I work with young adults. They love drag queen content. They’re popular right now, and that popularity may wane as something new comes along. That’s the definition of ‘fad’.
The increased visibility through popularity has also caused bigotry to be turned against them, as happens to any visible queer person or group. Example: A female boxer is shown in the media being able to punch good > bigots see it > they make bigotry.
It would be nice if the bigotry was the initial driver for popularity, though, as that’s a good social defence mechanism.
I understand perfectly well what the word “fad” means, It’s why I’m criticising the use of it, and no amount of excuses you make for yourself will make it ok to frame why drag queens are all over the news now, as that.
Bigotry indulges in fads, too. That’s why people are regretting having so much unsold anti-Biden merch.
I’m autistic, and I don’t have a negative view of the word ‘fad’, because I approach terms in a logical and factual way. If you can explain to me why I should see the term ‘fad’ as diminishing the value and importance of things it applies to, I will change my language.
To me, humanity itself is a metaphorical example of a fad. All over the place for a bit, and then will inevitably disappear and not be remembered. That’s just how things work, because conditioned existence is transient / impermanent.
If this is an excuse then, yes, fine, me being autistic and logical and not understanding what you mean is an ‘excuse’. I’m bullied for that all the time, because society is ableist and others people for being different. As a member of the GSRM community in two ways, I experience it all the time for that, as well. You get to the point that you just move on from what strangers think.
I assume you mean to explain that ‘fad’ in pop culture and ‘targeted and harassed’ are mutually exclusive terms. I have absolutely no inkling how that can be possibly true, so I am all ears. To me, they often go together, because popularity > notoriety > bigotry. Just like how Tom Hanks was targeted by QAnon for being involved in CSA - they weren’t going to pick some other Tom who wasn’t famous, were they? There’s no power in going after a nobody. And I use ‘power’ in a very human, twisted, self-serving, based-on-falsehood way.
If you think that I said that BEING a drag queen, or belonging to a queer community, was a ‘fad’, then I did not explicitly say that, and any implication is read into my statement by others.
It also helps that drag queens are very popular right now, and the media is all about chasing fads.
The popularity is the fad, not the existence. Something doesn’t only exist because it’s popular: the fact that I (temporarily) exist is proof of that.
When media moves on from drag queens to some other topic, drag queens will not exist.
Although media comparatively ignores drag kings, that does not mean they fail to exist.
Fads don’t make something important. It just means that thing sells. The end of a fad doesn’t make something unimportant. It just means the market for it has reduced. To me, there is no moral weight to something being a fad or not, because I don’t really care about popularity.
If me saying that media chases things that makes them money is controversial, then I guess (human-created social) reality is controversial. Which it should be, because humans have created social systems that work to oppress as many people as possible, making the world worse.
