Queer
Tom Rasmussen
Writer / Drag Queen / Named number 5 on Mariah Carey Fan most hated list, 2017
Writer / Drag Queen / Named number 5 on Mariah Carey Fan most hated list, 2017
Queer
Photography and styling Simon Foxton. Styling assistance Wilma Sieblink .Grooming Michael Boadi Models James at Crawfords. Edward, Michael, Luther, Raymond and Paul at THF. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day of its kind.
But in attending for myself, and so many, the day of Pride in London is not one of safety, or where we reclaim the streets. It's actually one which feels silencing, whitewashing and totally generalising. "Stop fucking moaning" I hear you cry.
How many times have you decided to quit dating? How many times have you squawked "I'm done with looking!"? How many times have you come out of yet another break-up and questioned whether you'll be single forever?
"Boys don't wear princess dresses," the ex-boyfriend of the radiant Nicole Scherzinger broadcast to his 5.7 million-strong Insta fanbase, deriding his princess-dress-wearing nephew. "I'm so sad right now," he added. Well so are we all, Lewis. So are we all.
Trolling is commonplace in 2017. But chances are you didn't know the word in its contemporary meaning came from a secret gay language? Well that's the point. This secret gay language - known to those in the know as 'Polari' - was passed orally from gay man to gay man (and sometimes to women), and was intentionally kept under wraps.
All photos by Edo Chang Vienna holds more than 400 balls a year, and most of them are places of conservatism and tradition. Men and women dance the Viennese waltz together; debutantes are presented in a tiara and diamonds to a suitor suitably reputable to marry; etiquette, dress code, and family background are paramount values; and any diversion from these somewhat archaic values would have you deemed unsuitable for ball culture.
At university I was, for want of not trying to sound like a big headed asshole, kind of known for the way I dressed. It wasn't always good - there was a phase where I wore nothing but a nun's cassock and a dip-dyed wig, and another where I wore teeny tiny dresses held-back by body harnesses to my Veterinary Anatomy practicals (don't worry, I quit the vet thing in favour of said dresses).
Working Class
Today Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, published the findings of a recent Freedom of Information request which looked to profile the diversity - in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic background - of students who received a place at Oxbridge in the last seven years.
(Top photo: Someone who is not illiterate, reading a book to a child. Photo: dassel, via Pixabay) I was 17 when I finished all 291 pages of Belle De Jour: Secret Diary of a Call Girl on holiday in Benidorm with my girlfriends.
There are countless ways to demarcate social class - economic capital, cultural capital, educational capital, ancestry, how many holidays you take a year. It's complicated, and it's changing all the time. Once upon a time not going to work was the signifier of they gentry, of those who simply didn't need to work because of their financial and familial status.
Someone told me the other day that trying to define what the terms 'middle class' and 'working class' mean is the most categorically middle class, privileged thing you can do. I think it's croquet, but that's a close second.
Bravo Oxford University. Last week the Student's Union announced their new 'Class Act' scheme - where two working-class students will be buddied up, allowing them a space to explore their anxieties such as "black tie and subfusc" on entering such an excruciatingly elitist environment. Well fusc that.
Fashion
Racial diversity and fashion are tricky bedfellows. Not because the two don't naturally go together, but because the fashion industry, in its unending quest for what's next, is guilty of omitting voices and faces of colour, both on the runway and behind-the-scenes.
Lily Bling is the undisputed controversial queen of social media. The thread through everything he does - whether it's his endless sateen-filled soirées, his "#fingering" with best friend and partner in crime Daniel John Sansom, or his outrageous, and often explicit, Instagram stories - is glamour.
"I have a very long history with Converse. I have worn - I wear - Converse all the time," Jonathan Anderson emotes. "When I first went to university in Washington DC I became completely obsessed by James Dean to the point where it was ridiculous.
Any writer worth their salt knows that opening a piece of writing with an Oxford English Dictionary definition relegates you to the trash-pile of journalism. So, instead, the dictionary.com definition of viral is: (adj.) becoming very popular by circulating quickly from person to person, especially through the internet.
Music
Expectant fans packed Manchester Arena for Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You tour, desperate to see her add perhaps a sprinkle of snow to her usual oeuvre of chart-topping bangers... only to be met with a setlist of truly niche proportions.
Celine Dion is arguably the last of her kind. A star whose careers spans more than three decades and whose whole existence is dedicated to the "ultimate honour": to entertain. Others in this dynasty are divas such as Shirley Bassey, Barbara Streisand and Liza Minnelli, stars who have built legacies on sheer, unflinching vocal talent and an unwavering commitment to the art of The Show.
Somehow 15 years have passed since VICE arrived in London and the editors would have to push piles of magazines around the city asking pubs to please take them. Since then we've grown, conceiving tiny content babies that have grown into leading industry voices (see us, here - Noisey - recklessly tooting our own horn).
"One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The closing words of America's Pledge of Allegiance were some of the opening words for Gaga's Super Bowl 51 half-time performance, just before leaping off the roof of the NRG Stadium in Houston; abseiling a la Tom Cruise circa Mission Impossible into a roaring pit of football fans.