop stars almost always do. Even more so if they are fem and/or queer. Nobody out here is questioning if Morgan Wallen or Ella Langley are writing their songs. The lyricism of rappers is rarely questioned unless their songs are pop-leaning or “too good”. Poptimism has made a lot of progress, as we’ve seen pop stars’ work be respected and thoughtfully reviewed much more now, but we still have a long way to go.

I could go on and on, but I fear I’ve gone on long enough. At some point I will write the maestro and visionary deep dives. As of now, enjoy this, your weekend, and get ready for next week, where we’ll be doing a track-by-track (of an album only those of you who are in the sub chat already know I’m doing). Remember to share this if you liked something I said, subscribe, and join the sub chat for sneak peeks and voting on what I write next.

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A Signature Song is…

Essentially, a classic record that embodies the artist perfectly, whether it be popularity or critical acclaim, but also has to be well known by the general public. But I must clarify that a signature song is always welcome to change, especially as artists develop more in their discography and achieve more success.

A signature song doesn’t have to be a chart topper, but it does have to be successful, and it can/can’t just be your only song. For example, one-hit wonders technically can/can’t have a signature song since nobody knows them for anything else. I know that sounds strange, but a signature song is meant to stand above the rest of your songs that your fans would know of. Also, I should add that it has to be the artist’s song; their signature song can’t be something they featured on.

As we start with our little game, I think the easiest examples to do are our music legends. Some of these artists will be harder than others.

Easy: Tina Turner’s signature song is “What’s Love Got To Do With It”; it has the popularity and critical acclaim, as well as being the song that was highlighted in her biopic, which is also named What’s Love Got To Do With It. This makes this her signature hit. Very easy to get this.

Medium: Whitney Houston’s signature song is a battle between 2. I Wanna Dance With Somebody, or I Will Always Love You. The winner, though, is I Will Always Love You because it is her most popular song, but also highlights the parts of Whitney people love most…her voice. So naturally, the ballad where she’s singing her ass off will be her signature song.

Hard: Michael Jackson’s signature song is kind of hard to choose, but it’s for sure on the Thriller album. Which leaves us with Thriller, Billie Jean, or Beat It. But with the recent biopic pushing his song, Billie Jean, up on the charts, it’s a bit clearer which song resonates with the general public the most.

Complicated (kind of a trick question): Madonna is difficult to determine which song of hers is her signature song because she almost has a new signature every decade. You could argue Hung Up, Like A Prayer, Like A Virgin, Material Girl, or Vogue. I would suggest Vogue is more of her signature hit due to the influence it has had over the years, but Like A Prayer or Like A Virgin are strong contenders.

Now, without further ado, I’m going to go through each of the pop stars on my list of artists YOU all gave me (through sub chat, PSA note, and IG). If I did every pop star to have ever existed, we would be here all day. So let’s get started.

What’s Their Signature Song Game!

But before we continue, I’d also like to preface that what you want to be their signature song doesn’t count. We need to base this analysis off of facts, divas! You can use their Billboard chart history, their Spotify popular list, or articles that mention them using their songs to relate to the general public. The difficulties aren’t in order, so some will be easy level, and the next one might be complicated level. By the end of this, I want all of you to tell me how similar your opinions of signature songs were to mine. These are finite but also flexible, so you can get creative with your reasoning. Now on with the game!

Our first artist is Taylor Swift.

Now, see, this is hard because it varies; Taylor’s Spotify popular list doesn’t really help me. As I don’t think the general public gives a fuck about “The Fate of Ophelia”. So I have to turn to her Billboard chart history, which looks like this:

This one is very complicated because my senses are telling me Cruel Summer since I like it, my retail job that only plays Shake It Off is telling me to pick that one, but also I remember being in 6th grade and Blank Space really being a moment. Then I thought, “I’m going to have to lock in more than one answer”. However, I did more research and found that when Taylor has articles written about her the journalist often reference her as being the ___ singer.

My final answer is….

DRUMROLL PLEASE

Shake It Off!

Our second artist is Miley Cyrus.

There are only 3 ways this can go. Wrecking Ball, Party In The USA, or Flowers. I can totally see all of these being her signature song. Here’s where I have to get creative cause while Flowers is great, are people really immediately thinking of that as THE MILEY record? Now if you ask me for my personal favorite Miley song, I would say JUSTICE FOR THE CLIMB!!! But that’s what I want to be her signature song; overall, I’m going to have to go with….

Wrecking Ball!

Also did y’all know that if you go the billboard website and look up Miley’s chart history, Flowers isn’t even listed yet? Why are they playing in her face like that?!

Our third artist is Beyoncé.

Y’all know I’m Beyhive down, so I had to thoroughly think this through. We have some options: Halo, Crazy In Love, Single Ladies, and Irreplaceable. Now right from jump, it’s not Irreplaceable cause some people (non-blacks and non-beyhive) don’t even remember that that’s the “to the left, to the left” song. A signature song has to be remembered fully, not partially. Halo… gurl, bye; she didn’t even perform that song at Coachella lol. But you wanna know what she did perform because of its virality, iconic choreo, and catchy chorus?

Single Ladies!

Our fourth artist is Kehlani.

This is easy cause she just got one lmfao. The answer is Folded. Any disputes?

…..no, ok.

Folded!

Our fifth artist is Lady Gaga.

We have some options with this one. Die With A Smile, Poker Face, Just Dance, Bad Romance, Paparazzi, or Born This Way. Now this is a little tricky cause we have songs that the gays go up for and songs that the general public go up for. Signature song refers to the latter half, which means our options with that in mind are: Die With A Smile or Bad Romance.

My final answer is…

Bad Romance!

Our sixth artist is Ariana Grande.

I’m a REAL arianator, so I’m really thinking this one through. Now, if you ask me which song should be her signature song, I would say No Tears Left to Cry, as it perfectly encapsulates all of Ariana’s “ariana-isms”. The rap singing, big belt, message of empowerment and moving on, and glittery fairy-like production juxtaposed with an urban drum kit. Our best options are Break Free, 7 rings, and thank u next. Unfortunately, my girl’s signature song is the worst representation of who she is as an artist…..

7 rings!

Our seventh artist is Zara Larsson.

This is easy cause we only got 2 options, and one of them is trending again this year after having a viral trend last year.

My final answer is…

Midnight Sun!

Our eighth artist is Olivia Rodrigo.

This one is pretty obvious, so we don’t gotta waste time; Olivia’s signature song is….

Driver’s License!

Our ninth artist is Rihanna.

Now Rihanna is hard to figure out cause we have a lot to choose from. In case you haven’t noticed yet, singles artists are hard to pick just 1 song as their signature. We have options like Diamonds, Umbrella, We Found Love, Disturbia, Work, and lots of others too. But if we’re just going off of stats and cultural relevance….

We Found Love!

Our tenth artist is Britney Spears.

I think most people would argue that Baby One More Time is her signature song, and I agree, but Toxic is her most popular record on Spotify, and I think the general public lives for Toxic since she’s grown up singing about sex instead of 17-year-old Britney singing about sex.

So imma say Toxic (but Baby One More Time is probably the right answer lol)!

Our eleventh artist is Janet Jackson.

Justice for us If stans, but Janet, as an album’s artist, has 3 potential hits that I think most people will know. All For You, That’s The Way Love Goes, and Doesn’t Really Matter. I think, for its inspiration on modern music and impact as one of her last big hits, my final answer is…

All For You!

Our twelfth artist is Victoria Monét.

Super easy….

On My Mama!

Our thirteenth artist is PinkPantheress.

Now some might argue Boy’s A Liar Part 2 is her signature hit, but Stateside was performed at the Olympics by Alysa Liu.

Stateside!

Our fourteenth artist is Dua Lipa.

Y’all paid Houdini dust, but the NORTH REMEMBERS!!!! However, her signature song is obviously…

Levitating! (the version without DaBaby in case that wasn’t clear)

Our fifteenth artist is Mariah Carey.

I hate having to type this out, but I think that Mariah is one of the complicated artists to give a definitive signature hit. In the 90s, her signature song was either Hero or Always Be My Baby. In the 2000s, it was We Belong Together. I would argue her overall signature hit is still We Belong Together, starts to tear up, but unfortunately, in modern-day, her signature hit is…

shudders in disgust

All I Want For Christmas Is You!

But I’m gonna go ahead and say Mother has 2 signature hits, and We Belong Together is her other one. This song was labelled the song of the decade, you guys.

Alright, the fun’s over!

That last one was painful to type, you guys; the things I do for y’all. But anyways, if I didn’t give your favorite pop star a signature song, it’s likely because I didn’t want this list to get too long, their signature hit was super obvious, or they’re too niche to even have a signature hit.

Something that this process has shown me is that nostalgia benefits a signature hit a LOT. Even when an artist gets a smash hit in the current day, usually it’s their earlier work that is remembered dearly. But that’s an observation I made; let me know if you discovered anything else while playing.

I hope you all had fun playing this little trivia game with me; I know I did. And it’ll be even more fun if y’all wanna (respectfully) push back on the signature song I chose and we have a cute lil dispute lol. If I did make a pop culture trivia game, let me know if you would play it. As of now, I’ll see you all next week for a completely different topic.

This post was inspired by ; they have a great list of things they like about men that you can check out. I’ll link it here:

𝓓𝓲𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓭 𝓘𝓷 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓡𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱

Things I Find Attractive In Men (as a raging bisexual)

‎You know the saying, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself…

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4 months ago · 134 likes · 31 comments · 𝓐𝔀𝔀𝓪𝓵 𝓦𝓸𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻🪐

But today is all about me and my gay ass wish list for my future hubby lmao, let’s get into it!

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Appearance/Physicality

Now, appearances don’t mean much to me, but the traits I do like are more like helpful bonuses that will attract me more.

1. Preferably black

For those of you who’ve read my article, these white boys have y’all brainwashed; you’d know that I can’t see myself with a non-Black man long-term (if it does ever happen, trust that I thoroughly researched and examined their politics and views). I find men of all races attractive, but there’s something about a black man, especially a dark-skinned man, OMG!

1. Freakishly tall

As the years have gone by, I’m much more open to dating a man shorter than me, but not THAT open, because I’m only 5’8”. I’m real dainty lol, so if I’m looking too far down just to lock eyes with you, something’s wrong. I’m sorry. When a man is much taller than me, though (which isn’t hard since I’m 5’8”)? Let’s just say my heat cycle “attraction” to him is going to be much more intense.

1. A big nose

Yup, yup, yup! Y’all know what Doja Cat said?

Men, STOP GETTING NOSE JOBS! You’re blocking your blessings of having baddies like me sit on your face.

1. Dark Eyes

God was so gracious for bringing us men with dark eyes. Blue-eyed demons to the back! Ain’t nobody wanna see them Erika Kirk eyes. If you have brown or dark brown eyes, it contrasts so well with the white sclera…omg it’s getting hot in here, y’all. I love contrast, and the best contrast we all are capable of having is in our eyes. If you have dark eyes and use a good eye cream, you’re already doing what needs to be done to get me.

1. Glasses

If you have nice dark colored eyes and then you literally get them a 24/7 picture frame…whew. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us, four-eyed men. That scene in Heated Rivalry when Ilya was hot in the panties when he saw Shane in glasses, that’s EXACTLY how imma be.

1. Stylish

I like seeing a man with a style. Take off that fucking boring ass white tee and blue jeans and come up with a better outfit! I will even help you! Fashion is a signature of how you carry yourself, so when I see a well-dressed guy, I assume he’s confident and secure.

1. A cute ass

Now a cute ass doesn’t mean a fat ass; it just means a good shape. Some men have a fat ass, but it isn’t shapely; no shade to them, but I’m not really looking in their direction. A nice bubble butt could cure world hunger, or I guess I should say my lust.

1. ….5-8 iykyk

You know I’m not picky. One part of me wants to say: “I’ll love whatever you got”. And another part of me wants to say: “Don’t come near me with a below 5 or above 8”. I think 5-8 is the perfect husband size. I don’t want to be broken, but I also don’t wanna be bored lmfao.

Personality

Anything that I didn’t address here it’s cause I don’t care, and the next category is what I’m really looking for. As in real life, my future husband likely isn’t going to have all of the above, but if he meets most, if not all of the traits in this category, I couldn’t care less.

1. Soft Guy

There’s nothing I hate more than an aggressive man. I don’t like it when n***** raise their voice at me, I don’t like when they be getting handsy with me, I don’t like when they try to boss me around. In case you couldn’t tell, I HATE being told what to do, especially by a man. So when a guy is gentle, patient, and rational, I live for it.

1. Calling all Nerds/Gamers

I’m a fucking nerd, so I need someone who can get down with the program, or at the very least be interested in getting down with the program. Now, when I say nerd, I don’t mean a man who’s one of those self-righteous nerds. Like, please tell me your favorite Pokémon and superheroes.

1. Calling all Artists

As an artist myself, I love other artists. Not just people who draw or paint, but writers, singers, rappers, poets, dancers, actors. There’s a certain type of passion an artist has for their craft that, when I see a man have that passion, it just…really gets me going lol. Bonus points if he ever makes something for me, cause I love sentimental gestures and gifts. Taking time to craft something for someone else is so thoughtful, and I will swoon.

1. Ambition

There’s something about a hardworking man that will always impress me. I love a guy who has big dreams and is willing to work towards them without fear. I don’t really know why…well, yes I do lol, cause it gives me a partner to be proud of.

1. Progressives Only!

I don’t have any fucking patience for someone who calls themselves apolitical or moderate, and I definitely wouldn’t even breathe in the same room as a MAGA motherfucker cause he’d probably stink, and I’m not Laverne Cox (no shade to mother though, but when you know better you do better).

1. Funny, Friendly, Compassionate

This is kind of a spin-off combination of gentle and progressive. Conservatives are incapable of being good people, and so are aggressive men. But the reason why I’m highlighting these traits is cause I don’t want a man who is mean to customer service, or struggles to see how his actions and words are coming across to others, and doesn’t have basic empathy. Sadly, I have to highlight this sigh but we’re living in desperate times and n***** ain’t shit.

My Miranda Hobbes Requirements

This is where my potentially problematic and cynical views on romance come in cause while I like men, I don’t like men.

1. Cat Owners./lovers leave me alone

Sorry, but it’s true: not only am I allergic to cats, I just don’t like them. I tried, but I actually feel uncomfortable being around them. Now if you’re a dog owner/lover, then we can have something. But cat owners, I’m not even gonna get involved with you. They give me the ick, I’m sorry!

1. Separate Bedrooms

If I’m gonna live with a man, I need my own space. Sheryl Lee Ralph, Amber Riley, TS Madison, and Whoopi Goldberg have all said something similar to this, and I AGREE 1000%. I don’t wanna share a bedroom, and I sure as fuck don’t want to share a motherfucking bathroom. Absolutely not; we can still have shared space. We can sleep in each other’s rooms whenever we agree to; we can both have our own rooms that we style however the fuck we want. I’m not an overly touchy-feely, clingy person; I need a space that is just for me. Honestly, I think the only way to have a successful relationship is to have a space that’s only for you.

1. I DON’T belong to you

You know those cringey romcoms and dramas where one of the people in the couple will say something like ”you’re mine” or “I’m all yours”? I don’t like that…I belong to myself. I just choose to share my life with you cause I love you. But you don’t have ownership over me; that sounds like it’s gonna take 2.5 seconds for abuse to start. And it’s not just me; I don’t want you to think you belong to me either. You’re simply sharing your life with me cause we love each other.

1. That DOESN”T mean I want a poly relationship though

I know it probably sounded like I was saying we could date other people, but that is not at all what I’m getting at. We should be able to live our own lives and still keep each other in mind, but we don’t need to revolve around each other daily. And we should be able to be monogamous while we do it.

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All in all

While this post is essentially my wish list for my future husband, I’m aware it’s slim pickings out here. Sabrina told us that lmao. I just wanted to make this to manifest him, and I also just wanted to make another lighthearted post for this week. I want all of you to please feel free to tell me your wish list for your future partners in the comments below; I’d love to read it. And yes, the husband applications are open starting now! But at this point, I might be accepting lavender marriage offers too! It’s the way I was giggling and kicking my feet while writing like half of this article, lmfao.

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What Does Social Media Have To Do With This?

Social media works as a funnel for negativity. A while ago I restacked a note by a Substacker who was venting over how they’re annoyed by seeing clickbait titles like “the death of ____” or “-ification of ___”. You know those very polarizing titles that are meant to capture attention. Well, I had restacked the note and said this: “Unfortunately, content about stuff you enjoy doesn’t do well; everyone enjoys discussing things they dislike”. And I meant what I said, because when you look at social media, the most viral content is the most scandalous, taboo, or nefarious. I want you to think long and hard about a RECENT (last 3 months or so) viral moment that was positive or wholesome. I’ll wait…

3…

2…

1…

The only thing I can think of is that little boy who rides on his dad’s bike during their rides and excitedly points things out, to which his dad responds sweetly. One video where the little boy asks his dad for a bike sparked a bunch of cute videos making jokes about how the baby bike factories need to all go out of business so that the baby can stay a baby.

Other than this, I can’t think of anything else (feel free to tell me any viral wholesome that I might’ve missed in the last 3 months)! Because negativity is the best performing content on all social media platforms. And I hate to beat a dead horse, but my God…TikTok is ruining all of your brains.

On TikTok, all you really need to go viral is a pretty person and a good vocal tone, or sometimes just one of those. Both black and queer slang are extremely popular on TikTok but for all the wrong reasons. Words like unc, auntie, read, shade, tea, bruh, DL, gyatt, and trade are continuously being misused and being gentrified into “Gen Z slang”. The way that TikTok works is that there are no community notes or safeguards; anyone can say anything, whether true or false, and the app feeds into it. The videos that are 100% guaranteed to get the most views, likes, and reposts are ones where people join hate campaigns against famous fems by saying the most malicious things you can think of.

What Is A Hate Train?

The word hate train has been bastardized in the media as being just any sort of negative press, but that’s not the case. A hate train is a carefully crafted scheme made against someone to make them look bad and ruin their reputation with the general public. It is what Janet Jackson experienced after her wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl; it is what Britney Spears experienced during her mental breakdown; it is what Megan Thee Stallion experienced after telling the world how she was shot by Tory Lanez.

One of my inspirations for this blog, As Told By Kenya, posted a Patreon video not too long ago where she described these endless hate campaigns as a vortex of discourse the fem celeb can’t escape (I highly suggest you go check out her Patreon cause it’s a goldmine, and Kenya is one of the OG queens of pop culture girlies). After I watched her video, I got to thinking about how true it is that these hate campaigns last so long because of social media; it feels never-ending. There are numerous ladies who have experienced hate campaigns in the age of social media, and I think the earliest example of this is Meg Thee Stallion.

Megan Thee Stallion

I’ve written about the misogynoir against Megan last year; you can all check it out here. But for context, I’ll show you a snippet on how I feel about it:

The way people feel so comfortable unhinging their jaws to slut shame Megan and say she deserves harm, even death, is textbook misogyny. Imagine hating a woman so much that her testifying against her abuser offends you! (Quick reminder: the State of California pressed charges, not Megan, btw!) All because you think her real crime is not being pregnant and married!

Now, if we add race to the mix, it gets uglier. The racism shows up when people act like Megan’s abuse doesn’t count. When she got shot, everyone and their mama pivoted the conversation to whether she was sleeping with Tory the Leprechaun. As if that somehow changes the fact that she was shot. If their relationship was sexual (and it was), then it’s a domestic violence case! Not just “drama”. And don’t even get me started on the constant comparisons to animals or calling her “Big Foot”. That’s not shade; that’s anti-Blackness!

To add to this, I will just say that no matter what Megan Thee Stallion does, her “value” will always stem from her bold expression of sexuality and her assault by Tory Lanez. There’s this narrative that is always being pushed by a certain corner of the black community (the corner that is ok with Chris Brown and R Kelly but literally hates all Black women), that is borderline right-wing talking points. Megan has become a sort of litmus test for figuring out a person’s politics and views on fem victims of violence.

We’ve all heard the common discourse on Black Twitter with bird-brain takes like: “If I have to choose between my man or my kids, I’m choosing my man cause we always have another baby” or “If I’m paying during the whole date, I better be getting some pussy bro”. It’s all pick-me girls and misogynistic men coming to match each other’s bird brains. So much of the discourse we see online stems from a conservative right-wing viewpoint, and the most recent example of this is the backlash that has happened with Jools Lebron.

Jools Lebron

For those of you who don’t know, Jools Lebron is a trans woman of color who went viral a few years ago for her catchphrase “very demure, very mindful”. About a week and some change ago, Jools posted a video about how she needed donations to get dental surgery after her drug relapse affected her teeth. And y’all, some of the most conservative talking points were coming from people who consider themselves progressive. Let’s discuss the unfair lashings Jools has been getting and actually look at the scenario from her point of view.

Jools Lebron is a Black Puerto Rican plus-size trans woman who grew up poor and got a little bit popular from a catchphrase that didn’t require her face. Remember earlier when I said in order to go viral you either need to be a pretty person, have a good vocal tone, or both? Jools doesn’t meet the criteria of being conventionally attractive, and I’m not dissing her in any way, just making it clear that pretty privilege is a real thing. If Jools was white or at least white-passing, skinny or at least “slim thick”, and cis, the backlash she got these past few weeks wouldn’t have ever happened and she would’ve had many more opportunities.

Matt Bernstein posted a really great video about the backlash she got, so I’ll add it here. But I just really quickly want to say that people falsely equate social media success to financial success all the time. Companies were using Jools’ catchphrase without even cutting her a check or, at the very least, crediting her or showing her face.

This idea that Jools should be ashamed of herself for asking (not demanding, just simply asking) her followers for money is a MAGA talking point. That is identical to the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” phrase we see supporters of the Tramp (I refuse to call that demon by his real name) push constantly. But how did we even get here? And why don’t some of the most progressive people realize how MAGA their views are becoming?

You’re More MAGA Than You Think

There’s an almost Republican mindset that is dominating social media spaces everywhere, and it is impacting everyone but primarily fems. Ariana Grande gets lashings all over the internet by people who stupidly think eating disorders are as simple as “just eat something”; Chappell Roan gets lambasted for being mean to a little girl she never even saw; the mysterious death of Nolan Wells has made his mother, Christine, the victim of targeted harassment and threats.

Why is it that these situations are almost always blamed on the woman? How did Nolan Wells dying become a blame game on Christine “letting” her son be friends with white boys (Mind you, this little boy has had numerous black friends make posts in memoriam of him)? And I could pull even more examples of hate trains like the one against Blake Lively, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, and so forth. It’s rather depressing to witness so many people fall for this propaganda that is so obvious to me, made to grow misogynists.

As a pop culture analyzer, we often discuss the girls and the gays here, and as I’ve made numerous posts calling out misogyny, I realized I’ve never actually told you guys how you can identify a misogynistic hate train.

What IS A Misogynistic Hate Train?

1. A woman presents a problem, explains an incident, talks about her experience, or just minds her business.

2. People react with unwarranted vitriol that immediately positions the woman as selfish, whorish, rude, uppity, deceitful, or dangerous in some way. Often forgoing any room for devil’s advocate, nuance, or even the benefit of the doubt.

3. One person says something extremely cruel about her and multiple people make posts just like it. The comment sections under these posts are also full of the most deranged things you will ever read in your entire life.

4. Everything the woman does heightens the scrutiny she gets no matter what she tries. She could take a break from the public eye, double down on whatever happened, or even cower to the cruelty and the hate train still wouldn’t stop. There are only 2 things that can usually make a misogynistic hate train stop: if another woman gets a hate train against her or if the woman has really great PR and a successful project like an Oscar-winning performance or a ubiquitously beloved hit song. The other thing is just waiting for the public to realize how cruel they were.

When we look at hate trains like Britney’s or Amber Heard’s, they follow this model almost exactly.

What IS NOT A Misogynistic Hate Train?

1. A woman does something inappropriate, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or any type of bigoted.

2. People react with vitriol that can be misogynistic, but most people with actual sense critique her on her actions and nothing else.

3. People all connect on bashing her and talking shit about whatever the situation was, which again can be misogynistic depending on who you’re witnessing discuss it, but progressive spaces are usually (hopefully) only critiquing.

4. If this woman can apologize but also show a significant change in her actions and everyone likes her again, then she did NOT experience a hate train.

The best example that I can think of for this type of hate train is the one against Sydney Sweeney, which stems completely from her being a MAGA voter and doubling down on that weird ass eugenics jean ad. Instead of apologizing for it, she saw a better opportunity to pander towards men and right-wingers. Another good example of this is Nicki Minaj, who went MAGA real quick once it convenienced her.

I would like to end this article by crossing my fingers and praying for you all to realize that you are being conditioned into hating women. You have all fallen for it to some degree; I have fallen for it to various degrees throughout my life. There is this quote by Jim Morrison Beyonce features on her Renaissance tour interlude that reads, “whoever controls the media, controls the mind”.

Because I’m aware of this phenomenon, I make it an effort to never join in on the “witch hunts”, but I’m definitely guilty of using negativity to bait viewership and likes. And I’m not gonna lie, this very article you’re reading is most definitely going to have a cheeky negative baiting title cause those are the articles y’all tune into the most! So don’t hate the player, hate the motherfucking game! These are my most popular posts for a reason, and it’s not because we’re all sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya, my lord!

A big part of this blog is that it’s a space for us grown adult progressive people to ethically talk shit and gossip without any of the annoying stan wars or Mildred in Connecticut calling Sabrina Carpenter a floozy for singing innuendos about dick. I do my best to create a space where we can have grown-up conversations but not be too self-serious and still laugh. So naturally, bigotry is a HARD NO here.

We’re all guilty of partaking in negativity, but it’s up to you to use your best discernment to identify when discourse is a right-wing talking point. I refuse to use bigotry to build my platform, and that includes misogyny. I’m not perfect by any means, but I understand that if you want the world to be a better place, you need to be gentler with the way you discuss people, especially those who so often don’t get the grace of being complex. We need to all pay attention to the content we’re absorbing so we don’t continue these cycles of misogyny.

(Quick disclosure: This article covers and mentions Western girl groups as I don’t have a surplus of knowledge of any other country’s pop culture but my own.)

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What Makes A Girl Group?

A girl group is defined as a type of music act that features 3 or more female singers who perform pop, R&B, or dance tracks together. That’s the basic definition, but there are different variations of girl groups. The same way there are different variations of pop stars. If you read my article on the 5 pop pillars, then you know what I’m getting at: pop stardom is a skill tree. Solo artists have different skills they have to grow to be the most marketable.

Vocals, lyrics, spectacle, performing, and producing are all different branches that pop stars can build upon. When marketing a group, however, they’re primarily focusing on vocals, performing, and sometimes spectacle. While the more behind-the-scenes skills are done for them (or by them, but no one really cares if a girl group is writing and producing their own songs), this is how we get girl groups that are focused on vocals, or all focused on dancing/performing.

Something that I feel has to be mentioned is that girl groups are ubiquitously comprised of young girls ranging from teens to mid (maybe even) late 20s. The reason for this is that the audience for girl groups is also young girls. So with girl groups being a primarily youth act, if you want longevity, you’re expected to go solo at some point. Now, let’s talk about a girl group that popularized this idea.

The Supremes

In 1961, with the original lineup for this group comprising Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard…the goal is simple. Let’s make these 3 teenage black girls from Detroit marketable to racist ass white America. In order to achieve this goal, the trio was put into artist development and finishing school (basically daily ladylike and gentleman lessons). While Florence Ballard was supposed to be the lead singer, Berry Gordy decided Diana Ross was a better choice. There are many rumors about why: Berry Gordy was hooking up with Diana, but that wasn’t till 1965 (mind you, in 1961 Diana was 16 and Berry was 31; men make me sick); some say it’s cause Diana was considered the prettiest of the girls. Which makes the most sense to me. Remember this is 1961, so having a pretty girl as the lead singer makes sense for their goal.

I would also like to add that Diana Ross isn’t a strong vocalist. Meaning she isn’t a soul singer like Aretha Franklin, who debuted in 1961 as well. Diana’s voice doesn’t have the singing voice of a girl who sang in church her whole childhood, but her tone is pretty and youthful-sounding. So young girls of all races could listen and sing along to The Supremes’ music without feeling like they were singing Black music. That’s why I (ME) think Diana was made the lead singer, but if you want to respectfully counter, I’d be happy to read it.

The Supremes became a mega hit girl group and basically the gender bent counter to The Beatles, as they were constantly getting #1 hits at the same time. At first, they tried to be equal with who gets the spotlight, but that pretty much died when the group was renamed to “Diana Ross and The Supremes”.

….

Imagine being Mary or Florence and your band member ends up getting the spotlight over you. I would be heated. But grimy music industry plays aside, this helped catapult Diana into going solo and becoming the essential blueprint for every single Black female pop star after her.

Before we move on, I want to discuss why I brought this group up. You see, in the 50s-60s, boy bands and girl groups were all the rage. They were the most popular acts outside of a handful of solo acts like Elvis or Aretha. But as the 70s came around and the sound started changing, those 60s groups started to struggle. And pop music was less about the wholesome teen image and more about going to clubs and dancing due to the rise of disco and house music.

Pop music in the 70s was basically all disco and disco-lite, which didn’t require a group, so stars like Donna Summer got really big during this time (Diana would also start making disco records). But on the other side of pop music, there was the rise of the singer/songwriter. You get artists like Elton John and Carole King, who can be pop, but their music is more aligned with adult contemporary.

Girl groups (and boy bands) naturally would struggle in this environment. Because disco is too risqué to be for kids (Donna Summer literally moaned like she was getting munched on throughout the entirety of Love To Love You Baby) and singer/songwriters like Carole King or Joni Mitchell are too serious to capture youthful attention. So girl groups struggled a lot. Teen idols were a thing, but not as popular as they would be later in the 90s. Most teen idols had a “mature for their age” aesthetic, like Michael Jackson, for example. In the 70s, the Beatles disbanded, Diana went solo, and the music industry shifted.

Destiny’s Child

It’s 1997, and the music industry has shifted yet again. We are on the cusp of the teen pop boom. But teen R&B is alive and well. Usher, Brandy, Aaliyah, Monica, and Tevin Campbell are all doing great. There are also more girl groups like the Spice Girls, TLC, SWV, En Vogue, and Xscape. And in October of 1997, Destiny’s Child released their debut single, “No, No, No” (the original boring ballad version, not the hip hop remix with Wyclef). Destiny’s Child had frequent lineup changes; here are all the members: Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LeToya Luckett, Farrah Franklin, LaTavia Roberson, and Michelle Williams. The final version of the group lineup consists of Beyoncé, Kelly, and Michelle.

In Destiny’s Child, it was understood that Bey was the lead singer of the group, and this is where we get the common boy band/girl group trope of “the Beyoncé of the group”.

“The Beyoncé Of The Group” Trope

This phenomenon refers to the concept of there always being a star that shines the brightest amongst a group. Beyoncé is the Beyoncé of the group Destiny’s Child. But that doesn’t mean that they are the most talented, although they could be; it’s more so about who is getting the most attention in the group. For example, Camila Cabello wasn’t the most talented of Fifth Harmony, but she was the most popular.

Destiny’s Child came out in a time when girl groups were mainstream and getting lots of attention from media outlets. Younger audiences are really into groups at this point, but after Destiny’s Child, we don’t see a girl group with mainstream success till the Pussycat Dolls and later Fifth Harmony and Little Mix. But after that, girl groups aren’t getting much attention, and I think with the 2010s bringing forth social media as a valuable asset to pop stardom, we started seeing more solo acts.

People care about one person they can relate to instead of multiple. Groups like Fifth Harmony and Little Mix, despite both having some great songs and decent marketing, just couldn’t crack pop dominance the way that the solo pop girls were at the time. I’d even take it a step further and say that people don’t understand the specialties of girl groups anymore.

I know I said I was focusing on Western girl groups, but I just really quickly wanna discuss BLACKPINK, as I had a very brief hyperfixation on them back in 2019. These were my girls: Jennie, Rose (my bias), Jisoo, and Lisa, all brought something unique to the group because that’s what international girl groups build on. When the girls started going solo, I seemingly lost interest. I say “seemingly” cause I was all for them from like 2019-2020, but I grew up, and later when I started hearing Lisa’s “Lalisa” or Rose’s “APT” I was like “oh yeah, I used to love these girls in BLACKPINK”. But something that I think doesn’t work for them as solo acts is that their brand was more recognizable as a group. I feel this way about both KATSEYE and Chloe x Halle as well. But I wanna continue this point using my favorite girl group out right now, FLO.

FLO

The new girl group on the block just released their album Therapy At The Club, which I thought was a great body of work but not as immediate as their debut album, Access All Areas. The album is cohesive yet playlist-like, reminding me of Ariana’s My Everything or Beyoncé’s I Am…Sasha Fierce with its obvious intent to be as commercial as possible.

FLO consists of 3 girls: Stella Quaresma, Jorja Douglas, and Renee Downer. All of the girls are 23-24 years old and from the UK. I love these girls; those of you who have followed me for the past year know that I LOVE VOCALISTS, and FLO being a vocal group makes me love them even more. They also do not have a lead singer. In the words of Bey herself, “everybody gets to sing lead now, because everybody CAN sing lead”. Which means you’re not just watching a star with backup singers, you’re watching a trio of girls who all equally share the spotlight.

Something that I’ve been noticing with discourse surrounding FLO is that people love their songs but they just don’t like them. I’ve seen tweets from people praising Leak It, the lead single of their new album, but saying they wish someone else would’ve gotten the song. I’ve seen people be upset with these girls for not dancing despite the fact that they came to us as singers and told us numerous times that they prioritize the singing above all else. And the weirdest thing that I saw was this idea that the reason why FLO isn’t mainstream is that they don’t have a marketable brand. Which to me is completely false.

I have nothing against Katseye; I (ME) just think that their music is for 12-year-olds, so I don’t engage. But in the rare times that Katseye crosses my pop culture professor desk (LOL), it’s always over some mess and not a viral song or live vocal or dance break. Y’all can correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen a marketable brand from Katseye either, and yet they have Top 40 hits while FLO doesn’t (on the US charts). I hate to be a hater, even though I know that’s why some of you are here for, but FLO consistently shows us why they deserve to go mainstream. While Katseye… has a cute little jean ad (I know there are members of the group who can sing really well, but the songs they get would have you think otherwise lol).

Now, Katseye seems to be for little girls while FLO seems to be for teenage and college girls. So them being compared to each other just seems like a worthless conversation to have, but the reason why I brought them up is that well…where are the other girl groups??? All the girl groups that we did have are on hiatus, which is music industry code for disbanded. Why does it feel like girl groups are such a niche market now?

How Did Girl Groups Get So Niche?

I alluded to this earlier, when discussing the shift into the 70s decade and how disco and singer/songwriters became the new mainstream. And that’s the only answer I have for this question. Pop culture moves really fast, and each decade gets a rebrand and setup it prefers over the previous decade. After the 70s, disco was OUT! Those white folks were so HEATED, they were doing literal boycotts against disco music. Singer/songwriters were still killing it and becoming critically acclaimed darlings year after year. As the 80s came around, we started seeing multiple new marketable brands: the powerhouse vocalists like Whitney and Luther, the flashy entertainers like Michael and Janet, and the spectacle crafters like Madonna.

Girl groups were still existing, but like I said earlier, the 90s really revitalized the market for them. As we got to the 2020s, right now it’s all about country this country that. All of our favorite pop girls are dipping their toes into country because that is what the market is looking for right now. Y’all know we’re living in the Tramp era, and country music appeals a lot to the followers of that Tramp. That’s why Ella Langley is out here breaking records with that Choosing Texas song, and pop stars who weren’t mainstream pre-2020s are doing country because they know what works the most.

I mean, think about it: Sabrina Carpenter’s pop country music does better on the charts, while her disco-lite pop music does well but nowhere near as well. Please Please Please and Manchild went #1 while Espresso, Tears, and House Tour never did, should be a clear signifier of what times we’re living in. The people want to hear country production in their music right now.

I love girl groups, and I think that they will always come and go depending on the era they’re active in. If you’ve not listened to FLO, I highly suggest you should; help them go mainstream; they’re hungry and working hard for it. And I want everyone to keep in mind that girl groups are meant for you to look at and envision yourself as part of the group. That is the marketing for all of these girl groups to make you feel included; I just hope that the industry includes them in mainstream again.

Feel free to tell me your favorite girl group in the comments below, and if I said something you liked, go on ahead and share with a friend. Bye divas!

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This post is heavily inspired by Phaun on YouTube. They make content analyzing the girlypopology of Pokémon and other pop culture things. Here is a short clip for reference of them ranking types of cows:

Y’all, I’m so serious this video lives in my brain rent free. The amount of times I say “we teach cows to shrink themselves” whenever I see a cow (which isn’t hard, I live in the Midwest divas lol)

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House Rules

I have a tier maker that I’m utilizing to make this to keep our thoughts together. I did it before writing this and will go in order from bottom to top, explaining to you guys why I put each power in each category. But first, let’s talk about what “diva” is and what the categories are. They are very simple.

Being a diva means that you are for the girls and gays. You’re classy, fierce, strong, witty, cunt, and you are absolutely THAT BITCH. That is what it means to be a diva! Now as for the categories…

The D listers are listed in the “Harpo, who Dis woman?” category (if you understand that reference, I love you). Any power that isn’t diva or, at the very least, cool or even camp goes straight to the bottom tier. Cause I don’t know that lady lol!

The C listers are listed in the “Chronically Cishet” category. Here is where powers that are cool to the straights and ONLY the straights go. They’re NOT diva whatsoever!

The B Listers are listed in the “The Beloveds” category. Here is where the lower-level divas go. They might be somewhat sickening or low-level cunty, but they need to grow into their inner diva.

The A Listers are listed in the “A Diva” category. Self-explanatory. They make the cut and have THE cunt.

The S Listers are listed in the “Supreme Diva” category. They are that girl! Not only are they sickening and cunt, but they elevate a step forward, usually by being adored and admired by the girls and the gays.

Alright now let’s get into the Harpo, who dis woman? category! (Also I was gonna put each power in order within the category, but that’s too much fucking work. So we ain’t doing all that)

Harpo, Who Dis Woman?!?!

• Calm State

Girl, take a Xanax.

• Constant Euphoria, Serenity & Focus

Girl, take a Lexapro.

• Control Amphibians

To do what? Croak?

• Control Birds

To do what? Peck?

• Control Bugs

To do what? Buzz?

• Control Parasites

Bitch, you’re disgusting!

• Access Pocket Dimension

And then what? Just live there?

• Multiply Self

Cute, but then what? We just gonna stare at each other, cause if I cloned myself I guarantee you Clone AJ still wouldn’t want to do shit he didn’t wanna do when he was just part of me lmfao!

• Talk To Ghosts

I’d rather not…

• Water Breathing

I hate swimming

• Grant Wishes For Others

But not for me??? Girl, bye!

This category was self-explanatory, so I just gave y’all some rapid fire answers.

Chronically Cishet

• Absorb and Emit Kinetic Energy

Having to get hit to be cunt, isn’t diva…

• Control own Adhesion

Think Spiderman being able to crawl on walls. Very cishet

• Controls reptiles

Not impressive to me at all, but I know the nerdy cishets would go up for this.

• Control sea animals

I hate swimming, but dolphins are cute; everything else…

• Don’t need sleep

Girl, take melatonin.

• Everyone Obeys Your Word

This is a very cishet MALE coded superpower for ALL the wrong motherfucking reasons.

• Heat Vision

One of the most hetero powers to exist

• Inherent Omniscience - the potential to know everything

Only a cishet man would have this power. Cause you can tell a man you like magnolias and hate roses and he’ll get you roses anyway. So it’s not like he’s gonna know much.

• Know of and Visit Other Dimensions

Being able to know of and visit any dimension you want is better than just the pocket dimension thing, but still this isn’t diva.

• Limitless Panmnesia — remembering and recalling infinite details of every experience

The world sucks too much to want to know EVERYTHING about it. Absolutely not!

• Pyrokinesis

Out of all the elemental powers, this is the straightest one imaginable.

• Super Senses

Great gowns, beautiful gowns…

• Super Speed

Self-explanatory……

• Super Strength

Self-explanatory……

• Symbiote

Cool, but not for the divas!

The Beloveds

• Absorb any Energy for Sustenance.

Getting energy and sustenance without having to eat? Very camp!

• Animal Taming, Scrying, and Telepathy

Now this is the Head bitch in charge of all that control (insert animal group here) bullshit; just control all of them.

• Absorb any Matter + Perfect Constitution.

Getting energy and fullness without gaining weight and being at your “perfect weight” is camp.

• Change Own Size/Mass

Dare I say shrinking into the size of a fairy is more diva than becoming the size of a kaiju.

• Control (Non-Human) Mammals

Elephants, cheetahs, bears, wolves, etc. All more diva than goddamn frogs and pigeons.

• Control Earth

Very lesbian/bi woman coded, shoutout to Toph and Korra

• Radiation Control

This is very OP and could be diva in the right hands.

• Create Portals

A much flashier form of teleportation, but it’s still the same as regular teleporting.

• Flying*

Very standard power; flying normally is low level, diva. *if you fly and leave some sort of signature trail behind you, than you’re an A tier diva.

• Instant Learning

More cunt than omniscience.

• Invulnerability

Not getting hurt is diva, but this power isn’t flashy enough to be diva.

• No Aging

A cute passive ability but not a real power.

• Omnilingualism

The gays who travel the world and fuck the locals on Grindr would eat this up; however, they wouldn’t need to do much talking anyway. So B tier lol!

• DNA Control

Definitely a game-changing power but not diva.

• Quick save/Quick load in real life

This basically means save cheating in real life. Which is diva but not as much as just straightforward time travel.

• Redo Any Moment in Your Past (Infinite)

Also diva but not as cunt as full-blown time travel.

• Necromancy

The potential to create a zombie apocalypse isn’t diva, but reviving dead people is. I know that sounds like an oxymoron; sorry I can’t explain it iykyk.

• Technopathy

This is diva but also could at some point cause a robot/AI invasion. And AI isn’t diva. So it’s a low-level diva.

• Teleportation (within eyesight)

Same as teleporting with portals, but even more limitations make it less diva.

• Vampirism

Vampires are diva but not that diva. (I’ll do a diva ranking on supernatural creatures someday)

• Vibrokinesis

Girl, get a vibrat—oop sorry. You can actually use this power to do some cunty things like avalanches and earthquakes and stuff. But being able to control the actual earth is much better.

• Astral Projection

Cute, very visual, and very dramatic too. (dramatic cause you’re physical body literally faints and becomes lifeless, needing protection till your soul returns to your body) Only issue is you can’t interact with anything but other souls (usually).

• Beast Lordship

What’s better than commanding animals? Beasts! Where are these beasts coming from? idk but it’s diva.

• See and Emit Entire EM Spectrum

The most nerdy way of saying being able to turn objects and others invisible. This is diva.

A Diva

• Death Note

Very diva and sickening to kill someone simply by writing their name, but there’s no real pizazz or je ne sais quoi.

• Perfect Regen + No Aging

Diva cause you can’t age, and with the regen sicknesses and injuries ain’t nothing special to you.

• Shapeshifting

Being able to change your body, skin, hair, height, weight, and overall look at any time is DIVA!!! (Mystique technically being Nightcrawler’s father cause she shapeshifted to get her lesbian lover, Destiny, pregnant makes this power stand out as diva…whether you consider that plotline canon or not)

• Time Travel + Timeline Navigation

Tens times better than all the super specific detailed ones, but you’re extremely at risk of causing a time paradox and just erasing yourself from existence. However, being extremely OP is a common diva trope.

• Illusions

This diva, but certain divas in the S tier category could easily do this as well.

• Control Density + Negate Temperature

This is very cunt cause there’s so many different things you can do with this; turning solids into liquids or gases and vice versa is insane. If you’re one of the 6 people who’ve seen Eternals, then you know Sersi was that girl!!!

• Electrokinesis

So potential for camp here; Lady Gaga would have this power if she could.

• Gravity Control

Could get one trick pony very fast, but it has a high chance of being camp. And our silly campy divas deserve love too.

• Elasticity

Extremely versatile, rarely limited. Between verse king Plastic Man, the baddie Mrs. Incredible, and “how many inches you need?” Mister Fantastic, this power is diva!

• Extreme Luck

A living cheat code. If you guys ever saw that episode of the classic Ben 10 series where Gwen became “Lucky Girl,” she was DIVA for those 22 minutes.

• Kill With Eye-Contact

A tiny bit more diva than death noting people. Killing someone with face card is almost the epitome of diva, but again it isn’t very flashy.

• Subatomic Control

The OP girlies are almost always diva.

• Possession

Basically Astral projection+, making it an efficient diva.

• Precognition

Phoebe Halliwell, Raven Baxter, (and my OC) carry this power on their backs all the way to diva tier!

• Slow/Stop Time (don’t age fast)

Cutesy but full-blown time travel is better still. At least you don’t age, though!

• Summon Anything (that can be carried)

I would just be summoning puppies all day. But someone who actually cares about being a superhero could eat with this power.

• Mind Link

Diva, but again, there’s an S-tier diva who could do this in their sleep and much more.

• Opacity Control

Basically invisibility, but I’m assuming it includes turning objects invisible as well. Even if it didn’t, invisibility is a very cunty superpower. It’s practically useless if you ain’t got nothing else though, so you better get a weapon or learn to throw hands bitch. Cause this power is so easily countered in literally every form of media it appears in lmfao.

• Healing

You know how in PVP games like Marvel Rivals or Overwatch the support class is basically what all the girls and gays play? (me included) Yeah, healers are diva.

Supreme Diva

• Telekinesis

Well yes, move anything wherever without sweating or having to physically strain yourself to lift it? Girlies, this power was practically made for the divas! Cause idk about y’all, but I’m not lifting anything heavier than me; that’s a man’s job…I’m a diva.

• Telepathy

Mind control, memory wiping, mind linking, illusions, and just being able to read people’s minds and even attack them with your mind? Telepaths lead the league when it comes to diva superpowers.

• Magnetism

Telekinesis but only metal and magnets. Magneto ALONE is the only reason why this is in S tier, or I would’ve put it in A tier.

• Weather Control

“FEEL THE WRATH OF THE GODDESS!!!!”

Need I say more?

• Shapeshifting (+ altering own mass)

This is the power that Morph has in X-Men 97. Same utility of regular shapeshifting, but you can mimic the physical strengths and attributes of who you turn into.

• Lantern Ring

As an artist, I’ve always wanted this as a kid. Lantern Rings allow the wielder to create whatever they want as long as they can imagine it. This was made for the artsy divas!

• Hydrokinesis

This power should be in A tier, but Katara exists, and this bitch pulls moisture out of the air, heals with water, controls the blood in people’s bodies, controls ice, and just casually parts lakes and rivers like Moses like it’s nothing. S TIER DIVA!!!

• Flyrokinesis

A fancy way of saying force fields. Since the girls and gays have spent most of our lives having to protect ourselves and stand up for people who can’t, this power easily goes into S tier. Cause all divas have had to defend themselves or a loved one from someone or something.

• Light Control

Blinding a bitch is cunt, I’m sorry. The Boys played in Starlight’s face SO FUCKING BAD. Every time Annie glowed her eyes, them bitches was laughing in her face like she couldn’t easily burn their eyes out. ooh the misogyny against women with light powers (jubilee haters, you too)!!!

• Aerokinesis

Air manipulation is very cunt, and I’m not just saying that because I’m an air sign. Prancing through the sky like a fem queen is diva!

• Control Plants

This scene alone puts plant control in S Tier.

• Midas Touch

Basically Medusa, but somehow even more cunt?!?!?! DIVA!

• Teleport Anywhere

Without any limitations, this is diva.

• Phasing

With this power, you are the ultimate representation of freedom and autonomy! No one can ever contain you, trap you, harm you, or even have access to you unless you allow them to. You are in full control of who you let touch you!

• Control Emotions

This is diva especially since we’re living in a world that seems ok with how apathetic it’s becoming.

• Super Seduction/Charm

Being a baddie basically gives you mind control? Diva!

Whew chile…

I’m tired; that took way longer than I thought it would. But I just wanted to give you guys a fun little post that will hopefully break up all the negative bullshit we’ve been seeing lately. I know I’ve desperately been needing hope in humanity recently cause life’s a bitch, so I just wanted to do something lighthearted with all the superhero news we’ve been getting these past 2ish weeks. I hope you all have wonderful rests of your week, and I’ll see you all next week.

Feel free to share with me how I ranked your favorite superpower. Bye divas!

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Elphaba is forced to be brave because she is an outcast in a world of bigots. The Wizard and Madame Morrible tear down those who are brave to stay in power, and Glinda has to learn to be brave. The first 3 have very self-explanatory character arcs, so I won’t talk about them; instead, I want to focus on a character whose nuances many people don’t understand (cause we’re living in an era of no nuance, girl).

Today we will be dissecting the character of Glinda utilizing personality, relationships, and motivations, all with the Wicked films. I’ve never seen the Broadway musical, but I did watch some solo performances of the on-stage Glindas. So if I get something wrong bear with me. Now, without further ado, let’s talk about Galinda Upland.

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Who is Galinda Upland?

In order to understand how a person became who they are, you have to look at their backstory. Because the way your parents raise you will determine how the rest of your life goes (which is why we should all be pro abortion and STOP FUCKING RAW!!!)

Now we don’t know much about Glinda’s parents, but with context clues we can make some claims. Galinda Upland of the Upper Uplands is raised by a wealthy, aristocratic two-parent household. When we see her at Shiz, she is on a boat full to the brim of all of her things, which is quite a lot in comparison to the other students. She is hyperfeminine; almost always in pink and high heels, skirts, and dresses. An important scene in her backstory that Glinda has shows us how charismatic she’s been since childhood but also how much she wants to be a witch.

When baby Galinda fails at casting a spell in front of her birthday party guests, she naturally controls the narrative like it’s nothing by going with the flow and convincing the room that she spawned a rainbow. After her guests leave the room, her mother basically tells her that there is power in charisma, something that will stick with Glinda for the rest of her life.

Galinda Upland is witty, adaptable, observant, attention-seeking, charismatic, quirky, and restrained. Making her the perfect counter to Elphaba Thropp, who is intelligent, compassionate, serious, stubborn, independent, reckless, and over emotional. This relationship is the biggest and most important relationship of Glinda’s life. And we will talk about that later, as I have a lot to say, but first let’s talk about her relationship with Boq, the Wizard, Madame Morrible, and Fiyero as these shape who she is externally.

Relationships

Boq - Glinda doesn’t like this boy at all. Primarily because he isn’t of noble status. If Glinda is the equivalent of a duchess of sorts in this world, why would she be interested in what she probably views as “just a commoner”? Glinda worked her whole life to achieve social power (I’ll talk about that more later), but in order to maximize that power, is to have actual control over systems. Marrying a munchkin commoner wouldn’t do that for her. So she pays him dust.

The Wizard - I find it strange how the films highlight how much Elphie loves the Wizard early on but not how much Glinda should. The Wizard is literally the male version of Glinda. He is living her dream: Being able to be the most important person in the world through nothing else but charisma. I wish we would’ve gotten to see how much Glinda likely would’ve revered the Wizard. But instead we see Glinda idolize Madame Morrible more.

Madame Morrible - When your fave hates your guts lol. Glinda desperately wants Morrible’s approval but doesn’t have any magical power. While Morrible understands that Glinda’s social power is useful, she doesn’t respect it at all. And continuously demeans and degrades her out of spite for not having Elphie as her lapdog instead.

Fiyero - Now this is who Glinda is after because he offers her power she can’t access any other way. If Galinda never became Glinda the Good, then marrying Fiyero would’ve been plan B, as she would get to be a princess and eventual queen. Glinda claims to love Fiyero, but if you ask me, she only loves the idea of him. He’s a symbol of power she seduces in hopes of one day being his wife. When Fiyero noticeably starts to distance himself from her, she says it “worries her”. Which is framed as a joke but is actually sad because if she loses Fiyero, she would have to find another man with the type of power she wants.

Think about it: Madame Morrible has powers, and The Wizard doesn’t, but for some reason she submits to him. Which makes me think that Oz is extremely misogynistic and refuses to let a woman lead them (sound familiar). Now I will say when Fiyero leaves her, and she believes he is dead, she actually feels grief for him. And I do think she had some sort of feelings for him, but not actually. Fiyero never gets to actually know who Glinda is, and nor does she know who he is. They both misunderstand each other’s motivations, which isn’t the case with her actual true love…

Elphie (this is gonna be a long one lol) - When Elphie and Glinda meet, they’re initially at odds, primarily because Elphaba is a pupil of Madame Morrible’s and there probably is some biased prejudice where Glinda feels disrespected that a green person gets special treatment and she doesn’t. But when Elphie misunderstands Glinda for being kind with no expectations and offers her a chance to be in Morrible’s lessons, their relationship shifts.

That shift happens when Glinda sees the impact of her bullying on Elphie. Since Elphie has been bullied her entire life, she toughens up and dances through her pain, which everyone misunderstands, even Fiyero!!! Fiyero believes Elphie isn’t insecure at all, but Glinda sees through it because she has the same type of insecurity but from a different place. They both care a lot about their image and what other people think of them, and Glinda notices this and apologizes by using her social status to make Elphie come across as cool to everyone else in the room. This is the first time that Glinda isn’t selfish and connects with someone enough to be willing to protect them.

After they dance together, Glinda immediately switches her demeanor towards Elphie. This almost continues this apology from the Ozdust dance, as Elphie is a person who sees the real her. At this point, Glinda doesn’t see Elphie as a “steamed artichoke”. Glinda tries to teach Elphie social power (which again I’ll explain later) as a way to almost protect her from being bullied.

As the two become friends, their lives almost meld together, and they envision being in each other’s lives forever like all besties do. Skipping ahead some, when we get to the big climax, that is when both Elphie and Glinda’s ideologies clash. Elphaba refuses to work with the Wizard and Morrible after finding out they are harming the animals. Glinda claims that it is possible for Elphaba to still work with the Wizard and get what she wants. Which Elphie sees through this immediately.

Glinda says: “Elphaba, why couldn’t you have stayed calm for once? Instead of flying off the handle?… I hope you’re happy how you hurt your cause forever. I hope you think you’re clever”

Elphie says: “I hope you’re happy too. I hope you’re proud how you would grovel in submission, to feed your own ambition.”

Elphaba sees through Glinda’s words because she understands her. Fiyero and Boq don’t understand Glinda’s perspective. She’s desperate to make her dreams come true even if it means sacrificing the safety of others.

And when it’s time for Elphaba to fly away on the broom, she gives Glinda the choice to come with her. To which Glinda is almost willing to do but reluctantly declines and tearfully wishes Elphie goodbye. The both of them hoping that the other gets her wish and doesn’t regret their decision from this one choice. And that is where the two split up, with Elphie flying off into the woods and Glinda at the hands of 2 fascists.

Elphaba chose to stand on business and protect the animals by fighting against the Wizard and Morrible, while Glinda chose to stay in Emerald City and fulfill her dream of having social power. Now I can explain what social power is…

Social Power

Social power is something that I referenced in my analysis on DL men. Where I stated this:

Social power is the ability to influence the thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and decisions of others on various scales. It can be effective to individuals, groups, or entire institutions. In my article on DL men, I was saying that a big reason why men are DL is that we give straight-appearing men too much social power. In movies like Mean Girls or Legally Blonde, we see social power be used for both good and bad things. It’s not inherently dangerous. Everyone is capable of having social power over someone or a vast majority of people.

In Wicked, we see that nobody has more social power in Oz than the Wizard. And that is what Glinda is working towards. Through crafting a prim and quirky persona, marrying up, and having a career in Ozian government is how she navigates this dream of hers to supplement her lack of magic.

When I first saw the ending of Wicked Act 1, I assumed that Glinda was just blindly believing she could change the system. Some may argue that Glinda wouldn’t have been helpful to Elphie or that they both should have stayed and planned something else. There’s a really good video on Glinda not leaving with Elphie; I’ll link here. Honestly, though, even if Glinda did go with Elphie and try to use her social power to help Elphie’s cause, it likely wouldn’t work cause Glinda doesn’t have an army or PR team like the Wizard has. So it was actually best that Glinda stayed in Emerald City to get more social power, but once she got it, she had delusions of grandeur for so long her decision ended up slapping her in the face.

Which leads me to the big section of this post that I’m sure you all clicked on for and wondered why it’s taking me so long to get to it.

Glinda, The Fascist Sympathizer

Since nuance is dying, I unfortunately feel like I have to preface this by saying, Glinda is my favorite character in Wicked, but I’m going to be extremely critical of her in this section.

The Wizard and Madame Morrible are fascists! And while Glinda isn’t actively harming anyone, she is well aware that she is being used as a distraction from how cruel their dictatorship is and stays in the spotlight anyway. Which makes her a fascist sympathizer! I said earlier how Fiyero misunderstands Glinda’s intentions because he is not her true love. When the munchkins sing “somebody go an melt her!” Fiyero steps Glinda aside and basically tells her to stand on business for once. To which Glinda replies that she misses Elphie, but she clearly doesn’t want to be found.

In order to understand where Glinda is at Act 2, we have to analyze the lyrics of her best solo, Thank Goodness. The beauty of this song is that it sounds incredibly happy while arguably being the most depressing song of the film. With lines like “And we’re happy to share our ending vicariously with all of you. He couldn’t look handsomer. I couldn’t feel humbler. We couldn’t be happier.” Glinda is convincing the audience but also herself that Fiyero is her true love.

Then there’s a moment where she acknowledges the sacrifice she made for power with lines about her dream not being as fulfilling as she thought it would be and the strongest line of the song: “there are bridges you cross you didn’t know you crossed until you’ve crossed”. She crossed a bridge naively thinking she could be friends with Elphie and achieve the social power she always wanted, but that’s not realistic, and Glinda spends this act realizing that none of her dreams are realistic. “Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true” is a tragic truth she has to learn. That she isn’t happy because Elphie isn’t in her life and she’s supporting a system that is causing her and others like her harm.

At this point of the film, Glinda is well aware that Elphie is who she needs to be happy again. But she’s still too selfish to realize that she’s the one who has to make the change, not Elphie. The scene where the Wizard and Glinda are singing to convince Elphie to join them both for selfish reasons. The Wizard wants Elphie’s power, and Glinda wants someone who actually knows and loves her by her side, even if it might cause her harm in the process. Glinda is so concerned with her wedding that when the animals break out, she doesn’t even question it and immediately falls into being all about her.

Now…to be fair, Glinda didn’t have much of a choice but to stay this time cause she thought her bestie was fucking her man. So I give her grace there, cause if I (ME) found out that my man wants to fuck my bestie, I wouldn’t want to be near either one of those bitches either lmfao! (lowkey I think Glinda is more upset that Elphaba wants to fuck Fiyero and not her. ooh Glinda you yearning lesbian!) Skipping ahead over all the catfighting over a n**** bullshit that I don’t give a fuck about, we still see Glinda be naive and almost stupid. She knows Morrible can control the weather, and thinks that it’s just an unfortunate coincidence for a tornado to land a house on top of Nessa, whom she just told Morrible and the Wizard they would need to capture Elphie??!!?!? Glinda, were you born last night? C’mon girl, let’s not be dense. (I’d also like to point out that I think the writers wanted to make Glinda feel more innocent in this situation to obfuscate any antagonistic behavior on her part cause media literacy is in the trenches. I mean, look who bitches voted into office; that’s more than enough proof that EVERYBODY gotta go back to school.)

If telling the Wizard and Morrible that they need to lure Elphie with Nessa is the worst thing Glinda has ever done, then the best thing she can do to alleviate that sin is to assist the person she’s been causing harm this whole time. It takes the WHOLE movie, but Glinda finally learns that popularity and power aren’t worth losing someone you love. But it’s too late; an angry mob is after Elphaba, Fiyero is presumed dead, Nessa is dead, the animals are fleeing Oz, and after all that they would still have to fight Morrible and the Wizard while Elphie is the only one with magic.

I see a lot of people not understand why Elphaba gives up so easily, and I look at it this way. Elphaba is an activist who has seen absolutely no motion for her work. The animals she’s protecting don’t trust her and leave; the citizens of Oz are all going to kill her; her whole family and sneaky link are all dead (not Fiyero). So she sees no way out of this but to give the people what they want and hope that since Glinda’s found a change of heart, she will pick up where she left off because she has far more privilege than her. So I understand why Elphie gave up, because she didn’t have allies anymore and was all alone but saw a glimpse of hope.

The ultimate punishment for Glinda is that she has to live the rest of her life believing her soulmate is dead, working a job that she hates, and never being able to be herself with anyone else ever again. But hey, at least she gets magic! What I assume the movie was implying is that in order for Glinda to get access to magic, she had to be authentically kind. Think about it: Morrible, the Wizard, and Nessa couldn’t read the Grimmorie at all. Glinda only gets to access it when she stands up for the animals, something Elphie wanted her to do forever ago. Now, I have a lot of issues with that ending.

Glinda, The White Savior

I kid y’all not, the animals just magically come back to Oz after all fleeing from potential genocide because Glinda said: “live, laugh, love”. I’m sorry y’all, but it’s giving white savior complex!!! A white savior is a problematic trope that implies marginalized people lack the ability, tact, and resources to solve their own problems. Basically The Blind Side if you ever seen that movie.

And yes, I know, Glinda promised Elphie that she wouldn’t absolve her of the evil past the citizens of Oz believe her to have. But bitch, these munchkins are dumb as fuck!!! And the movies do a great job of showing how smart Glinda is at making people trust her and change their minds. She tricked Boq into thinking that getting into a relationship with Nessa would somehow make her like him more! I thought about what I would’ve said to convince the people if I were Glinda, and this is what I came up with:

“I had gone to save Dorothy from the witch who I once knew as Elphaba Thropp. I saw the defeat and frustration in her eyes and realized that she is just like all of us. You asked if it was true that she was my friend, and it is. Elphaba was my friend (INSERT AUDIENCE GASP). So when she asked me to fulfill her dying wish, I listened. You see…as Glinda the Good, I’m so good (toss toss) that I saw her love for the animals and realized with the Wizard’s sudden departure it is now my responsibility to help you all see the light in each other. (the animals can all enter here) For the good of Oz’s future, it is important to stand up for those in need. Not just ourselves, but for others both good and wicked.”

We could add some Glinda ways of talking, but that’s the best I got for a final speech that doesn’t allow Elphaba to be seen as a villain, the animals to be promised safety, and the Ozians who adore Glinda to trust her direction for the future of Oz. Please feel free to leave a comment on how you would write Glinda’s speech to the animals and Ozians.

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How Moderates Are No Better Than Fascists

While Glinda might’ve learned her lesson. A lot of the harm the animals of Oz experienced wouldn’t have happened if she had left Emerald City earlier or, better yet, never stayed there to begin with. A while ago I wrote this:

as well as this:

The reason why I think Wicked did so well is that everyone wants to believe they are an Elphie when most of us are a Glinda. We don’t stand up for others nearly as much as we should! We’re so concerned with being right that we forget to be kind. We often forget that love and hate can’t coexist. Someone who loves you would never intentionally hurt you. Terrorism, fascism, and genocide only happen from having a lack of compassion for others.

We see this in politics all the time; I touch on this in numerous articles. But I always say people who are conservatives would just be conservative with their own values and not give a fuck about what anyone else is doing. Instead, they vote and promote the harm and belittling of others simply for not living the same lives as them.

Meanwhile you have moderates, the people who think they aren’t bad cause their not far left or right. They’re just like Glinda. Recently we’ve seen with moderates things like “oh I thought voting for him would make things better” or “I just don’t understand why we always have to talk about politics” or “our different political beliefs don’t mean we can’t be friends”. Mind you, to say anything like this you would have to completely be blind, deaf, and dumb to the incessant hate campaigns against immigrants and trans folk. Who the Tramp made abundantly clear he was going to go after FIRST and leave all the other aspects of this country to get worse and worse.

So no, you don’t deserve to be friends with marginalized people after you voted for their demise! You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too! While I have my issues with the ending of Wicked: For Good, I’m so fucking glad they made it clear that people like Glinda don’t deserve happy endings. Cause people like her see the atrocities happening to others, and they still choose their own selfish desires.

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My Girl Is Angry

…and she has every right to be. I wrote a whole breakdown about all the various things Ariana could’ve drawn from to make this album in my Emergency Meeting a few months ago. This article isn’t supposed to be about her controversies, but very briefly I’ll say the main source she’s drawing creative energy from is parasocial fandoms. Something I wrote about numerous times here, if you wanna go see, you can start with this one:

Ariana kicked this era off by announcing this album and describing it as “feral”. Followed up with the lead single hate that i made you love me which debuted at #1 and stayed in the Top 10 ever since. The song htimylm was a nice way of saying “I’m learning that I can’t deal with you crazy obsessive people, cause y’all piss me off”. A lot of people misunderstood, and still do, this song. Thinking that this was what she meant by “feral”, but htimylm was just the safest choice for a lead single on an album this eclectic. The rest of the album is feral, both in anger and in lust. She’s passionately upset about the way she’s treated and the way people treat her family and friends just for being in her circle.

But then we have the second single, Petal, which is the album release day single and title track. As you can see from the thumbnail of the music video…mama was letting it loose. This video and song are meta commentary on how Ariana constantly changed herself to meet the requests of her critics just for them to say they miss the old her, and she kills them cause she’s tired of hearing that. Now after hearing this song I did think “hmm what a strange choice to make a single”, but I get it after hearing the whole album. Now let’s talk about the production.

If Brandy and Imogen Heap had a baby.

Brandy at one point was known for making contemporary R&B music but later transitioned into more eclectic alternative sounds. (Brandy crawled so that alt girls like SZA could run!) Because Ariana became well known for making that late 90s and 2000s pop/r&b music that was reminiscent of Mariah and Xtina, people have become accustomed to that sound from her. And whenever she tries to stray from that mold, it is often met with huge amounts of hate. It happened with Sweetener, Positions, and Eternal Sunshine.

The sound of Petal is her biggest risk yet, as it sounds almost nothing like her previous records but a lot like the music she tells us she enjoys. If you’re a hardcore Ariana stan, then you know she’s a major R&B head. Babyface produced her debut album, she loves all the R&B vocal divas, and she understands that harmonies and background vocals are the spine of a song. But she’s also an alternative indie girl and musical theater girl at the same time. Ariana has always said she loves Imogen Heap, but I never quite heard that in her music till the Sweetener era.

Petal, as much as it is a risk, it is also a big “fuck you” to the sound people claim they miss. This album feels like the most authentically Ariana; she was upset in Eternal Sunshine…but never like this cause even that album clearly had heavy editing to prevent her from being too raw. This album is unbridled rage, but vocally she’s soft. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when we’re at a point of Ariana’s career where we see younger artists take inspiration from her and her sound be ubiquitously known, she would want to completely change it.

She tried to nicely tell the bitter hating bitches to swallow cement with yes, and? but then y’all pissed her off even more, so now we got Petal LMFAO.

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Experimentation Is A Good Thing You Guys

I will say this album is angry and full of rage, but it is also exploring lust in a way Ariana doesn’t usually do. She’s either extremely blunt in a cheeky way (Sabrina learned that from her) or she’s super coy that it takes you a minute to realize what she’s talking about, but on this record she finds a nice middle ground. She can be blunt and cheeky but somehow still coy. Her lyricism on this record is also getting stronger, with various songs having double situations being sung about that make you wonder what she’s actually singing about. I’ll do a track-by-track breakdown at a later date when the era is complete, and I’ve had more time with it, but I’ll use like i do as an example.

In like i do you would think she’s talking about the public, cause she starts with “I’m making cents off of your nonsense; all that shit talk keeps me well fed,” but then she’ll say “you need me like I, you; cause no one fucks you like I do,” which makes you think she’s singing about a partner.

Something that has really made me go on social media less and less is because people are so used to immediate attention grabbers due to platforms like TikTok that show you the climax first, then the build-up to it after, ruining people’s patience and attention span. Like a lot of Ariana albums, the strongest section is the mid to end section. However, kiss me is arguably her best intro ever. But if you didn’t like htimlym then heard petal right after, you would probably be turned off or even scared cause the sound is so eclectic in comparison to the pop star sheen Ari’s previous records have.

I have sat and listened to this album 2 times after midnight, went to sleep, woke up, and listened to it about 6 more times as I waited for the petal music video. Maybe I have some undiagnosed condition, but I don’t understand how y’all can have so many critiques on something you only heard once. Especially with music like this that is clearly not intended to be an immediate knockout, this album is meant to be played in your bedroom or in your car late at night.

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Pros & Cons

Let’s start with the cons and end positively. I only have 2 cons to this album technically 1:

1. Girl, these songs are too interesting to be so short. These bridges could be just a tad longer.

That’s really all I got for cons cause I have more pros

1. bitch, this lower register eats!!!

2. I’m so glad she gave me the experimental album I always wanted

3. she’s finally telling you bitches to swallow cement

4. this darker tone for the album works so well for her

5. she’s mixing familiar elements of her previous work in this record while still keeping it cohesive.

Final Thoughts

Now, without further ado, it is time to rate this album.

DRUMROLL PLEASE

Rating: A

It’s a solid A because I love this album, but I’ll need more time with it. I think if Ariana wants to take her career to another level, this is a great way to do it, as it quietly shuts the door on anyone who still wants her to make My Everything part 2. This album isn’t as flashy as her other albums and would probably do better in Fall or Winter, but I still love this album. Probably cause I’ve been having a sad boy summer, so this is yet another Ariana album that’s eerily connected to what I’m going through at the moment. While Petal is a dramatic departure from Ariana’s discography, it is the real her that embraces all the feral parts of her life.

Now without further ado, i asked you all to send me questions and it’s time to answer those.

Q&A

1. What made you want to start this blog?

I kind of answered this one already, but to expand on it more: I was extremely depressed and just emotionally numb after such a bad senior year. Blogging is a really easy creative outlet for me to tap into. As it doesn’t require too much strenuous work out of me. I work hard on this blog, yes. But as an artist, when I’m creating art I’m not actually getting much done cause I’m so focused on it being perfection. This space allows me to be imperfect and have nuanced thoughts in a world where everyone is obsessed with being right all the time and easily triggered by the slightest critique. I started snailmix to get away with all that bullshit cause quite frankly I’m sick of everybody’s takes.

2. Why is snailmix called snailmix?

Very simple, I’m lazy lmfao. I already had all of my social media usernames listed under some variation of snailmix since high school and I just couldn’t be bothered to come up with something else. But to complicate something that was intended to be simple: I like to look at snailmix as multiple different parts of who I am. I could go do a blog where I just focused on one speck of pop culture like media or pop stars or discourse but I don’t like being tied to one thing.

3. Why do you not like doing promo on your other socials?

It’s hard to explain because I love when my work gets seen, appreciated, and shared with others. But I also don’t like being the center of attention. I could easily whip out Canvas, turn my posts into carousels on Instagram and get way more attention but that’s too much work lol. I like to just write it and share it on all my platforms, without having to do the whole “please like, subscribe, and share”. I sometimes do that cause I genuinely want snailmix to grow but I ALWAYS feel immensely cringe whenever I do it. Also a lot of the stuff I write is provocative in a way that makes it hard to promote to certain audiences. For example, those bitches on Twitter and TikTok can be braindead sometimes and I just don’t think there’s a whole lot of space for ethical nuance.

4. Have there been any topics you have felt reluctant to address in a post? Or any posts you’ve written and then decided not to share? I’m also curious about what your process is like for choosing topics to write about.

I love this question cause it gives me an excuse to be messy af! There’s been numerous topics I’ve written articles to but just didn’t release because I didn’t want to deal with the audiences who would read it. I wrote a little thing about Ariana’s recent discourse on her body and decided not to release it cause EVERY bitch i saw talking about it wasn’t saying anything unique or in good faith, and I just didn’t want my words to get drowned out by the negativity. Instead I just restacked whoever was making good points I agreed with.

There’s other topics I wrote but didn’t share like a Steven Universe review, a rant about being a misunderstood introvert, a Michael Jackson movie review, and even an April Fools article on Princess Peach being a pick me that have all been sitting in my drafts for months lol. My process for choosing topics to write about consists of 4 questions: What do I feel like writing about? Has it been written about better than I would write it? Is now the time to write it? Is this something I would be proud of writing?

5. Who’s your favorite characters this decade so far?

I don’t think I have a great answer to this because the “this decade” part limits me so much. I can’t name specifics, we’d be here all day so let’s just do archetypes.

My favorite characters archetypes: cunty bad bitches, perfectionists who learn they don’t always have to be perfect, sweethearts who stay kind no matter how horrible the world treats them, and the underdog who is weak but smart and funny.

6. Why do love Ariana & Beyonce so much?

You trying to be funny or something??? I’m just kidding, I actually wrote about this in my first article about parasocial behavior. So I’ll just add that in here.

My love for Bey:

As a child, I became deeply attached to Beyoncé likely because she was everything I wished I was. Beyoncé is a stunningly beautiful Black woman with immense talent and is precise, graceful, and respected. Growing up, not to get too deep here, but I was the complete opposite. Often feeling discomfort in my own skin, emotionally neglected, and shamed for showing early signs of being gay. Beyoncé became my hero when I needed one.

My love for Ariana:

I’d already been watching every episode of Victorious and every Ariana YouTube clip I could find. She was pretty, funny, charming—and an insane vocalist. I was a fan before I even knew what stan twitter was. Then 2018 hit. My aunt had passed away that summer. I was out to my school but not at home, getting bullied, and dreading sophomore year. Then Sweetener dropped—literally the weekend before school started.

There was something about how she sang about pain and anxiety, but made it uplifting? Yeah, it meant the world to me.

7. What were your expectations with joining Substack?

Well the thing is I only downloaded the Substack app so I could read an article Kimberly Nicole Foster posted. I don’t even remember which one it was but i know it was like a year or so before I even actually posted anything. I didn’t really have any expectations, I just googled what apps were good for starting a blog and Substack was one of the first options. And since I already had it…that’s how I ended up here lol. I guess my only expectation was to be on a platform with other people who like to write too.

8. Who are your inspirations when writing?

Love this question; I am raised on YouTubers y’all and almost all of my humor, politics, and media analysis comes from being fans of their work. As Told By Kenya, Khadija Mbowe, Olurinatti, AdrianXpression, Jessie Woo, Kimberly Foster, FD Signifier, Amandabb, TS Madison, Herby Revolus, Kat Blaque, etc. Basically cornbreadtube lmao. Anyone (usually Black person) who talks about serious topics with a little bit of vulgarities is likely going to be one of my faves.

9. What are your favorite type of posts to write?

My favorite types of posts are whenever I get to write about something lighthearted. I love my starlet saga series cause I get to study popstars and rank them (I’ll get back to it at some point, idk who’s next though). I love culture convo (my most common type of posts) cause it will never have an end date as long as pop culture exists.

10. Biggest Substack pet peeves?

I made a whole rant article on this. I HATE when a bitch comments on my article that they didn’t read it but for some reason they have the unmitigated gall to speak on something they didn’t finish. You wouldn’t read a book half way through and critique the ending, so why the FUCK are you getting so pissy about some shit I said???

11. Can you expand on your thoughts on Lizzo? I saw your note on her but was a little confused.

Ok, for context, this is what the person is referring to.

I’m not sure what else I have to expand on; I feel like I said everything, but I’ll reword it differently. Lizzo started off branding herself as a positive, inspirational archetype. Most people didn’t like her or even give her a chance cause the planet is fatphobic BOOTS, so she had a very small fanbase in comparison to other pop stars, but she still found success with them. When it was revealed that she isn’t as good of a person as she claimed to be, her fanbase got even smaller cause people who aren’t fatphobic or, at the very least, try not to be are woke as all hell. And woke people don’t like bosses who mistreat their employees.

Lizzo definitely has a chance to come back; all it takes is a hit song to get back in the good graces of the general public. It’s just gonna be hard for her to get an authentic audience the way other pop stars have, cause she was revealed to be fake.

12. Advice for starting a blog?

Girl, I don’t know why you’re asking me this. I ain’t nobody…yet. But I would say stay consistent. People always say that a big part of life is just showing up, but I would say you have to do the work and stay consistent with it. I look for consistency in everything and everyone. I don’t like it when people are inconsistent with me, so I try to be the most consistent person I can. And in the context of this blog, being consistent, to me, means posting at least once a week. Your version of it can look however you want.

13. Not a question, but I love your humor it feels like talking to a friend late at night.

This is so sweet, and I wanted to end this by putting it here, since it’s not a question lol. This is what I want. As I said at the beginning, I think my friends got sick of me always talking about my niche knowledge of celebrity business, so I made this space for those of us who never get tired of ethically gossiping and talking shit.

And that’s all the questions; if you didn’t get a question you wanted answered, it’s cause your lame and didn’t ask me one. Thank you so much for tuning in every week this past year; I’m so grateful for all of you iconic divas. I’ll probably do a Q&A for this every year, so get ready for next year. Next week, we’ll of course discuss Ariana’s Petal album.

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the wake up call

So I was what you would call a “miracle baby”, which just means a child born after a series of infertility issues. But I like to joke (mostly to myself) and call myself “the prince that was promised”. Iykyk, the reason why I jokingly call myself that is because my parents only had girls before me and really wanted a boy. Which has led me to have a series of traumatic situations in my life that still affect me to this day. You see, because I was the only son in the household, there was immense amounts of pressure on me to uphold the masculine ideal of what a “good son” is.

A few days ago, I made this post:

I’ve recently bought a Nintendo 3DS, cause my old one couldn’t be saved, and I use it to play games I didn’t get to as a kid. Some just cause I wasn’t interested in it at the time, and others because I wasn’t allowed to have it as it was deemed “only for girls”. I currently am suffering with an addiction to Style Savvy: Styling Star, where my OC, the rich bitchiest bitch to ever bitch, Felicity Duchess, owns a boutique called DIVADOM. As I play through this game and I change Felicity’s outfit every day before her shift at DIVADOM, where she bosses around her gay assistant, whose name is so irrelevant to her that I don’t even remember it, I realize how much bliss I missed out on. All because I wasn’t allowed to have it.

I’m a boy, so interacting with feminine things was met with a huge “NO”. Before I continue, I just want to go down some experiences I’ve had that I believe have truly shaped my views on gender identity.

forever on the chopping block

As a young child, I was really into any sort of figurine that I could use for my little plays and stories that I would put together. One year, either Christmas or my birthday, I got this set of Mighty Morphin Power Ranger action figures. I love Power Rangers, and my favorite ranger of all the different iterations is almost always the pink one. I played with my pink Power Ranger 100x more than any of the other rangers, until one day I couldn’t find her. And I still don’t know where my homegirl went lol.

I also, throughout my childhood, begged for so many things that were deemed girly. Some of which I was able to get and others I couldn’t. I begged for a doll and got a black Ken doll with a bleached blonde shortcut that wore a denim jacket, cargo pants, and a motorcycle. Literally the most hood n**** doll you can think of lol. When I had a Didj (basically an educational DS), there was a Hannah Montana game I wanted, and I only got to have it cause it helped with language arts and taught vocab. I loved Monster High as a kid but was old enough to know I couldn’t have “girl toys,” so I settled for playing the Monster High computer games, to which I was told I couldn’t play cause those sites were for girls only.

A while back I was talking to a friend about how one time I was at my grandma’s house (this was my dad’s mom, y’all know how the dad’s side of the family is) and I was coloring in my Justice League Unlimited coloring book on her porch, when two neighborhood boys came up to me and started taunting me about how I was weird for not wanting to do whatever little black boys did in 2010. They ripped my coloring book out of my hands, tore some of the pages, and tossed it on the floor right in front of my grandma, who didn’t defend me at all but actually was smiling as if I deserved that treatment. My entire childhood consisted of me just being me and everyone, both grown and prepubescent, telling me that I wasn’t a “normal” boy and thinking that targeting me and messing with my things was somehow going to make me the “normal” they were seeking. I never trusted my paternal grandmother after that (and naturally felt more connected to my maternal grandmother, who always liked that I was just a good kid) and quickly learned that there was something wrong with me. Something that my peers and guardians noticed but no one was actually talking to me about. Which leads me to my next point.

not like the other boys, nothing’s ever good enough

Y’all, I could go on and on about all the things I was forced to do in order to be a “normal” boy, but I’ll keep it as brief as possible. Diva, they had me in Sunday school, baseball, soccer, basketball, golf, karate, and Boy Scouts. Half of that stuff I didn’t even want to do. While my parents are supportive of my art skills now, they weren’t for that shit from the beginning! It was very much so: “stop drawing and coming up with little stories with your toys and go outside!” I’ll never forget being forced out into the backyard for what felt like hours and not being let back in until the sun started setting.

When my more feminine traits started to show, that was really when the structure became more rigid. My voice was soft and still is; I was very sassy (I’m sure y’all noticed that never left lol), I would limp my wrist subconsciously and skip around everywhere, and I was just an extremely sensitive little boy. I don’t know why cause my parents can both be very emotionally distant to varying degrees at times, so maybe that was a trauma response lol. But the reason why I listed just a few things that were policed for me was cause I wanted to hint at something bigger and wondered if you guys would notice.

I never looked at the world with the same sense of binary that they did. I think that we were all brainwashed into believing these gender stereotypes as true. I think a major part of many of the world’s problems starts in the way we raise children. The world literally grooms children into becoming misogynists. It’s the unfortunate truth that I noticed when I was unpacking my experience of reconnecting with the “girly” things that I was told are wrong to enjoy.

I stand ten toes down on what I said here! Telling your sons they can’t do certain things cause you perceive it as girly does nothing but cause them to internalize a misogynistic view of women. You see how people disliked and made hate campaigns against Justin Bieber, One Direction, Twilight, and any teen drama you can think of for being targeted at girls? It’s cause we are taught that nothing girls enjoy is a real hobby and just some vapid obsession. There are men like Clavicular who will call women everything but a child of God if they’re wearing makeup or have a baddie taste in fashion or sense of life, and they actually believe they’re right! Because they were raised to believe that.

I’m primarily focusing on boys, but it happens with girls as well. We teach little girls that they are weaker than boys, their hobbies are pointless in comparison to boys, and that they’re incapable of being happy with life without a husband and kids (prioritizing sons). That’s how we get this epidemic of pick-mes!

Back to boys though: we oversexualize them into becoming conquerors of women’s bodies. From birth, little boys hear conversations about them go like this: “Oh, he’s so cute, he’s gonna be a player”, “he got a little girlfriend”, “he’s gonna be the man I always wanted”. Yuck on that last one…but this is what I’m talking about! It’s the same reason why Haley Beck still hasn’t been arrested for raping a teenage boy, and the boy’s parents haven’t pressed charges, because we oversexualize little boys into being conquerors of women’s bodies so much that we don’t view male SA victims as actual victims.

I remember being a kid, and my mom got these temporary stick-on tattoos next door from the barbershop she dropped me off at. She joked about whether I wanted the black girl with big boobies tattoo. I said no, cause I was uncomfortable. She then asked with a judgmental tone, “You want the white girl with big boobies?” I said no again, even more uncomfortable. Then she asked, “You want a tattoo with a boy on it?” with an even stronger judgmental tone. I vehemently said no. Now my mom didn’t mean any harm, but it implied what many boys cishet or queer internalize: that you can only be hypersexual or homosexual, and the space for exploration and understanding yourself is incredibly narrow. That wasn’t the only time my mom tried to figure out why I was so different. She’s quite observant and good at reading people (I had to get it from somewhere lol), but every time she would ask me things like this, I would just feel isolated.

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reflection

Like many boys, I was expected to view femininity as the big no-no, so I was often forced into spaces for young boys. Which sucked so fucking much, but it wasn’t all bad. Despite all that, as I mentioned before, with like Power Rangers and Justice League I actually love those things. I just found the parts of them that I related to the most, which often was the female character or most gender neutral presenting person.

In Justice League, Wonder Woman was my girl cause she looked sickening and was beating men twice her size like it was as easy as making a bowl of cereal. In Mario, I always loved Princess Peach for her feminine energy and Toad for his very he/they coded raspy yells. In X-Men, I loved Storm for being a dark skin kind hearted weather goddess an Emma Frost for being the HBIC no matter where she is. And while I saw aspects of myself in these characters, I never truly saw my experience be represented until I first watched Mulan.

If you haven’t watched Mulan in the decades it’s been out, I have no respect for you till you watch it (jk not really though lol, go watch it). Mulan is a girl in China who has to meet the expectations of perfect femininity in order to be seen as a valuable child. The scene where Mulan sings Reflection is the earliest memory I have of crying from a movie. I was too young to understand why this song always made me tear up every single time I heard it until I understood the lyrics at a later age.

Mulan messes up her little matchmaking appointment and gets berated by the matchmaker for how she’ll never bring her family honor. Which leads us to the best Disney ballad the world has ever seen. We gotta break these lyrics down. Apparently there’s like 4 different versions of the song; I only have 3 of em but the one I linked is the one I’m talking about.

Mulan starts by singing lyrics like “I will never pass for a perfect bride or a perfect daughter”, “if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family’s heart”, and “Who is that perfect bride? it’s not me though I’ve tried” where she admits that she’s doing her best, it’s just not her. Whew, we’re starting off heavy…I’m triggered already lol.

She then sings about how she wishes she could be herself and somehow make her family proud at the same time. But that fantasy of hers sounds impossible because of how these gender dynamics are being forced upon her. She then sings, “They want a docile lamb, No one knows who I am. Must there be a secret me, I’m forced to hide? Must I pretend that I am someone else for all time?” Sigh. I wrote about how I feel about coming out culture in a previous article and about DL culture months ago, and these lines are pulling from those ideas. Mulan knows she can never “come out of the closet,” so she then thinks about having a secret DL life where she gets to be herself. I would say fuck what anybody else has to say, but she doesn’t feel that way about herself yet because of the years of patriarchy that was forced down her throat telling her that not being a submissive dainty woman was somehow wrong. In this song, she’s literally pleading to be accepted for who she is, but she’s alone…it’s only her in the room.

aj, are you nonbinary or not?

What I’m sure you all clicked on this for…and to that question I would say:

Yeah, maybe so? I actually don’t know, and all I can really tell you as of now is that on the spectrum of gender expression I would lean more towards the feminine side. Maybe 60% fem and 40% masc; people who know me might argue otherwise, I don’t know lol. All I know is I’ve always felt disconnected from masculinity and felt more like myself in femininity.

To make a deep conversation even deeper, I don’t like men who are hyper masculine. I know that’s not a popular thing to hear in the gay community, but due to certain traumas that I won’t get into here, hypermasculinity and male spaces make me feel unsafe. So much so that I actually don’t feel right being considered “one of the guys”. Something that I joked about here:

I wish the whole world would rework the way we raise children into not being so strict about who gets to do what. I have seen some great parents out there who are doing their best to raise their children without the patriarchy. There are creators like @payalforstyle and @queenn_gee who make an effort to teach their sons to respect femininity and, by proxy, women. It’s insane to think that teaching a boy to not view fem spaces as wrong is somehow controversial, but of course there are people who talk shit about their content all the time.

As much as I love their videos, I find myself being a tad jealous that those little boys are being raised to become gentle men and gentlemen. I wish my parents wouldn’t have been so gung ho about me becoming the stereotypical man; then maybe I’d have less internalized homophobia and misogyny. But at least I’m aware I have it and trying to improve…not many do. Before I end this, I just want to clarify that when it comes to pronouns, I don’t care. I respect everyone’s pronouns, of course, but myself being referred to with she/her or they/them pronouns doesn’t upset me at all.

And next week is the 1st year anniversary of my journey here on Substack. I’m still accepting questions for the Q&A, so if you want to ask me something, now is your chance!

Send Me Your Question!

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This album is phenomenal, and while it isn’t even in my top 3 favorite Beyoncé records, it is still a personal fave of mine. Especially since Irreplaceable was the first Beyoncé song I ever heard when playing American Idol on the Wii at the age of 5, and I’ve been a fan ever since. And with Beyoncé announcing that she will release a remastered collection of B’Day to celebrate the 20th anniversary, I think now is the time to conduct a full analysis of the gender politics of this record.

Before we do that though, we gotta address the elephant in the room…big mama sometimes is a bird. I could easily talk about the gender politics of each and every single Beyoncé album cause they all vary, but on B’Day in particular, here is where Bey’s feminism starts to form. Let’s go track by track to analyze this idea.

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Deja Vu - a classic

Now the gender politics don’t start here; this song is used to introduce the man who we’ll be focusing on throughout the album. For those of you who don’t know, most of Beyoncé’s music is fictional stories. Big mama is private and doesn’t do autobiographical songs that much. She saves the personal stuff for the deep cuts, more on that later.

And now is a great time to point out that Bey when promoting this album, said it wasn’t autobiographical and was based on her character Deena Jones from the Dreamgirls film adaptation that came out the same year. Which is why the production on this record sounds so Motown-inspired.

Anyways, Deja Vu is a very straightforward song that describes how Bey is swooning over this guy so much that she feels like she can see him everywhere. She just can’t get enough of this man, something you’ll notice throughout this record.

Get Me Bodied - a bop but the extended version washes this ho

Love this song, but the extended version is better. I have no thoughts on this other than this song positions Beyoncé as a figure of desire. She wants to “get bodied” (which translates to get some dick lol), similar to how a man would want to get some pussy or ass.

Suga Mama - BBC (Bey Been Cuntry)!

It took 2 songs, but now we’re at the point of the album where Beyoncé’s identity is defined. In Deja Vu she’s swooning, and in Get Me Bodied she wants a good dicking. But now we’re introduced to the working woman aesthetic that this album solidifies for Beyoncé’s image. You see, in Bey’s previous album Dangerously In Love, she was the lovesick 22-year-old girl who was Crazy in Love. But this album, being her sophomore record, is where a big part of Beyoncé’s brand comes into play: the girlboss.

With Destiny’s Child, their image was all about girl power. Anything a guy can do, a girl can do better. Very 80s-90s feminism coded, but as the 2000s came around and the girls went on hiatus Beyonce wanted to be in her soft girl era. Which is how we got Crazy in Love and Baby Boy. Songs like Me, Myself, and I existed on her solo debut, but on this record that girlboss identity hits the ground running.

Suga Mama is a song about Beyoncé reversing the status quo and being the boss bitch who has a boy toy. In this song, she’s the one with the power. She’s buying him stuff and making him perform little lap dances for her. But then this power dynamic of her being a girlboss fades just a little, and she becomes what I jokingly wrote in my notes app: “the dickmatized breadwinner”. She goes off about how much she wants this man to take her car, credit card, key to her house, on her taxes, and all kinds of shit. Then she got the audacity to end this song by repeating the word “yes” to emphasize that she enjoys how much she’s giving in this relationship. Which starts a mini arc on this album.

Upgrade U - A power couple fantasy

This song is all about Beyoncé flexing the luxury life she can offer this fictional man. Weirdly enough, this song positions herself as an equal but also as lesser than the man. With lines like “taking care, home and still fly”, “you take me just to compliment the deal”, and this crazy lyric…

You would think Beyoncé herself is confused about what her role is in dating. Hear me out! When I listen to this song, I hear 2 completely different generational thought processes going on here. A while ago I found out that Beyoncé isn’t Gen X and that she’s actually born in the first year of the Millennial generation, which proves my point. That on 1 hand Beyoncé believes women should be equal to men, but on the other hand she doesn’t think that a woman should overshadow a man.

This song is what made me want to talk about Beyoncé’s gender politics, because i find that this song is often used in “Beyoncé is a pick me” discourse….and they’re right. However, it’s more complicated than that. When I hear this song, I can tell Beyoncé is singing from the perspective of her real-life career, and we know that successful women historically have bad romantic lives because misogynistic men don’t take them seriously. Even still to this day, ASAP Rocky was literally on stage embarrassing the fuck out of Rihanna, talking about how he would smash some girls in the audience if he wasn’t with her.

I also want to point out that in this song Beyoncé proves her significance to this man by flexing her material items and social status. This is a capitalism bop, but damn these lyrics are fucking insane!

Ring The Alarm - when the fixer upper gets too bold

She gave this man access to a life of luxury just for him to break her fantasy of being a power couple by cheating. But get this! She’s mad about him cheating, sure, but she’s actually more pissed that some other girl is getting access to his financial resources. This song is a wake up call to how even though she wanted to be this man’s equal, he doesn’t respect her enough to consider her one.

Ring The Alarm, the loud ass song that it is, shows Bey being upset at what this side chick is going to get. She built this man who was a little classless and made him into a gentleman just for him to show up as a gentleman from the beginning for a whole nother lady. I’d be mad too…this song is a valid crashout idgaf.

Kitty Kat - no more pussy for you coon z fictional man Beyonce totally didn’t base off of a real man!

In this song, Bey punishes her cheater man by not giving him pussy anymore. And here’s my thing…bitch, if he already cheated on you in the previous song, why would restricting access to your coochie punish him anymore? He’s already outside! I’m sure there’s lots of women throwing pussy on him when you’re not, but that’s the thing! Kitty Kat is positioned as Beyoncé taking her power back, but there’s no real power in not giving a cheater sex. I repeat: He’s already outside!!!!

But on a serious note, the fact that in this song Beyoncé thinks closing her legs is going to give her power is actually quite sad. The song goes into an almost mantra of sorts where Bey lists her credentials and doesn’t understand why a man wouldn’t want her and instead want to go lay it low and spread it wide for anything that has a pulse.

Freakum Dress - yes, get your lick back! oh wait, we’re still with the cheating n****?

This song is so convoluted. We start off with the song sounding like she’s about to do her big one and cheat back with lines like “he’s been acting up, but he won’t be the only one”. But then something happens where once Bey is at this club in her freakum dress, she tells guys flirting with her that her man is gonna be the one who takes her dress off. Bitch, what the fuck??? Are you leaving him, getting revenge, or are you staying? Cause you can’t do it all at once!

The song then becomes a record about spicing up the relationship after going through a dry spell….huh? You would originally think that a freakum dress is a sillier term for a revenge dress (a dress you wear to make someone jealous or announce that you’re single again), but no! It’s a dress she wears to get her n**** who’s been running her ragged the past few songs attention. This song makes no fucking sense, but it’s a bop!

Green Light - the wake up call

He must’ve reset his representative cause she forgave him for a bit, but now is realizing she made a mistake. For those of you who don’t know, the representative refers to the version of you that you present to a person when you want to make a good impression. In a romantic relationship, the representative only lasts as long as the honeymoon phase. Hence the reason why, when the honeymoon phase is over, the representative disappears cause the person is more comfortable around you and vice versa. We all have representatives! I did not come up with this; I heard TS Madison talk about it.

So this guy between Freakum Dress and Green Light reset his representative, and tricked her into thinking he changed cause the honeymoon phase was back. But she realized he’s not that great and now is planning on telling this man to gtfo. I’d also like to point out that in the bridge of this song she sings about how she gave so much of herself in this relationship and gained absolutely NOTHING in return. Girl, he wasn’t shit…at least you finally woke the fuck up.

Irreplaceable - my stan card was printed when i first heard this song.

Now I’ll admit this song isn’t amazing, but it’s her longest charting #1 for a reason. The “to the left, to the left” repetition has stayed in the common lexicon for 2 whole decades for a reason. The desire to kick him out in Green Light becomes reality here in Irreplaceable. But also in this song she’s giving us hella tea. She dogging him out, talking about how he gotta take the taxi cause he’s NOT leaving with the car SHE bought his sorry ass. She lets him know that she knew he was still seeing that girl after she found out about her.

In this song, she’s actually gaining her power back! By standing tf up and saying boy bye. We don’t have time for the bullshit anymore. The materialistic items she got him in Suga Mama and uplifted him with in Upgrade U are now hers again. This song also brings back a common theme in R&B music and in Bey’s catalog where the message is: “Men are great and all but goddamn they fucking suck. Good thing there’s lots of men out here lol!”

Resentment - anyone who says Bey isn’t good at ballads can go swallow cement and I’m so serious

Arguably the best ballad of her career…give Coon Z his lashings Beyoncé!!! Now there are 2 ways you can interpret this song after Irreplaceable. 1. Irreplaceable was a fantasy of what she wants to do but didn’t, or 2. she did kick him out, but the pain of that relationship still haunts her. Either way is valid, but I lean a bit more towards option 1. Which would mean that instead of kicking this man out, she’s still with him and her trust issues are spiraling out of control.

Beyoncé resents him for destroying the investment she put into him and their relationship. She felt like she was worthless in comparison to his mistress (funny how the mistress probably feels the same way about Bey cause she’s “still in the motherfucking house”).

This song provides so much insight into Bey’s view on dating and gender politics cause she sings “I know she was attractive, but I was here first”. Which implies that Beyoncé conditioned herself into believing men are incapable of monogamy. Bey is admitting that she gets why he fell for the mistress but is upset because, in her mind, she was the woman who was “picked,” so he should only have eyes for her…but he doesn’t.

One of my favorite Beyoncé lyrics of all time is next, where she says “I used to be so strong, but now you took my soul”. Beyoncé’s brand is so tight that when you think of her, you imagine that hyper feminine super confident bombshell with the banging body that can sing and dance her ass off. So any song where she’s utilizing this part of her image will likely be my favorite. Whether it’s one of her confident baddie bops like Diva and Formation or a song that tackles how she isn’t as confident as she appears, like the entire Lemonade album and, of course, this song Resentment. This is what makes this song so great to me, cause the whole first 5 songs are the confident baddie bops. You could also argue that if you aren’t paying attention to the lyrics, Resentment is the only song that mentions her insecurities (but this article you’re reading disproves that lol).

Looking at some more lyrics, she says, “I know you didn’t want to hurt me.” Beloved, of course he did. People don’t cheat on people they love. This line also tells us that she is still in shambles, thinking that this man she’s with is somehow forgivable. Another line I want to address is “I gotta look at her in her eyes and see she’s had half of me”. She considered this man her equal, like in Upgrade U, the other half to her power couple fantasy. But he allowed his temptation to disrupt their united front. Bey repeats “you lied,” which eerily is about the man lying to her but also could be about how their power couple image and relationship is a lie.

This song gives me the vibes of a closer, which is why I believe the events described in Irreplaceable didn’t happen in this little short story Beyoncé is telling us.

Check On It - a very weird closer

I think that since Check On It became a #1 hit as a promo single for the Pink Panther movie and this album’s unconventional sounds making it hard to market to mainstream audiences, her label just threw this on here to get extra money.

This song implies that 2nd option I mentioned earlier is what happened and this song is her after healing from the pain of Resentment. We really went from “you took my soul” to “dip it, pop it, twerk it, stop it” lol.

Deluxe Songs - some are better than others

Songs that don’t relate much to the main album’s theme

1. Welcome to Hollywood - great gowns, beautiful gowns.

2. Flaws and All - about how this man loves her and accepts her worst qualities. This CAN’T be the same man she sang resentment for lol. “I neglect you when I’m working” is something you usually only hear from a man.

3. Listen - connects to the message of the album of breaking free from a toxic man and would be a good closer to the standard version. But is obviously sung from the movie character, Deena Jones’s POV.

Songs that do relate to the main album’s theme

1. Beautiful Liar - underrated bop, essentially this man played both of them, but they agreed to be sisters and forget that man. Continues the concept of “men are great and all but goddamn they fucking suck”

2. World Wide Woman - this song fucking sucks but has a good line where she says “I want love like any world wide woman would need, I know you think that can’t be, still got sensitivity, in my world it’s hard to get authenticity” talking about how successful women like her still want a man to love them.

3. If - Beyoncé’s answer to Rihanna’s Unfaithful. She’s taunting her man by saying he’s not a real man if he lets this other guy take her from him #messybootz c’mon role reversal. I like to believe this is what she was doing between the Ring The Alarm and Irreplaceable section.

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Final Thoughts

Beyoncé is a complicated human being like the rest of us and so the way she presents her view on feminism and gender politics is complicated. The reason why I wanted to write about this album in particular is that I’ve long had various opinions on it. Being a Beyhive member and a progressive with left-leaning politics means that I’m constantly seeing discourse on big mama.

As a polarizing figure, Beyoncé, like all celebrities, might say she’s one thing but do something completely different. Trust and believe, I’ve seen all the discourse on Beyoncé’s capitalism and pick-me ways. And I agree with a lot of them, hence the reason why I pointed out lyrics in this album that “ring the alarm” for me (pun intended). Now it’s impossible for Beyoncé to not be a capitalist; she’s a billionaire who’s married to one of history’s biggest billionaire coons. Which means by proxy Beyoncé’s lowkey a co—GUNSHOTS. Ok! I’ll stop while I’m ahead. But I don’t think Beyoncé is a pick me, at least not in the way she once was.

We have to remember this album B’Day was marketed as Beyoncé’s birthday album, because it came out the week of her 25th birthday in 2006! It was a different time back then! And luckily for us Beyoncé stans, she doesn’t do any interviews. Which means she never has to address this shit, and just show us that her gender politics have grown.

I love B’Day, and it is one of my favorite albums she’s ever made, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t have more to say on Beyoncé’s gender politics. But I leave that up to y’all! If you want me to do deep dives on Self-Titled and Lemonade’s gender politics, let me know. And in the meantime, please take a moment to ask me a question so I can answer it in my Q&A anniversary post that’s coming July 24th!

take the survey pls

Happy 4th, I guess, but I fucking hate it here. There are many issues in this country, and the idea that it promises a “dream” to everyone is simply not true; I’m tired of the lies. Education isn’t properly preparing us for adulthood; we can’t get jobs; the jobs that we can get don’t pay well; these companies are cutting back on employees for AI; and it’s hot af outside cause nobody took climate change seriously omfg.

These past few years of my life have completely awakened me from the idea of the American Dream. For those of you who don’t know, the American Dream is basically America’s PR slogan that claims “The United States is a land of opportunity. If you work hard no matter your background, you’ll make it”. Once you open your eyes, you’ll realize this is more like the American Nightmare, cause all that’s required to live in a dream is endlessly closing your eyes.

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The American Nightmare

I don’t know about y’all, but I was promised that if I worked hard enough, all my problems would be solved…When I was in school, I had this on-campus job where I ran the social media pages of one of the programs. I enjoyed this job as I also got to use my graphic design skills to make flyers and brochures while also combining my toxic relationship with social media; it was perfect. During the summer before senior year, my boss transferred schools, and the program decided not to hire students anymore. They essentially fired me, with the excuse of “we didn’t know you were planning on coming back.” Mind you, I never said I wasn’t, so wtf?!

With a stream of income gone, I got another slap to the face when my grandma died in the first week of my senior year! But I kept telling myself, “Just make it through this semester, and I’ll be good”. Y’all, I had so many breakdowns throughout my senior year that made me realize just how much I resented having to constantly work through pain all the time. I was skipping classes left and right, drinking, flirting with guys i had no business flirting with, drinking, turning assignments in late, drinking, pulling all-nighters trying to pass my classes, drinking, showing up to work late all the time, and being so exhausted to the point where it just felt like life was collapsing around me and also I was drinking to help myself sleep. It was real fucking bad for me!

I made it through fall semester, but spring semester ended up being the exact same! I was lethargic 24/7 and had to constantly force creativity for assignments, which made me burned out. However, I did graduate…with straight Bs instead of my usual all As and a B or 2, but hey, I still did it. I still haven’t done any art or even touched the projects I told myself I’d finish working on after graduating. After grad, I immediately felt the pressure to job hunt and I couldn’t find a job to save my fucking life.

Now, luckily, my retail job (where I still work smh) didn’t fire me for being late all the fucking time. So I was able to transfer back to my home store where my reputation and work ethic are much better. But then I dislocated my knee and couldn’t work for almost 3 months. And I spent most of that time job hunting and feeling bad about not succeeding almost every day. The world was literally just playing in my face all of 2024-2025; that was probably my worst era.

The reason why I brought all this up is that this cycle of experiencing pain and working through it regardless was ingrained into me from a young age and likely in you as well, dear reader. Did any of you watch Princess and the Frog?

“work work work work work work” - Rihanna

America’s PR slogan, as I jokingly call it, is taught to us at a very young age. Especially to racial minorities, which is where we get the “you have to work twice as hard to get half as much” phrase probably all our Gen X/Boomer Black parents taught us. That phrase is so prevalent in our community that when Disney finally gave us our first Black princess, her story was all about working twice as hard for half as much.

Tiana works really hard in hopes to one day run her own restaurant. She’s a disciplined and ambitious dreamer. When she finally makes enough money to buy the fixer-upper she wants, it gets sold to someone who is white. The movie uses coded language like “a woman of your background…” to address the elephant in the room: That even though she had the money to buy it and showed that she’s determined to run it well, her black womanhood (misogynoir) is what caused that door to close in her face. Princess and the Frog starts this story as if Tiana will get her restaurant, but in some unique ring around the rosie method.

SPOILER ALERT for an old ass movie

Tiana does end up getting the building she wanted to make into a restaurant, but only after she married a prince and had her gator friend threaten to eat the renters if they didn’t accept her payment. You see the problem?

I love Princess and the Frog, and Tiana is still my 2nd favorite Disney princess (Mulan is my 1st; we’ll talk about that diva another day). Tiana got her dream after learning to live life fully…because she now has the luxury too as a princess. So instead of finding a way to take power into her own hands, she had to acquiesce to capitalism by marrying a rich man. (Yes, I know, he’s cut off from his inheritance, but my point still stands!) This film, as amazing as it is, doesn’t follow through with the lesson it’s presenting us.

Tiana is the first Black princess Disney added to their canon, and her plot line is work hard, and your dream will come true. They could’ve told this story without giving her the prince or the fixer-upper building she wanted, and it would’ve been more effective. Many Black people sell dinners out of their own homes because it’s the next best thing. Tiana could’ve done something like that! Tiana, throughout the whole movie, keeps mentioning how hard she has to work for her restaurant, and we see that in the beginning, but as the movie goes on and she becomes a frog, we don’t see what other things she could’ve done to get her restaurant except marrying a rich man with social power. I’m not saying Tiana shouldn’t have gotten her dream and a man, but they should’ve shown that she achieved her dream by doing something innovative and not just following the route that’s expected of her.

The reason why the movie doesn’t do this, though, is because Disney is selling us the typical American Dream storyline and doesn’t have the guts to actually discuss how draining it is to achieve the American Dream the traditional way.

The American Dream Isn’t Enough

I did everything I was told, and for a time it felt like anything was possible. If you were a Black child, especially a Black boy, when Obama got into office, it’s very likely you heard something along the lines of “you can be anything cause Obama made it possible”. President Obama became a symbol of possibility for Black youth, the representation of the American Dream working in favor of Black folks.

All of that shit faded away when the Tramp stepped his mangy ass into office, and when he lost that first time, he came back with a vengeance, and the people fell for it. I already did a rant on this political climate months ago, and I’m still pissed about it all. We’re living in hell, and it’s becoming harder and harder every day not to become completely jaded.

I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to write this article (and I still don’t know; I’m winging it) because while I am currently having the most pessimistic thoughts on the world right now, I refuse to cause other people in the world to lose hope.

The reason why I’m making this post is cause I’m frustrated that the American Dream lied to us and we’re expected to celebrate that and encourage others to believe the same lie. We were taught to trust that the system, despite its long history of bigotry, would liberate us.

I don’t want to lose hope; I refuse to lose hope. The fact that I can make blogging a hobby and people enjoy it gives me hope that there are brighter days ahead. We have to be more innovative now, and the only way we’ll ever see significant change is if we collaborate…and follow the footsteps of the French Revolution.

I have my 1st year anniversary here on Substack coming up on July 24th, and I’ll be answering any questions you guys have for me as part of it. So if you have a question you want to ask me, send it with the button below or just put it in a comment. Thank you, divas, in advance, and I hope you all find some joy today and stay cool. Cause it’s hot af out here.

Q&A

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What Is Hetero Slop?

I define “hetero slop” a bit differently from the now-commonly used term. The common definition is heterosexual romances being the staple, even when they aren’t needed. I like to take it a step further and say that hetero slop is the usual crass or inappropriate portrayals of sexuality with no real substance other than (9 times out of 10) fan service and (10 times out of 9) misogyny/queerphobia.

While homophobes have spent centuries branding queerness as perverted and vulgar, they get to be as perverted and vulgar as they want to be without consequences. My definition of hetero slop can also apply to real life, and there is no better example I can give than one where it isn’t just hetero slop but also hetero propaganda. We have to talk about the cishet privilege benefiting Noah Beck’s predatory ass sister, Haley.

How Predators Benefit From Hetero Privilege

When a queer person is accused of rape or molesting a child, it’s the biggest news you’ll see for weeks on end, and they likely will be punished harshly. Well, that hasn’t been the case with Haley Beck.

QUICK RANT:

Y’all, this sick bitch was out here not only raping a teenage boy, but she was also beefing with his girlfriend and falling in love with him. YUCK! And I kid you not, Haley was known around the school for behaving strangely around young boys and mistreating young girls. She still has yet to be fired or even arrested despite the fact that there are over 4,000 text messages she exchanged with this little ass boy.

It’s not even just her, cause there was another teacher who was raping the SAME little boy. And you know what’s more fucked up? This little boy’s parents don’t wanna press charges cause their afraid he won’t get good scholarships to go to college. Y’all, when I heard that shit, I literally felt dizzy and almost fainted. For multiple reasons:

1. Do you know how much you have to hate your child for some shit like this to happen, and you don’t become immediately vindictive?

2. Not to be insensitive or anything, but do you know how many scholarships kids get from writing about their traumas? If he even has the slightest skill in a diaristic style of writing, I’m sure there is an organization of some kind that supports victims or even prioritizes male victims.

And I just got to really quickly say every grown person in this situation is a dirty, mangy ass bitch who needs to be sterilized, and I mean that shit wholeheartedly.

RANT OVER

With this whole situation, I can’t help but wonder how much more distress this little boy’s parents would be under if he were raped by a male teacher. Girl, they would’ve had him in prison by sunset. To address the big ass elephant in the room, the reason why this situation isn’t being treated by the adults with the proper amount of urgency it should be is cause the rapist is a woman and the victim is a boy. There is this idea that little boys can’t be raped by older women, and that is 1000% because of hetero slop telling us that men and boys can never be victimized by a “mere woman”.

Hetero slop is inherently misogynistic as fuck, and because of it, male victims of SA will never view themselves as victims. That’s why Boosie hired prostitutes to rape his son; that’s why men talk about sex in such aggressive manners. The performance of aggression makes them feel as if it’s impossible for them to be victimized. When we look at women, we don’t see them as being capable of being a threat or having power over anyone, which is why female predators get away with rape way more often than you think.

But let’s move on to some lighter examples.

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These Dating Shows Are Hetero Propaganda

Have I seen the show? No, and I likely never will. But I can’t go anywhere (real life and online) without hearing people talk about Love Island, and I would be lying if I said I don’t understand the appeal. I just don’t like reality TV. But I do know it’s just hetero slop based on how people interact with it. I don’t know none of these people’s names but I know there are n****s on there doing homoerotic shit lmfao.

What else is new when it comes to straight men? But the way the internet is talking about it has become a little homophobic. I’ve been seeing people accuse these men of being gay simply based on arbitrary things like following trans women or being friends with queer folks. And y’all, it baffles me how women can literally finger each other till the spout runs dry and people are fine calling them bisexual (sometimes even just curious straight women), but if a man even so much as wears the color pink or carries a tote bag…he’s gay.

Now they are over on that island doing dick checks, and if you want my thoughts on homoeroticism, go click that article I linked above. But the reason I wanted to bring up Love Island is cause with the cast doing all this homoerotic stuff, I’ve noticed lots of homophobia, but specifically biphobia. Bisexual men, get behind me! Women will often reject bisexual men because they don’t want to be with a man whose laid down with another man. But that’s just bullshit, stand on business and call it what it is! These women think queer men all carry AIDs!

I hate to have to be in straight people’s business right now, but it’s forced on me so much, I know how this goes. The straight men are out here rawdogging Susie, Becky, Trina, and Keisha without any protection. The straight women are only on birth control, and sometimes not even that! Straight people as a whole have this preconceived notion that the only “bad” outcome to unprotected sex is pregnancy, and these are the people who don’t get tested ever! Straight men, especially black straight men (for various reasons but mostly generational racial trauma), don’t go to the clinic to get checked! While the straight women only go to the clinic when they find out their n***** fucked a trans girl or a gay boy smh.

Queerness is viewed as a threat to your health, but the same straight people consume content where this isn’t as bad:

Every queer man I know or have known stays on top of their sexual health, and the straights are out here sucking tongues, popping pussy, and swinging dick raw with no safeguards. Cause lowkey, the straights are out spreading HIV and other STDs more. I’m not arguing with anybody about this, just do your research, ho! Here’s a link to start with, and let’s move tf on.

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I’m in my heterophobic era…

And I’m dead serious, too. Some of you are one of the good ones, but most of you populators piss me off. I wrote about queer media a little bit when I dragged the shit out of Snoop Dogg for saying that Buzz Lightyear’s queer couple was too much for his grandkid. You can go check that out if you want, but I just want to talk a little more about compulsive heterosexuality cause it’s gotten out of hand.

I’ll be watching a show or movie, and for absolutely no reason, they’ll add a hetero romantic interest. The Devil Wears Prada sequel gave Andy a man who added nothing but dust and cobwebs. I stopped watching Invincible in S3 because the moment Mark and Eve got together, it was like her character arc vanished and she became his therapist/fleshlight. Hetero romance has become so trash, it’s always been trash, but now it’s actual poisonous garbage. I’m tired of these sloppily written romances. I only watch romances that are queer now. But I did go to see You, Me, and Tuscany to support black romcoms (cause if straight black romcoms aren’t supported, then queer black romcoms won’t even get funded), and that movie sucked. But Halle Bailey was good, like she always is.

This compulsive heterosexuality creates hetero slop because the creators of these stories just assume: Man + Woman = real romance. And that’s not the case, it’s lazy and boring to watch cause no one is actually putting effort into making these stories actually romantic.

Now I don’t have any grandiose message to say but seeing as this is my last essay of pride month this year, I want to end this off by saying: We really need to apply pressure to these straight people because in the most extreme cases they’re getting away with rape like Haley Beck, while in the light cases they’re creating bad media to funnel their bad takes on queer folks. And it ain’t even good TV smh!

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Diva Worship

We cannot talk about this phenomenon without addressing the history of diva worship in queer culture. Diva worship goes way back, probably to the inception of music and film, but one of the best examples that isn’t completely unknown is the impact Judy Garland had on the gays.

Judy Garland was a child actor who experienced a ton of exploitation in Hollywood. With one of the biggest moments of her career being her performance as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, where she was slapped around, put on drugs, and starved, all at the age of 16. Oddly enough, the movie tells the story of Dorothy wanting to escape her humdrum, restrictive life for a place where dreams and wonder become real. The film tells the classic story of “home is where the heart is,” but that message isn’t what touched the gays.

You see, there’s this big “I want” song called Somewhere Over The Rainbow (SOTR) that Dorothy sings at the beginning of the film. An “I want” song is a common method in musicals to explain a character’s dreams/goals in a concise and catchy way (think Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid). SOTR is a ballad about seeking adventure, freedom, and happiness. The song has the word “rainbow” in it, Dorothy is from a farm in Kansas, and she’s transported into this vividly colored land of wacky people who all have dreams of their own. The Wizard of Oz is gay as fuck, and the gays in 1939 were getting their life. So naturally, Dorothy and Judy Garland, by extension, became gay icons.

ASIDE: Gay Icons

A gay icon doesn’t just mean an icon who is gay; while it can be, the common use of this term is to describe a figure who is adored and revered by gays. A gay icon doesn’t have to actually be queer, but they do have to be an ally or, at the very least, neutral on the gays.

OK, Back To Diva Worship!

If you read my posts on The Diva Brand (or noticed that I call my readers divas), then you would know that being referred to as a “diva” isn’t a bad thing. There is power in being viewed as a diva. Divas shift culture, look good, bite back (in self-defense), and/or live above the fray. This is what Judy Garland was to the gays. A figure they could trust and even build language around. That’s how we get the term “friend of Dorothy,” which was used as code for “I’m gay, are you?” to hide from homophobic laws that would ruin people’s lives.

Diva worship didn’t stop at Judy, cause we would soon get Diana Ross, Josephine Baker, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, Madonna, Janet, and so on and so forth. Now we’re in 2026, the decade where everyone is confused about the vibe of this era. Every decade has it’s signature look, but in the 2020s, it’s becoming clearer that the male side of the 2020s look is far removed from what the girls and gays side. When we look at the 2000s, there was boy bands, teen pop, r&b/hip hop collabs, girl groups, chick flicks, parody films, cheesy superhero movies, and lots and lots of reality tv.

Now in the 2020s, we’re seeing boy culture take more and more of a backseat in mainstream spaces. Sure, we have streamers, male country artists, and male rappers having success in culture, but those spaces are primarily associated with incels. A demographic that doesn’t intersect with the girls and gays unless they are talking shit about us. And since the girlies interact with the gays frequently, they become immersed in queer culture and bring it home to their men. Making queer culture the new pop culture.

Dl trade, clock it, tea, shade, read, fish, drag. Our queer lingo has been co-opted so badly that the same straight men who once targeted us with violence and vitriol are now using our words and believing that their women have come up with it. That is ALL a motherfucking lie! The queer community came up with that language as a form of code, like I was saying with friend of Dorothy being used to find community in a safe and obscure way.

Queer culture has completely exploded into a whole new arena where obscurity isn’t possible anymore. Madonna exposed the world to Ballroom culture and voguing, RuPaul exposed the world to the art of drag, shows like Pose, and documentaries like Paris Is Burning exposed the world to trans life. Now we are in an era where queer people run pop culture.

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Who Run The World? Queers!

Back to the conversation on pop boys vs the pop girls; queer culture does not care for men. Isn’t that ironic, lol? What I mean by that is…as men in pop music became more and more hetero presenting, from Prince and Michael who presented themselves as androgynous and metrosexual to Justin Timberlake and Usher who present themselves as the typical Hollywood man with suits and ties, we became less interested in them. All four of these men made songs about fucking women, breaking their hearts, stealing a woman from another man, cheating on the women they had, and being sex pests, but the time period changes how they presented that storytelling. (You can check out my why male popstars suck now for full thoughts on that.)

The queer community controls pop culture, not any actual systems of power, but we control who gets to be seen and heard. It’s the gays who are playing new music in the clubs and not songs from 2006, it’s the gays who buy and stream music constantly, it’s the gays who buy Broadway tickets, who go to concerts, who buy the merch, etc. And if you don’t believe me, remember when DaBaby came out, and everyone thought he was so fine, but when he had that rant about people having AIDS, the gays dropped him like a hot potato? Remember when the City Girls came out, and we all got our lives to the Twerk music video, but also Yung Miami’s tweet about beating her son’s ass if he was gay resurfaced? Since then, Yung Miami has retroactively tried to appeal to the gays again because she knows that having a queer fanbase is stability for a pop star.

When a pop girl wants to connect with the gay audience, she goes on RuPaul’s Drag Race. When an artist has a flop, they go make a house/disco song because they know the gay clubs are gonna eat it up. And I say this all the time, but if it wasn’t for the gays, a lot of female artists wouldn’t have the longevity they do. (DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER, SHOOT THE MESSAGE!) Pop music is so extremely ageist that by the time a fem artist turns 35, it’s hard for her to get hits anymore cause her label stops caring, she gets replaced by new girls, and depending on her brand beforehand, it’s even harder to rebrand her. (In that last point, what I mean is, if she were branded as a sex symbol or girl next door, it would be harder to do that with a 40+ year old woman cause society tells girls they’re only sexy when they can’t legally drink.) The gays don’t give af how old their fave gets, they just want more iconic moments, looks, and hits. That’s why Madonna is popping again right now, cause she realized that if she makes music for the gays and connects her audience to a young gay icon like Sabrina, she would have a chance at a hit again. (Although this rollout has been very strange…)

The pop boys know having queer fanbases will stabilize their trajectory and that is why they acting in such a manner now. Sombr is kissing Taylor Swift’s ass, Harry Styles is dressing like he got lost in Elton John’s wardrobe, and even Benson Boone is posting pictures of himself in a dress. Look at this!

Sombr knows Taylor is a gay icon to many (not me), so he’s associating himself with her, Harry knows that playing with fashion gets him attention, and Benson knows he’s been reheating Freddie Mercury’s nachos since his debut. But then you also have Shawn Mendes, who got so scared of being perceived as gay that he pivoted into somehow being even more painfully straight and is now flopping.

Having a gay audience is so profitable that companies pander to us every Pride month. Now, not nearly as much as they once did, likely due to the resurgence of the republican regime, but hey, it still happened! While queerness is losing its grip on systemic laws and access to power, we still run pop culture.

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F SLURS, MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

If you’re a snailmix subscriber, then you know that I’m a firm believer in the idea that pop culture controls all. So while we might be losing the battle for access to systems of power, it doesn’t mean that it will be gone forever. Contrary to the indoctrination ingrained in all of us from a young age, queerness is extremely powerful.

To see the patriarchal system and not partake in the bullshit is a power that the cishets just can’t comprehend. Kevin Hart couldn’t host the Oscars after his homophobic tweets about beating his son if he caught him playing with dolls resurfaced. Beyoncé, instead of doing the culture-vulture thing and making Renaissance from her cishet painfully straight woman perspective, decided to collaborate with queer people from Ballroom and niche spaces so that that house/disco record could sound as authentic as possible.

None of these things would have happened if it weren’t for the influence queerness has on popular culture. I noticed it, the celebs noticed it, companies noticed it, and some of you might have also noticed it. But it appears that this known concept gets treated as a quiet secret we can’t say out loud, so as not to piss off homophobes. But who gives a fuck about them?! We’re here, we’re queer, and we have influence on every single form of media and trend you enjoy. So to the cishets (especially those of you who have a problem with us)…you’re welcome!

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