BabaSHOOK: The 2017 Moments That Rocked Gay Twitter (So Far)

Leo West
June 23, 2017
Categories

Gay Twitter is known to react to cultural moments with wild abandon and in 2017 it has been no different. Below are the moments that left Gay Twitter shook—Babashook in this case—to its core.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Valentina Elimination

Season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race has been a bit of a snooze fest, to be quite frank. Everything changed in episode 9 when the gaggiest gag-worthy lip-sync between contestants Nina Bonina Brown and front-runner Valentina. Valentina started the lip-sync with the mask that she had worn for the runway still covering her mask which prompted Ru to cut the lip-sync short. “Take off you mask,” the icon told the contestant and Valentina reluctantly obliged. It became clear soon after Ariana Grande’s “Greedy” began again that Valentina did not know the words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l_hgJEUBcY

The shining star was eliminated, which prompted ALL THE REACTIONS:

https://twitter.com/kevinpokeeffe/status/866735584932495360

https://twitter.com/leolonnywest/status/865902976392679424

(OK, that’s me.)

Bottom line: never displease Ru, or she will eliminate you even if you’re serving #flawlesslooks.

Punch Slap GIF by RuPaul's Drag Race - Find & Share on GIPHY

Ivanka Trump gets DRAGGED by Twitter

Advisor and Assistant to the President of the United States of America Ivanka Trump has a complicated relationship with her audience. Her speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention sounded to many like the words of her father’s opponent. She is known to talk about liberal causes without actually putting words into actions and her continued support of her father’s administration is problematic at best. The now famous Saturday Night Live sketch “Complicit” speaks for itself. So when girl tweeted her support for the LGBTQ community and #PrideMonth…

…Gay Twitter dragged the political opportunist for filth.

https://twitter.com/TimFederle/status/870697658410704898

https://twitter.com/ira/status/870453688891867137

https://twitter.com/ColeEscola/status/870501420218200065

https://twitter.com/prasejeebus/status/870461177129730050

https://twitter.com/juliothesquare/status/871461635075997697

Ivanka: next time you want to support the LGBTQ community, maybe do more than tweet. As much as this gay man ADORES Twitter and understands its power, know that actions speak louder than words.

Moonlight Wins Best Picture

We all know the infamous story by now from this year’s Academy Awards: It involves two Hollywood icons, an incorrect card, and probably the most mortified production assistant in television history. Yes, it was up to Warren Barren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to announce the Best Picture Winner and poor Ms. Dunaway said “La La Land” with a surprising amount of confidence, knowing what we know now.  

La La Land’s cast and crew made it up on stage and spoke for a full two minutes before producer Jordan Horowitz had to alert the billion people watching that Moonlight had actually won. Moonlight is the first LGBTQ-centric movie to win Best Picture and one of the only Best Pictures to deal with the issues black America is facing with an all-black cast. Here are some of the best reactions from Gay Twitter for this momentous occasion:

https://twitter.com/kevinpokeeffe/status/837075237426585601

https://twitter.com/kevinpokeeffe/status/836215572299984899

https://twitter.com/BrianJMoylan/status/836255870791073793

https://twitter.com/e_alexjung/status/836220078718877697

But of all the social media moments this year, the biggest Gay Twitter moment exploded just this month.

C’mon Gay Twitter, Let’s Get Babashook

The Babadook is now queer icon. The monster, from the eponymous 2014 film in which he terrorizes a newly-widowed mother and her son, has took off as a symbol of LGBTQ pride.

The origins of the Babadook-is-queer-and-not-here-for-your-heteronormative-bullshit, like the monster itself, are somewhat hard to pin down.

Some say we can point to Tumblr—where most good memes are born—for the start of Babadook realness from an October 2016 post. Others say that drag queen Lucy Balls got the trend going with this now iconic and spooky lip-sync in January of this year:

Talk about slaying the game: She haunted the game, terrorized it, and then convinced the game to murder its own son.

Writer, Producer, and Gay Twitter icon John Paul Brammer tweeted this in February:

https://twitter.com/jpbrammer/status/832254616121274369

Once the Babadook’s sexuality was a known entity, social media was LIVING FOR ITS EBENEZER SCROOGE, ABE LINCOLN, LEAH-REMINI-WITH-A-NEW-MANICURE FANTASY LQQKS.

https://twitter.com/itgetsbedder/status/872170458485055488

https://twitter.com/alex_abads/status/872532485409828865

https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/872295391206703104

The ghoulish beauty is even getting in on social justice:

And you know our girl showed up at Prides and Equality Marches across the country this month:

https://twitter.com/kylebuchanan/status/873967160485330944

Memes and social media moments can happen at any time. Thank goodness that Gay Twitter will be here to spill the tea when necessary.

God bless, and happy Friday. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVgLTzsj-lE/?taken-by=leolonnywest

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