this whole taylor thing really ain’t that serious but it does irk me because it’s her fans and the wide range of people she reaches that will take what she’s doing as genius and revolutionary, and she will never reference alaska in any of it because straight artists constantly and consistently take inspiration from drag artists and/or gay artists and profit MILLIONS off of it, while artists like alaska do it 100% better and originally and do not get the same benefits. and that sucks. like y'all are naive if you don’t think at least one member of taylor’s team was aware of the highly publicized way alaska reclaimed her hate comments and death threats and threat to her career/public image, learned how effective it was, and used it as inspiration for taylor’s album promo. i don’t even think taylor is aware of it. and there lies the problem: straight mainstream artists can use gay/drag artists’ work as inspiration, claim it as their own intellectual property, and never even know who they stole it from because they don’t pay attention to the people who helped create the pop culture they drown themselves in. it’s not about “stealing” it’s about giving credit to a group of people (and individual people) who comparatively get no recognition for the things they do to inspire more mainstream artists. so these amazing lgbt+ artists continue to fall into the “underground” category instead of getting paid the millions that these mainstream artists do or getting as widespread recognition for it. it’s speaking to a larger phenomenon. like, example, alaska “steals” shit all the time from other drag artists, but she always credits them and uses them in ways that publicize that original artists’ work, instead of claiming them as original ideas. it uplifts them both. and it’s even shittier considering that alaska is one of the most high profile drag queens in the world right now and she still isn’t given credit for A LOT of the stuff she does that inspires mainstream artists.
