My Formative Queers: Stories of the Music Videos that Made Us Queer

The special dossier is edited by Patrick Kelly and Stuart Richards. It features a collection of stories of formative encounters with music videos in relation to queer identity. My Formative Queers is an ongo...

Editors’ note: The following is the written transcript of a speech originally delivered by the author at My Formative Queers on 16 November 2024. No, David Bowie did not make me gay, but his influence was ev...

This article has been peer reviewed Picture it: Glenroy, 1999. You’re a 13-year-old boy watching rage late on a Saturday night in your bedroom. You’re lying under the covers with the sound at a level that wo...

This article has been peer reviewed After famously being banned from MTV, Madonna's “Justify My Love” (Jean Baptiste Mondino, 1990) was released as a VHS tape single; this prompted a lesbian slumber watch pa...

Editors’ note: The following is the written transcript of a speech originally delivered by the author at My Formative Queers on 16 November 2024. Okay, so it was late 2003, my 12th birthday wasn’t too far of...

Author’s note: in order to transmit something of the experiential, pseudo-audience-participatory dimensions of this piece’s two public airings to date, I’ve retained in the text that follows frequent moments of...

This article has been peer reviewed The first time I heard a Nicki Minaj song was in the computer lab at school. On Fridays, while we were working, our teacher would put the radio on, and as soon as “Super B...

This article has been peer reviewed Introduction Grace Jones is an iconic figure who resonated deeply with me as a young nonbinary “tomboy” on the cusp of my queer awakening. In the pre-internet era music vid...

Editors’ note: The following is the written transcript of a speech originally delivered by the author at My Formative Queers on 14 November 2024.  It was the summer of 1992. I was nine and my parents had jus...

This article has been peer reviewed In recent years, scholars of pop culture and celebrity studies have posited that the career longevity enjoyed by Australian performer Kylie Minogue is due, at least in par...

“Push myself into your mind…when you least expect it” Nostalgia for the 1990s is a contemporary trend that is reflected in popular culture of our times. Docuseries’ such as The 90’s: The Last Great Decade? (Ma...

Editors’ note: The following is the written transcript of a speech originally delivered by the author at My Formative Queers on 14 November 2024.  Looking back, it seems I have always responded to the sensua...

This article has been peer reviewed Introduction It turns out that it’s difficult to consider my formative queer encounters with music videos without also reflecting on the ensuing strong compulsion to experi...