Barbiemania htg s peak summer 2023 helped one 30-year-old wrer release the childhood shame he felt when playg wh Barbie dolls as a young gay child.
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Alias: @Gay bot Chat Room. As a 30-year-old gay man, I’ve met a lot of other queer people who also hid parts of themselv childhood.
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Experimentg wh femy the safety of the home — even somethg as mcule as selectg girl characters vio gam and livg virly through her abily to kick ass — seems to be a shared gay experience for many of . None of this mak a person gay, of urse.
It feels remiscent of the adoratn that gay fans hold toward old Hollywood beti like Joan Crawford and Judy Garland, or the pageant-style exaggeratns of femy that unrpned so much of early drag culture. Barbie has been the subject of the same gay diva worship over the years, and Gerwig’s film promently featurg LGBTQ+ actors feels like a nod to that history. Part of Barbie’s gay appeal might be that, spe beg plastic and unmalleable, she n transform herself to anythg: doctor, lawyer, judge, journalist, and vet, or whatever Mattel thks will sell the most dolls.
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) As the world’s most famo doll, she has been st as both an aspiratnal hero and a rctive villa — the gay world, this polarizg dualy often turns women to ins. After I me out as gay, I spent a lot of my younger adult life reilg when people said that they “already knew.
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Now, I feel proud of my ltle gay self for havg the urage to play wh those fabulo dolls — and of my parents for buyg me the toys I wanted, not the on I was supposed to like. She wore a red sequned drs and my head her hair was bigger than Dolly Parton’s, although is highly likely that uld be me leang to the gay fantasy.
While eventually I would e to realise I am also a gay man, long before my gay shame me the shame of beg a boy whose bt iend was a Barbie.
In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.
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“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them, ” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Gay Water, however, is out and proud. The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny.
“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self, ” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. He thought of creatg Gay Water about a year ago while on a vatn wh his iend that had got a job wh the beverage dtry. The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail.
HOW MUCH GAY?
Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water. “Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg. For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch.