Kevin the Female Gaze Guy

Kevin the Female Gaze Guy

  

    Recently on tik tok, a new star has risen and his name is Kevin. In a series of thirst traps, Kevin managed to capture the hearts of several women on tik tok who declared him a master of the female gaze. Note here that only a couple of women said this. Sometimes women can be wrong. One who stumbles upon this trend might be wondering “what is the female gaze?” and I cannot provide a solid answer. I always have been under the impression that the female gaze is simply being able to view people as actual humans and not just sexual objects, but Kevin’s case seems to be a little different. His talent is looking nervous and then looking seductive. That’s it. That is all he had to do to finally understand what women want. What an accomplishment for women all over the world! Kevin’s fame has turned sour though as past attempts at tik tok content have come to the limelight. It turns out that Kevin may not be an ally to women. Honestly shocking that a man turns out to be sexist! His past content includes a skit where he beats up a bisexual girl for liking Tyler the Creator and an absolute zinger of a sketch where he pretends to be a boyfriend coming home to his pregnant girlfriend, then when discovering the pregnancy he beats the girls stomach until she bleeds out of her mouth. The joke there is that he is terminating the pregnancy. There are several others where the joke of the video is that he is assaulting women. Kevin has tried to distance himself from these videos claiming they are not him, but it does not take a detective to realize that these videos are in fact him. Kevin has also not been taking criticism lightly. On his twitch streams he is either sexy lip syncing to his chat or reacting to duets/stitches to his video. These reactions end with him either making a joke about the person’s appearance or insinuating that his chat has to hold him back from saying something offensive. The lesson to be learned here is that we do not need to be hyping men up this much, or anyone for that matter. If you are going to put a man on the pedestal as the epitome of the female gaze then do not drag other women down with you. 

Here is a nice video to summarize the situation at hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm0ViqLldI4

The “Acting Fruity with the Boys” Apocalypse

    Everyone knows who Drake is. He has given us gems such as Hotline Bling, the line “she said she a lesbian girl me too”, and his most… interesting… new song with 21 Savage accusing Megan Thee Stallion of lying about getting shot. This post is not in defense of Drake. I am a Megan Thee Stallion supporter for life and I fully back Ethel Cain releasing the amish upon him. However there is a new trend online centered around the song Rich Flex, which is featured on his new collab album with 21 Savage. In these videos people depict Drake as “acting like a girl” or “acting gay” to essentially make fun of him. Now, again, I am not a Drake fan, but this trend is a clear indication that within a straight world, LGBTQ+ people are just a punchline. The funny bit of every one of these videos is that Drake is acting gay. Here is a playlist of said tik tok trend (including 21 Savage’s reaction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p7xhr2JBRA . Some of the creators in this compilation are part of the community, but some are not and I think it is pretty obvious who. 

    These videos are not malicious and I personally chuckled a little when I saw the roblox one, but the issue lies in the fact that this joke has been done so many times in an epidemic I call “acting fruity with the boys”. You see straight young boys/men across the country pretending to be gay with their friends, but saying “no homo” to cancel it out. They think pictures of men kissing or a man posing in a “feminine” way is just the pinnacle of comedy. They have words such as fruity and zesty randomly dispersed throughout their vocabulary. They just cackle, they love those jokes so much. To quote Princeton student/influencer Griffin Maxwell Brooks “being gay is the ultimate form of public humiliation”. It is a genuine issue that so many people do not take the LGBTQ+ community seriously because it has immense effects on an already marginalized group. With a constant feeling of being the butt of the joke, LGBTQ+ people (especially youth) are susceptible to bullying which in turn contributes to the statistic that they are at an increased risk for suicide. The Trevor project found that “LGBTQ young people report lower rates of attempting suicide when they have access to LGBTQ-affirming spaces”. The Rich Flex trend is of course not a direct cause of these issues, but jokes can sometimes be the beginning of a slippery slope towards “edgelord” comedy, bullying, and harassment. 

    Now, people can tell me that the joke of the Rich Flex trend is just that Drake is being flirty with 21 and it’s just kind of funny to think about. However female and male performers are singing seductively to each other all the time, yet it nevers becomes a comedy trend at least to the level of the Drake one. Let me bring in another Drake example. In the song Only, with Nicki Minaj, Drake spends his lyric time expressing how sexually attracted to her he is. Just to really drive home the point, no one made an entire tik tok trend mocking him for this. For reference, here are the lyrics: 

I never fucked Nicki 'cause she got a man

But when that's over then I'm the first in line

And the other day in her Maybach

I thought goddamn, this is the perfect time

We had just come from that video

You know LA traffic, how the city slow

She was sitting down on that big butt

But I was still staring at the titties though

Yeah, low-key or may be high-key

I been peeped that you like me you know

Who the fuck you really wanna be with besides me?

I mean, it doesn't take much for us to do this shit quietly, I mean

She say I'm obsessed with thick women and I agree, yeha

That's right I like my girls BBW, yeah

Type that wanna suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you, yeah

So thick that everyone else in the room is so uncomfortable

Ass on Houston Texas, but the face look just like Claire Huxtable

Oh, yeah, you the man in the city when the mayor fuck with you

The NBA players fuck with you

The bad ass bitches doing makeup and hair fuck with you

Oh, that's 'cause I believe in something, and I stand for it

And Nicki if you ever tryna fuck

Just give me the heads up so I can plan for it (Pinkprint, ayy)

Now for comparison, here are Drake’s Rich Flex lyrics:

… 21, can you do some' for me? (21)

Can you hit a lil' rich flex for me? (21)

And 21, can you do sum' for me? (21, 21)

Drop some bars to my pussy ex to me

And 21 (21), can you do some' for me? (Yeah)

Can you talk to the opps necks for me? (Okay)

21, do your thing, 21, do your thing (21)

Do your thing, 21, do your thing

    Of course though, Drake being attracted to 21 Savage is funny because it means he is gay! Now, the people making this trend aren’t, in most cases, genuinely hateful people. They are just trying to blow up on tik tok and I honestly respect the grind, but I cannot look past the greater implications this trend has of societal attitudes. There does not need to be a battle between the LGBTQ+ people and the straight community. All people are asking for is acceptance and a chance to live a fulfilling life so lets maybe pack up the gay jokes and save them for another day. I am sure there are other things to joke about. My main message here to the straight community is that gay jokes are just not for you! You just don't get it!

Ethel Cain

    Ethel Cain, who’s real name is Hayden Silas Anhedönia, is an artist I have recently discovered. She is a transgender woman who’s artistic endeavors include singing, songwriting, and music production. She was born into a Southern Baptist family in Perry, Florida which greatly influences her music and characters in the stories she tells across her lyrics. First coming out at as gay as a preteen and eventually coming out as a bisexual trans-woman, her Christian small town community made her feel alienated. In a New York Times interview she describes her religious counselor being “the first person in my whole life to ever tell me I wasn’t going to hell,”. One thing that I find fascinating about her music is that it is meant to be consumed as a story from the characters of her own creation, Anhedönia or Ethel Cain. She explores the southern aesthetic of gospel music and Gregorian chants, while also bringing forth darker realities filled with killers, drugs, and religious traumas. 

    Ethel Cain, which is her stage name, has a growing discography. She has three EPs titled Carpet Bed, Golden Age, and Inbred. Earlier this year she released her debut studio album entitled Preacher’s Daughter. This album received high praise and I believe is a great gateway into the world of her songwriting as the album tells the story of the character Ethel Cain running away from home until she meets her demise to a cannibalistic psychopath. A pretty insane debut album.  There are plenty of articles which follow the complexity of each track, but I would like to highlight two which impressed me the most. These being “American Teenager” and “Ptomelea”. The second track on the album “American Teenager” is a coming of age song battling with the idealized life American teens long to experience with themes of religious questioning. It intersects multiple genres of rock, country, and pop making it a nostalgic listen. Then you reach track nine and the genre has completely flipped, showcasing just how complex Ethel’s storytelling abilities are. It feels like a satanic soundtrack of a horror movie. The title of the song “Ptolomea” most likely is a reference to Dante’s Inferno. The third zone of the ninth and final layer of hell is named after Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, who betrayed and murdered guests in his own home, condemning him to one of the deepest layers of hell. It is the climax of the album filled with sounds and words of betrayal and eerie threatening whispers. The drastic shift in sound and lyrics proves once again that Ethel Cain has an undeniable talent to take her own real world experiences and curiosities, and turn them into an immersive story. I highly recommend looking into her music, even if it is just a one time listen. Her real experiences with gender expression and a Southern Baptist upbringing create a remarkable discography. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Cain 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/arts/music/ethel-cain-preachers-daughter.html

https://www.vogue.com/article/ethel-cain-givenchy-campaign-interview

https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/ethel-cain-preachers-daughter-tour-interview

My Grandma is a Feminist Icon

My Grandma is a Feminist Icon

A feminist icon can simply be described as a powerful woman, a person who you can look up to and admire, and that is what my grandmother is. She has lived an incredible life and seems to be expert at many things (with the exception of setting up a google doc). I am not a Sally Davidson expert, but I have witnessed enough to say that she is an icon. She was a successful psychiatric nurse and career woman, but also a successful mother and grandmother. As I have grown up, I have come to realize how much she has dedicated her life to other people. From the moment my brother and I were born, there was going to be no crying at Nana's house. She went out of her way to make sure we had plenty of toys, shows, and food so that her house was always going to be a happy place. As her own mother got older, she made sure every aspect of her final years were taken care of and even formed relationships with nurses and caregivers working at my great grandmother’s. My grandmother is a rare type of person, someone anyone would be lucky to meet. 

Nana Davidson seems to be an expert in so many fields. She is truly a girlboss for that. She is an incredibly amazing person to talk to. She listens and always knows how to respond in any situation. She is the type of person to always be prepared. If you need gum, a wet wipe, a snack, or literally anything, she will have it. One thing which amazes me every time is her involvement with animals. One second she could be judging at a dog show and the next she will be assisting in the birth of lambs (my grandparents own sheep which is pretty cool). Her other skills include single handedly piecing together our family history through old documents and other artifacts and decorating her home to reflect each holiday and season as it comes. Sally Davidson is an incredible woman and it is safe to say she is a feminist icon. To conclude the blog post I have included a picture of her and my late great-grandmother meeting and having a quick chat with Barack Obama.