And Now This: Popular Phrases That Originated In The Drag World

[Initech]

Ever called someone "shady" when they dissed your new shoes? Have you shouted "werk, gurl!" when a friend strutted down the hall in their new outfit? These popular terms seemed to come out of almost nowhere, but they didn't: Their origins are in the gay community. More specifically, they're in the drag community.

Before you told your friends you were "serving some Starbucks barista realness" and posting it on Instagram, the queens at the drag balls were using "realness" to describe passing. Before you exclaimed "yaass" when a celebrity favorited your tweet, RuPaul's Drag Race had been using it for nearly a decade.

Yes, slang from the drag community has gone mainstream. On some level, it may seem like a form of appropriation, on the level of Madonna's "Vogue," which she took from the drag community and claimed as her own. But, with acknowledgment of origin and mutual respect, these terms can become cornerstones of modern vernacular — as they have.

To celebrate the end of Pride, let's take a look at where the terms you probably love using came from.

http://mic.com/articles/121464/rupauls-drag-race-shade-yaaasss-vocabulary

[Kurovski]

1. The idea of appropriation is a dreadful thing.

Unless someone is exploiting an individual for personal gain, and without renumeration.

Especially in a country like the USA where all have very, very different backgrounds and cultures.

the "appropriation punishment panels" are like hammer-lock copyright laws, they destroy creativity and growth.