King Princess Reminded Me to Love My Gayness

A dykon in her own right.

Photo from the Pussy is God music video

What is a dykon, you ask? I'll provide two definitions—the first is from Urban Dictionary, and it states that a dykon is "any celebrity or cultural icon who is popular among lesbians." Yet, UD doesn't state that this person has to be a lesbian, interestingly enough, but when said dykon does identify as a lesbian, she holds even more powers. Enter the second definition—a dykon is, in the simplest of terms, the musician King Princess. I choose to label her as a definition, as she seems to define every aspect of what a dykon truly is. A dyke? Most definitely so. Popular among lesbians? You got it, as told by the swarm of lesbians who made an appearance at her show two nights ago in the cozy venue of 9:30 Club in DC. 

I remember first discovering the artist, who goes by Mikaela Straus IRL, right when her debut EP was released earlier in 2018. I assumed I would give her only one listen and give up as she seemed to be defined as a pop artist whose fanbase consists of teens who love The 1975 and Halsey. Yet, she broke these limits as her irresistible voice in her first song, "Make My Bed," lured me in, both in her musical style and in the singer herself. Was I in love with the music, or did my absurd amount of queer desire for the musician get confused for admiration of her songs? Five more listens and an extremely long IG stalking session later, I realized it was exactly both. Discovering that she's not only very gay, but also loved by every queer woman and resembles my type almost too perfectly, sprouted an immediate obsession. I realized that I had no one like this while figuring out my sexuality, aka a gay musician who sings about queer desire like Julien Baker sings about vulnerability—like any other part of life. Her queer normalization not only was evident in her music, but also her everyday life, as shown by her Instagram: calling herself a "dyke bitch" and "daddy" several times, posting about Alison Bechdel, and wearing gay 'fits like this:

View this post on Instagram

farm dyke

A post shared by miss king (@kingprincess69) on Jul 11, 2018 at 9:48am PDT

So, eight months later, I had the privilege of taking this queer desire and making it realized when I saw her in the flesh, where my small crush transformed into a gay obsession. I wished to both be her and be under her, the classic lesbian narrative that seems to be at the center of all of our unattainable crushes. While I sometimes feel this way for other lady musicians (Alana Haim and Angel Olsen being at the top of my list), it was comforting to know that Mikaela was just as gay as the rest of us. And even more powerfully, I wasn't the only one in the audience who felt this way—I was surrounded by a flock of other lesbians and queer women who also held this queer desire, where the crowd unabashedly proclaimed their gayness for the woman throughout her hour-long set. She returned the love, consistently asking, "How are you gays feeling?" and even telling us we impregnated her just due to how much we praised her.

In between every song, her goofy smiles and overtly queer comments made her admiration for her fans more than obvious, where a large percentage of the fans were out and proud queer teens. Even if these 16-year-olds weren't this gay outside of the gay safe zone, as KP calls it, this space fostered this form of self-love, which is so crucial for queer youth that are not yet entirely sure where they fit into our heteronormative society. Many say King Princess is the reason why they feel comfortable in their queer skin at such a young age, and I only wish I had that when growing up. Comparing my experience as a 20-year-old, where I've fortunately been out and vocal about my queerness for years now, to those of the baby gays who populated most of the venue was an almost surreal experience—I realized that this might have been their first time being surrounded by this many other queer people, all joined collectively by their love of her music, their love of the musician herself, and, most importantly, their love of their own gay identities.

Photo from her Instagram

And the music! The! Music! She became even more of a dykon through her performance, playing her old hits that organized everyone in perfect harmony, all belting her very queer lyrics in unison. She begins one of my favorites, "1950," with "I hate it when dudes try to chase me," and a fan immediately yells "me, too!" and she continues to sing, "But I love it when you try to save me 'cause I'm just a lady," implying that "you" is indeed a woman. The crowd sings the full song with her, where we chant the gay love ballad both to her and for ourselves, confirming our queerness with the simplest of lyrics. We sing about pussy together, we dance to new, unreleased tunes together, we feel gay emotions during a new song she tells us to "grab the nearest dyke to slow dance with" for.

While at times it feels that queer messages sometimes give off the typical "love is love" undertone, where queer love is no different than what is deemed normative, or even that the personal is political, King Princess is instead very personal just to show that she really loves being gay and that you should, too. Instead of singing about the oppression of queer lives, she instead sings about how wonderful our lives can be as queer people and that queer love may just be better than its hetero counterpart. She normalizes her queerness in a way where her fans who may be questioning can do the same, making her the queen of Big Dyke Energy.

While I have been vocal in the past about loving my gayness, I, at times, forget to practice this form of self-love, especially when I feel detached from my own identity or feel the conflicting pain of being a lesbian rather than the infinite amount of shameless love. But Mikaela reminded me to love my gayness, to love my gay peers, to embrace my queer desire, and to never modify who I am just for someone's comfort. I'm exuberant that the rest of the crowd could also feel this revelation, especially for those who haven't been able to come to terms with it yet. And maybe that's why King Princess holds so many relentless fans—not just due to how good she looks in a pair of Dickies or her insane amount of musical talent, but because she preaches that being gay is not only okay, but the best way to be. Or, as she tells in a recent interview, "It's not trendy to be gay—it's just everyone has been gay, we been had been gay for so long! And now people are just getting hype to it, and that makes me super happy." Well said, Mikaela. Well said.

Listen to her music here, and watch her videos here.

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Janelle Monáe Showed Me What a Queer Space Should Truly Look Like

Her music extends far past hard-hitting vocals and catchy singles.

Photo from her Instagram, @janellemonae.

The first time I was introduced to Janelle Monáe was at a different time than most—no, it wasn't with "Tightrope" that practically soundtracked every commercial in 2011 or even with the release of Dirty Computer this year that changed everything I once knew about pop music. It was in 2009, the year that my dance teacher decided to only use songs from Monáe's first album for the competition jazz group dances for each company at the studio. I vividly remember dancing to "Violet Stars Happy Hunting!" and the older company dancing to "Many Moons"—two songs that portray Monáe's motif of space and Afrofuturism that we continue to see throughout the rest of her work. As a mere ten-year-old, I only thought this tune was catchy, a bit strange, but also fun to dance to. Now, ten years later, I view Janelle as the artist that not only made me hesitantly crawl out of my indie shell and actually enjoy pop music, but also as someone I look up to as a musical genius and a queer icon. Thanks, Ms. Audrey, for sprouting my obsession!

Although I didn't consciously decide to make note of her again until I first heard her single "PYNK" earlier this year, she has continued to stay at the back of my mind throughout my life. I saw her perform at the first Women's March on Washington with the mothers of Black men who lost their lives due to police brutality which brought me to tears. She was also referenced in my American music and culture class last fall in a piece on Afrofuturism in Black musicians, where I finally understood her political significance after all these years. My younger self knew she was onto something, but when I watched the entirety of her emotion picture Dirty Computer and sobbed for 48 minutes and 37 seconds, I finally realized that maybe, just maybe, pop music could mean a lot more than making music that's easily-digestible (a reason I always avoided it). The minute I finished the film, I instantly bought tickets to see her perform this summer, knowing that if those 48 minutes affected me that deeply, seeing a live, two-hour set would change me for the better. Spoiler alert! It did. No surprise there.

Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer [Emotion Picture] from optimist. on Vimeo.

If you're unaware of Dirty Computer (both the album and the film), a) do you live under a rock? and b) if you have 48 free minutes to spare, click play right now.

Did you watch it? Good. If you didn't, at least watch the below first, which is only a little over four minutes.

"PYNK" is just a glimpse into the wonderful beauty that is Dirty Computer, but it is a fantastic depiction of her first time openly discussing her sexuality through her music, where she used to only stick to themes of race and class. Now, there's all three! 

Do you now understand why I, as a certified Indie Girl who has never stepped foot into a concert of a pop musician, although I've seen well over 150 shows in my lifetime, had to go to her concert in D.C. last week?

Photo from Time Out, by Colette Aboussouan.

As Monáe drastically helped me be true to my gay self with her latest album,  I was expecting to see a large queer audience, especially filled with queer minorities who are not always visible in mainstream queer spaces (like queer Black women). My expectations were not only met, but heightened—the crowd was filled with rainbow flags and all genders and queer couples galore. It resembled the two Prides I attended this year, but better. Yes, better. Whereas Pride mostly feels like a party for able-bodied and white queer people, her show was composed of a majority people of color, of all gender presentations, of all identities. It felt transcendent to be a part of that, as every other show I attend is typically filled with straight white men, or, to make things a bit better with my new fascination with indie music performed by queer women, queer white women. Obviously, diversity is definitely not a key feature of the shows I'm used to seeing.

Monáe didn't only make diversity a key feature, but she made inclusivity and the concept of queer spaces a requirement for her show without having to say a single word. Her recent pride about being a pansexual Black women, or, as she calls it, a "free-ass motherfucker," not only shined through her performance of both her new songs off of Dirty Computer and her older classics, but also through what she spoke to her open audience who all felt a sense of communal love for those two hours. She would take time between her songs to show us her membership in the queer community as well as her openness to all identities by telling us "because no matter who you love, or how you love, you are welcome here tonight." I've heard mantras like this at other shows, where Thom Yorke of Radiohead would take ten seconds to briefly mention political issues in the United States, but usually, these shows are dedicated to the music, nothing more. Monáe brought this mantra to every song, to every move she made, to every time she made a heart symbol with her hands, showing us the radical love she has for herself and for her fans. It transcended past the performativity that some musicians with large fanbases feel obliged to show, as every song she performed held themes of not only this radical self-love, but also of anger and political injustice.

Her performance of "PYNK" showcased the beauty of womanhood but also of women loving other women; "I Like That" told us that yes, we can like that, no matter what gender, race, or class; "Don't Judge Me" transitioned Monáe's dancey bops to a personal and emotional one, where she fears her identity as a Black queer woman won't be accepted by people close and distant to her. She doesn't only want to create a queer space for herself that also allows visibility for all, but she yearns to make note of the injustices that continue to happen to a minority like herself, both personal and systematic. "We are all dirty computers," she repeats over and over again before she closes with "So Afraid" and "Americans," stating that although the gay people, the Black people, the trans people, the disabled people, or the people that are all of the above have a free space to exist in that music venue that night, they are still seen as a flaw to society. Perhaps a miscoding that can't function properly according to the hate crimes and trans women of color that are murdered daily and the Black lives that end due to police brutality. While some queer spaces only focus on loving one another unconditionally, she made sure to intersect these issues. Pride shouldn't be pretty and easily-digestible; it should openly discuss issues that continue to disproportionately affect all of us—the "dirty computers."

Photo from her Instagram, @janellemonae

In the moment that Monáe was belting the lyrics to "So Afraid" while various clips from the Black Lives Matter movement were displayed on the screens behind her, my previous joy from the show turned to tears. Not tears for myself, but tears for the thousands of Black and queer bodies next to me who face the oppression of being Black, of being queer, and of being Black and queer. I cried because she knew exactly how to navigate this struggle through her own experiences and through her art; I cried because I had the privilege of sharing these intense emotions with so many other queer individuals in which Janelle gave us the platform to do exactly that. And the realization hit me—music is so much more than music; pop music can be and should be more than a top 40s hit. But most of all, live music can work magic and form spaces that exude inclusivity and truly allow anyone to be their most authentic selves with only a few lyrics. And Janelle Monáe did exactly that (and more!). Dirty Computer was able to speak for the lives of queer individuals on our complex experiences in a singular album and, as she calls it, her "emotion picture," and her performance just put this work into a live experience we could share with others who also hold the same identities and feelings. And the best part? She did it so effortlessly, like this is what her entire career as a musician has been leading up to—a dive into her personal life. The personal is political, yes, but sometimes the personal is emotional, the personal is queer, the personal is Black, the personal is about being a woman in the age of Trump. The personal is complicated and messy. And because of this, queer spaces should be complicated. Monáe somehow made hers both seamless but, at the same time, extremely complex. And apart from all of this theory talk, her performance did make for a damn good time.

Listen to Dirty Computer and the rest of Monáe's work here.

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Japanese Breakfast, the Queen of Bisexual Lighting

The woman that changes every mindset you once had about queer music.

Photo courtesy of Out.com

Happy Pride month! This June, I've decided to only write on queer topics to both celebrate my own lesbian identity and to add to the (small) pool of existing queer content. First on the list: an ode to one of my favorite musicians, Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast, and how she breaks all the boundaries set up for her as a queer female musician.

When listening to what we would today call "queer music," there lies an abundance of expected requirements that should be checked off before ever deeming it to belong in that category. First, at least 85% of the music has to be about sex, and this sex (obviously) has to be with the same gender. And of course, if we're on the topic of gender, the sexual and/or romantic interest's gender has to be explicitly stated. Names, pronouns, the whole shebang. Apart from the music, the presentation of the said musician must fit into queer standards. If she's not butch in the slightest, can she really create queer music? If she's not currently in a relationship with a woman or gender non-conforming person, or at least not trying to be in this sort of relationship, how can she both be queer and fit under the category of "queer musician"?

Well, if you were unaware, the entire idea of queerness is to break boundaries, diminish set categories, and, most importantly, muddle all ideas that we once assumed were true. Sure, some of my fav queer musicians are what I described above, like Syd from The Internet who solely sings about her explicit desires and relationships with women. But it's inaccurate—and 100% not necessary—to explicitly bring your queerness to everything you do, especially if it has to fall under these rigid expectations that the general public wishes to see. 

Upon seeing Japanese Breakfast, the solo project of Michelle Zauner, last week, I realized that she not only is an excellent musician and performer who breaks boundaries for women in indie rock, she also extends past everything we ever thought could compose the typical prototype of a queer musician. She doesn't outwardly say she loves women in all of her music—what's the fun in that? Of course, we always love an artist who does just that (talking about Syd again, and maybe also Hayley Kiyoko), but the beauty of music, and especially queer music, is that not every single part of a musician's life has to be put on display through their art. We don't expect straight musicians to be transparent on all their personal tea, so why should we expect queer ones to? And yes, while I do love a queer girl anthem that I can play on repeat while going through the motions of crushes and relationships with women, something about those songs that are implicitly queer are even more fascinating, more mysterious. Maybe Zauner doesn't do the same work as my other favorite gay ladies, maybe she is married to a man, making some question her authenticity as a queer woman. But her blurring between private and public spheres is an inherently queer act in itself. Let me explain.

Photo courtesy of Under the Radar

• She's a Korean-American woman living in a culture that doesn't seem to understand her identity... so she named her project Japanese Breakfast instead. She says that American culture fetishizes Japanese culture, making it a more interesting name, and that, more interestingly, Korea and Japan have a painful history, and that, finally, people constantly assume her to be Japanese because of both their own ignorance and of the deceitful name. And it shows in her music: 

• Speaking of the above music video, it can be implied that she's singing about loving a woman based on the few scenes of her riding on the back of a motorcycle with another woman. BUT... the beauty in the song is that gender is not a significant part of the song itself; it's actually never mentioned. Zauner could be singing about anyone, which is all the more suitable, as it's clear that she might be bisexual (or at least queer, which she's been public about in the past).

• She might not publicly use the term bisexual to identify herself, but it's obvious that she's a big fan of bisexual lighting. Janelle Monáe showed us the beauty of that aesthetic in her "Make Me Feel" video, a song that makes it quite obvious that Monáe is into all genders, and Japanese Breakfast uses it on more than one occasion: in many of her photoshoots, like the one above, in much of the lighting she uses while she performs, displayed below,

EURO TOUR STARTS TONIGHT! HAMBURG at Prinzenbar with my dear friend @wehavepaws COPENHAGEN tomorrow at Vega 💕💕📷 @ahsphotog

A post shared by Japanese Breakfast (@jbrekkie) on May 7, 2018 at 1:54am PDT

          and also in my favorite music video (and song) for the artist:

• The above song and visual are a mixture of both musical and artistic genius and pure evidence of the queering of love music today. How, you might ask? Well first off, that blue, purple, and pink lighting combo displayed over an overly heteronormative school dance has to mean something. And the three girls, walking into the gym wearing full makeup and men's suits, automatically disrupt everything we once assumed about school dances and gender roles. Are they sad that they're coming in alone? Are they longing for a certain boy, or for a certain girl? We don't know. What we do know is that the lead falls in love with herself at the end, which is something you really don't see with representations of women in music, or even more prominently, representations of women of color.

• Finally, Zauner's style of music carries a duality that, once again, makes us question everything we once imagined about queer music. She knows how to shred it on the guitar, she knows how to hype a crowd with her intense vocals and on-stage dancing, yet she also is really good at making her audience feel "tender", as she described two of her songs ("This House" and "Triple 7") which she performed near the end of her set. However, this isn't a set binary—she likes to sing about marriage in a way that is only depressing, and one of her songs is solely about falling in love with a robot (robots are genderless, correct?). Pretty queer indeed.

Photo courtesy of Teen Vogue.

Existing as a queer, Korean-American woman in the rigid world of indie rock is already difficult enough, but creating music that doesn't fit the mold that was already set up for her is near impossible. And that, my friends, is how you flip the scene.

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Love Summer, Hate Everything Else

The hashtag that swept the nation.

As I lay by a pool, preferably a rooftop one in NYC but realistically my campus one in DC, feeling the sweat drip down my back and the humidity cling to my skin, sipping on preferably a cold glass of Provencal rosé but realistically some good ol' H₂O to stay hyrdrated, wearing nothing but a bikini and cat-eye sunglasses that keep falling down due to the constant stream of sweat on my nose, I have realized that it is summer.

Finally!

I dreamt of it for eighteen months, I looked to cinema to calm my winter blues, I endlessly scrolled through Instagram just to catch some inspiration and to keep my hopes up while I dreadfully waited for the season to come. 

Now that it's here, I'm surprisingly not sure how to feel. The East coast skipped straight past spring and right into the heat of summer, going from 40 degrees to 85 in the span of one day. The lack of a transition period completely threw me off, and my summer dreams 180ed into an entirely different plan. My NYC rooftop instead became the same DC campus that made me hate winter, and the dream of summer became its sticky, sticky reality. DC humidity is real. But! I knew I had to continue dreaming the summer dream. I waited what felt like years for the three months of sweat and sun, so I was going to make it count.

Then I stumbled upon the hashtag #lovesummerhateeverythingelse, thanks to my fashion role model Leandra Medine Cohen who coined the term and started a revolution. I immediately started noticing all of the wonderful, wonderful perks of summer: 

• My birthday practically kicks off summer (May 31st, if you were curious). Also, Gemini season is arguably the best, right next to Cancer.
• It being 100% acceptable to eat ice cream every day, even when you're trying to be dairy free.

Doing my part to embody the essence of my greatest hashtag contribution to Instagram YOU KNOW THE ONE #lovesummerhateeverythingelse

A post shared by Leandra (Medine) Cohen (@leandramcohen) on May 29, 2018 at 1:47pm PDT

• It also being 100% acceptable to not wear pants or an actual top, especially when drinking rosé.

Thanks to all of you who engaged in me buying a non-swim bikini you did a good job

A post shared by Fanny Ekstrand (@fannyekstrand) on May 6, 2018 at 11:32pm PDT

• Or just ditching the top altogether.

first time in portrait mode 👣

A post shared by Summer Dawn (@summer.dawn) on May 29, 2018 at 1:00pm PDT

• The ability (and freedom) to spend days reading. And not for school, but just for the sake of reading.
• Way too much color, both because why not, and because Pride month is here!
• Those barely-there dresses that require nothing but a body but really only work between the months of May and August.

Soft, stretchy, saves 884 gallons of water and just a few inches shy of a tank top. The Annette mini dress. #summer

A post shared by Reformation (@reformation) on May 30, 2018 at 10:28am PDT

• Those tiny sunglasses that seem to hardly protect our eyes from the sun but look really cool.

found my corner

A post shared by Kaia (@kaiagerber) on Apr 1, 2018 at 1:09pm PDT

• Drinking approximately five La Croixs every day, and always having a backup in your bag. 
• The ability to finally play those songs that make you dream of summer without being sad, because, my friends, the wait is over.

If you've enjoyed my other playlist posts in the past, get excited, because they are officially becoming a regular thing! Once a month, that is.

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Your Favorite Haim Sister is More Accurate than Your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Their styles say a lot about you, too.

Photo from NPR.

The Myers-Briggs test led most of my high school decisions, and it still continues to do so today. I fondly remember taking the quiz multiple times a year and still being satisfied with my results. INFP, if you were curious. The dreamer! Every single characteristic of my test results seemed to speak for me, and I felt a spiritual connection with other INFPs and soon began guessing my friends' MBTIs.

Then came astrology, a more recent obsession that I used to hold a huge suspicion for but now fully believe in. Gemini, a once hated sign, soon began to dictate my life. Leo moon and Aquarius rising soon followed, then I began to self-identify as a Cancer, as I was technically supposed to be born in July. I, once again, started guessing people's signs and shaping my relationships based on what month they were born in. Maybe not a healthy decision, but nonetheless, a decision that was made.

Then another pseudo-science emerged, one that possibly I only believe in but feel is even more defining than the psychological science behind MBTI and the astrological science that is your natal chart. Ever since fandoms became a thing, it has been commonplace to relate to a character or band member after becoming part of the fandom of said show or band. If you've watched all of Buffy and haven't labelled yourself as a Buffy, a Willow, or a Xander, are you actually a true fan? We become part of fandoms for two reasons: to relate to characters, stars, and musicians or to be attracted to them. It's human nature to want to see your own personality be represented in the media or to see your dream girl or guy existing as an actual human being, even if it's in the form of a character. There's a reason why "Which [insert TV show] Character Are You" Buzzfeed quizzes are so damn satisfying.

This feels too relevant when thinking of the band HAIM, a musical group of three sisters I've loved since my high school days and saw a few nights ago and had the best concert experience, well, ever. Was it because their music is that good, and I've been waiting for this day for five years? Or was it because the Haim sisters are people I equally want to be best friends with, want to date, and, finally, aspire to be? I know I'm not the only one who thinks this—their one million+ followers on social media not only love their sound, but are also most likely obsessed with the sisters themselves. All from L.A., all carrying an L.A. look with effortless styles and 70s-esque middle parts, and all being far cooler than any set of sisters or music group I know. Enter the pseudo-science I mentioned earlier: relating to a specific Haim sister on a spiritual level does more than just inform people of which member you like the most. Maybe you're truly only one of them, maybe you're a combo of two, or maybe you see yourself in all three. The possibilities are endless, so let me break it down. Starting from the youngest.

If you identify with Alana Haim, there's a lot to say about you. You're such a complex being! You're most likely the youngest sibling, which means many things: you love attention, using all of your energy to talk, and, most of all, selfies.

We're talking mirror selfies,

when good lighting calls you pick up

A post shared by babyhaim (@babyhaim) on Jan 30, 2018 at 1:35pm PST

hotel bed photoshoots showing off your custom-made Dior pieces,

casual @dior

A post shared by HAIM (@haimtheband) on Nov 15, 2017 at 11:42am PST

and being this extra. But looking amazing while doing it!

violet beauregarde is all grown up 🍬

A post shared by babyhaim (@babyhaim) on Feb 25, 2018 at 12:00pm PST

But being the youngest also means being the runt of the family, aka having to talk a lot just so your family will listen to you and to make up for being picked on constantly. But all in good spirit! Because you are the fun of the family, even if you don't try to be at all. Your style is a whole other field: being the youngest means you have to put more effort into everything you do, including your fashion choices, but it doesn't show one bit.

c is for cookie

A post shared by babyhaim (@babyhaim) on Feb 23, 2018 at 11:23am PST

Vintage Levi's are your best friend, you're a sucker for a simple tee, but you also know how to pull off patent leather pants like no one's business. You either stay classic or go all the way. No in between. Which makes her the favorite of so many—she carries so many different styles and sartorial identities that practically anyone can relate to. At the end of the day, you're the most lovable. Sometimes tough love is the best kind of love out there.

Then we have Danielle Haim, the middle sister who has a lot of hidden power. You are soft-spoken but have the most to say, which is probably released through some type of art form, like being the lead singer of your band. You are most likely the coolest of all three sisters, and you don't even have to try—existing as your truest self is all you have to do. Many people are intimidated by you because you exude this ethereal quality that is impossible to fully understand. As for dating? You probably think you're too good for anyone out there, or you're just too good to spill all the tea on your love life. You also would be one to do something like below:

my sisters are gonna kill me for this crop 😈 -d

A post shared by HAIM (@haimtheband) on Jan 27, 2018 at 8:23pm PST

And your style! Your! Style! It is the vessel that carries 90% of that inexplicable coolness, whether you're wearing Chloé trousers and practically nothing else,

what I’m in a bra

A post shared by Danielle Haim (@daniellehaim) on Apr 15, 2018 at 2:59pm PDT

a gingham blazer with earrings that make an entire outfit,

mamma haim’s jacket ❤️

A post shared by HAIM (@haimtheband) on Nov 2, 2017 at 1:26pm PDT

or a baby-blue suit with Adidas Gazelle sneakers. What a power move.

🦋

A post shared by Danielle Haim (@daniellehaim) on Apr 8, 2018 at 1:40pm PDT

Basically, you're silent but deadly. Everyone wants to be you, but you pretend like you have no idea.

Finally, we have Este Haim, the oldest of the three, and also the weirdest of the three. If Este is your fav, then you probably are an independent soul who does whatever the fuck she wants, even if that means posting this picture on all social media for your birthday:

i am 32 flavors and then some

A post shared by Jizzie Mcguire (@estehaim) on Mar 14, 2018 at 5:37pm PDT

or being way too hype at all of your shows and making aggressive faces while playing the bass:

Even though all of you and your sisters are extremely real, you're real in the sense that you also show your not-so-glamorous features and aren't afraid to hide it. Being candid is so much more exciting! Posting pics like this one and this one prove to the world that maybe social media isn't a place for your most perfect self, but instead your most authentic self. And you're so sure of yourself, maybe because you had the most amount of time to grow up. This especially shows in your fashion choices; its continuity throws the idea that style is always changing in the trash. And when I say continuity, I mean you literally do not own a single pair of pants.

Exhibit A:

uh, caption please?

A post shared by Jizzie Mcguire (@estehaim) on Jun 14, 2017 at 4:07pm PDT

Exhibit B:

happy birthday to our fearless leader!!! your smile lights up any room💡love u big sis ❤️❤️❤️ @estehaim

A post shared by Danielle Haim (@daniellehaim) on Mar 14, 2018 at 10:49am PDT

and Exhibit C, where you are always the only one of the three who has to don an item that shows off those wonderfully long legs of yours:

watch @theellenshow today

A post shared by HAIM (@haimtheband) on Oct 19, 2017 at 11:01am PDT

You also love doing a bold lip or a statement eye, because even those investment dresses don't speak for all the personality that's inside you.



And to sum all three up in one photo:

If you were curious as to what my HAIM chart is, here it is: I'm truly an Este (although I am the youngest of my two sisters), I aspire to be a Danielle, and I desperately want to date an Alana. What about you? Let me know in the comments below, and maybe I'll know more about you than I ever once imagined. 

All photos, except for the feature photo that is already credited, from the Instagram accounts of @haimtheband, @babyhaim, @daniellehaim, and @estehaim.

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Why Queer Girl Bands Were What My 15-Year-Old Self Needed

I can easily picture my nine-year-old self, receiving my first iPod Nano and scrolling through iTunes with my dad and adding all of his top artists to my collection and fully understanding that those artists would change my life. I remember hearing "No Cars Go" by Arcade Fire for the first time in this setting and for my entire life to change in those five minutes. I remember a few years earlier listening to my first Bowie song ("Space Oddity," if you were curious) in my music class in third grade and immediately learning all of the lyrics that night. I remember my first concert that was my idol at the time, Paul McCartney, I remember taking over three years of listening to Radiohead nonstop, from age 12 to 15, to finally like the band and soon fall in love and drive for 12 hours just to see them live. I'm ten again, and I'm riding the school bus and showing my friends all my top artists on my iPod, and I say in fifth-grade lingo that I really only listen to male musicians because the female ones just "weren't that good." Now, I look back ten years later, not surprised by this statement but also curious if the ten years leading up to my sexual epiphany as a lesbian would have gone any differently if I idolized Tori Amos instead of The Beatles. Do I blame my father for only perpetrating typical white male artists into my music taste, or do I just blame the heteropatriarchal system that music typically succumbs to? 

Fortunately, a combination of simply growing up upon one semester at university and taking far too many queer studies courses forced me to step outside myself, view my past experiences, and realize how heavily they were affected by the heteropatriarchy. When I was 15, Modest Mouse, Radiohead, and Keaton Henson dictated my feelings; I played The Smiths when I was head-over-heels for some indie sad boy; I sobbed over Jeff Buckley and Band of Horses when those indie sad boys wouldn't notice me. Wonderful music, yes, but memories that only make me cringe, as I was not my real self. After my ten-year-long committed relationship with music, I've come to realize that music inherently forms identity, so instead of blaming the comfort of the closet and my conservative hometown, I could blame what I was listening to. All men, all singing about heterosexual relationships, whining about their sad boy-feelings when that one girl rejected him or, heaven forbid, broke his heart.

Most of the music I immersed myself with created this mainstream narrative of straight girl falls for boy and boy breaks her heart, or boy gets heartbroken by girl and falls into a life-long crisis, or girl and boy live happily together in the comfort of their heterosexual worlds.  My closeted self only wanted to live inside these songs, and my current self only wonders what I would have wanted if this narrative was queered. Artists like Sufjan Stevens broke these boundaries with his gay content, but never did I actually articulate this, or even worse, listen to female artists and think Gee, I can relate to this woman singing about loving other women. Did it all change when I broadened my music vocabulary to include girl bands, and (here's a shocker) queer girl* bands?

*Girl not necessarily the applicable identity for all of the artists I mention, like Stephanie Knipe of Adult Mom

No definitive realization exists in this narrative, just as the idea of a singular coming out moment is absolute bullshit for most. It may have begun with me finding out Annie Clarke of St. Vincent and Romy of The xx are both queer, or when my Riot Grrrl obsession sprouted and all I could think was that these lead gals have got to be gay, at least in some sense. Listening to female-identified artists and seeing them sing about things other than being romantically involved with men was the first step in my musical revelation, as I placed myself in these female artists' shoes and felt what life would be like without the dependence of men for the first time. Before I even discovered queer artists, I, at times, would imagine these ladies to be singing to other ladies, even if they identified as straight. Upon my first ever (and downright frightening) crush on a girl when I was 17, I took these songs and queered them to fit my own experiences. Karen O's Crush Songs was the soundtrack to this crush, btw. 

I'm grateful for finally discovering queer artists at a time when I felt pretty secure in my identity, as it legitimized my feelings through the power of other lived experiences. However, as so much of the music I listen to today now fits under this category, I can only imagine what it would have done for me if it had been there for me when I was 15 and deep in the closet, pining over that one boy and playing Damien Rice's "Delicate" on repeat when things went awry. I can only imagine what bands like Snail Mail would have done for me when I was just 15, where Lindsey proudly sings about teenage heartache in their newest song, or when Stephanie Knipe of Adult Mom sings about the scary parts of realizing that maybe, just maybe, liking girls isn't a one-time thing in "Told Ya So". I would have loved to use Waxahatchee's "Sparks Fly" to soundtrack the moments I can see myself falling for someone rather than Mac DeMarco's "Let My Baby Stay," I'd rather listen to all of The Internet's Ego Death in the highs and lows of my relationships instead of Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism, and I wish I had Julien Baker's all-too-real songs on being queer to get me through the pains of being a 15-year-old girl who had no clue who she was at the time. Where queer voices typically remain unheard, these artists, among many others, make them visible, even if it is done through indie or DIY means. Even more significantly, these voices hopefully impact those teenage girls who have the struggle of being forced to question the legitimacy of their crushes and who hopefully find solace through discovering the right music for that certain time in their lives.

While I typically say how it does not necessarily matter when these moments of realization occur, as all experiences are only a product of that certain individual, having queer artists to look up to, to have crushes on, or to depend on to make some of the adolescent brain mush make a little more sense is only what I wish I had in my years of fraudulent boy crushes and attempting to fit in with typical standards of girlhood. There seems to be an understanding that our music tastes may just be a reflection of our identities, but what if our identities aren't fully formed? Do we depend on the music we already have to shape them, even if this music doesn't match our true selves? To my 15-year-old self: I wish you could see five years into the future, because maybe songs like Modest Mouse's "Little Motel" are not your anthems, and instead of diving into the worlds of straight songs about their inevitable heartbreak only because you felt that they spoke for you, dive into the worlds of queer artists. They might just speak to you and with you instead.

Listen to the playlist below for my favorite artists, all including queer women (or nonbinary folks) who love other women and sing about doing just that.

  

Are you interested in seeing more music-related posts on this blog, including playlists, personal essays, or concert/album reviews? If so, please let me know! I am attempting to expand my blog to other pursuits than just style, and I wanna make sure I'm doing it in a way that everyone wants to see.

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