When I was a sophomore in college, I got an instant message in response to an informal blog I kept on LiveJournal. The message was from a 17-year-old blue-eyed boy in Tennessee who had longish blond hair and a penchant for eyeliner and taking pictures of himself, as I gathered from his public profile and his own blog.
He was clearly intelligent, but cared little for grammar and peppered his language with gay slang and a sassy Southern drawl. He said he wanted my opinion on some poems he had written, noting that I occasionally posted poetry on my journal.
He told me his name was Chris. Most unsolicited messages I got back then were guys asking for my “stats” or wanting to jerk off on webcam, so I considered Chris unique and kept him as a contact. He was deeply sexual and angered about the fact that the LiveJournal group would not let him post naked pictures of himself anymore because he was underage, but Chris seemed to use sexuality not so much for pleasure but as a way to negotiate his identity and politics. He never tried to bring me in to it. He was online often and sent me poems every day, and I got the sense that he spent many hours behind a computer screen.
I was a recent ex-Catholic, and had replaced its gap in my spiritual life with an interest in astrology, which I saw as a gay-friendly belief system that filled religion’s promise that everything in life had a direction and a purpose. Chris talked me into giving him my phone number so I could discuss his natal chart (his sun was in Sagittarius and his moon in Cancer, if I remember correctly, which was about as in-depth as my astrological knowledge was) and about his life.
I remember there being a couple moments when Chris really got on my nerves; he took online interactions way too seriously, he usually had an Internet boyfriend in some other state, and I vaguely recall one weeknight 3am phone call when he wanted to know if he was romantically compatible with Scorpios. It sparked a brief and heated conversation about social appropriateness. We had exchanged phone numbers, but Chris was no more significant to me than the dozens of other eccentric online acquaintances I had, most of them students at NYU or UC Berkeley living more privileged experiences than Chris had as an eighth grade dropout who lived with his grandparents.
Chris and I stopped talking, probably around the time that I met my first boyfriend. I was nineteen, and I thought nothing of Chris until years later when a familiar face appeared in a now-famous YouTube video shown on MSNBC’s Beat The Press. Dan Abrams was poking fun of someone he mistakenly referred to as a woman who had an hysterical ardor for Britney Spears. I recognized Chris immediately; the rest is history.
The only commentary I can provide on Chris Crocker as a person is that there is far more to him than comes across. I haven’t spoken to him since seeing him on television — not for want of trying, but because all of his contacts have changed. I do not know to what extent he is “acting” versus to what extent he has just become more strange over time, but I can say that he doesn’t appear as I once knew him.
He was never the self-censoring type, but he can sit down and have a straightforward conversation if he wants to. He is indeed eccentric, but I am also certain that he sees most of what he does as having some sort of rational purpose — to challenge a social construct or affirm his own being, even if the way he presents himself draws ire. He revels in that ire. While he often goes about explaining himself confusingly or in a roundabout way in his YouTube videos – venturing into many unexplainable tangents and downright absurd monologues – it’s impressive to observe his sociological insightfulness considering that he managed all this without having attended high school or college. There is an extent to which he just doesn’t get ordinary social conventions, but definitely also an extent to which he deliberately shuns them.
I frequently overhear friends or acquaintances bashing on Chris Crocker, and find it difficult to parse criticism that calls him attention-seeking or melodramatic from criticism that more directly relates to his gender expression or sexuality. If an athlete or politician seeks fame and glory through the avenues most open to him, then why the hell can’t some gender-queer kid from the Bible Belt seek fame and glory through his own only means available? Society casts effeminate males as emotional and narcissistic socialites, unwilling to take them seriously in a board meeting or press conference, but allowing them in as entertainers. Perez Hilton, RuPaul and Chris Crocker all fit the bill.
Besides, I don’t want to be the “you’re no fun at parties” type, but if people are so offended by nonconformity that they have to mock someone who is likely getting death threats on a regular basis, I take sides.
I think that Chris Crocker’s impact on society is invariably good; you may tell me he “makes all gay people look bad because he takes it too far,” and I’ll say there would be no “near” for the rest of us to fit in nicely if Crocker didn’t push so hard to expand the boundaries of normalcy. I’ll be curious to see what he does with the next years of his life; will he get an education to become more of an authority on his social messages, or will he go all-out Hollywood like a true child of Southern California, where he now resides?
Either way, I wish him all the luck in the world.
© 2010, Matt P.. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com
it’s may seem strange but i see myself in chris i push the boundries society has set up and do get a lot of hate from it yet i does make u feel like ur not as worthless as all the close minded ppl in middle america
Awesome article Matt, it made me rethink Crocker.
I know chris,, I am from the same area in TN,,, he is never serious, always crazy .. he blew through hollywood like a bad smell and is back in TN ,, plotting his next move im sure,, and he is creative and smart so im sure he will end up on some cable TV show soon lol
Matt, your writing is amazing, sumptuous, languid. Seriously, I can’t get enough. (link)
Best,
Victor
Thanks for the background info, Matt. Nicely written, as always.
My issue with Chris Crocker isn’t his gender expression or effeminate mannerisms. That’s his prerogative. Rather, what annoys me about him is something that many young queens his age and, more disturbingly, even older are so very guilty of, and that’s celebrity worship. The irritating thing about the “Leave Britney Alone” clip is that this young man–who’s apparently never been within a thousand-mile radius of Britney Spears–is so terribly, inconsolably upset about the media obsession with her every move. I have to wonder if he’d be even half as upset if the person in question was a family member or friend. I mean, really–how unhealthy is it to be so emotionally attached to someone you’ve never even met, who doesn’t even know you exist? And again, the problematic thing is that this isn’t limited to Chris Crocker but applies many in our community as a whole.
In response to the comment above…
I am NOT a fan of Britney Spears as any kind of political or moral leader. I always thought of her as a corporate-worshipping weirdly self-contradictory closet Conservative with weirdly mixed views about sexuality (she said she wanted to be a virgin till marriage, she made a few pro-Bush comments time to time, but like life often does it blew her Conservative perspectives all to shit).
But the thing that I see in her is that she is a victim of a lot of sexist attitudes in America, and while victimhood is never to be celebrated, it’s also important never to blame the victim either. I think she was exploited by her mother. She was only 16 when she became incredibly famous, and had a lot of words put in her mouth. And suddenly she became the distain and butt of jokes across the country oogling her theoretical breast implants, fantasizing about her sex life, condemning her looks, praising her looks, perversely fixating on her weight gain and loss, and being all-around condescending, in terms that so many women in history and today have faced.
If she were never famous, she would be no different from countless young women from her Southern background who end up married and pregnant at young ages or becoming alcoholics or using drugs. But she was famous, so became a joke to the whole world. When she famously shaved her head, I thought she had been through some personal womanist awakening (I jumped to conclusions too soon; that clearly wasn’t her motivation) and I was shouting ROCK ON SISTER!
When Chris Crocker bawled at her victimization, I similarly said rock on. I don’t know if he’s guilty of celebrity-worship or not, but in light of the fact that there is a touch of social awareness in much of what he said, I thought there was at least some good cause to agree with him.
Class and dignity are graces that just can’t be taught or learned. Spears was frankly born trash, and though I don’t mean it in a nasty way, I suspect Chris was too.
^^^
I think Felix sums it all up in a harsh yet concise way.
Uh, the pre-19th century idea that social status is a matter of birth is the “harsh yet concise” summary of Chris Crocker and Britney Spears’ identities?
I know it sounds classist, but some people are able to shake off their white trash roots in a very Clarice Starling way, while others don’t stand a chance in hell. Years ago, Chris Rock rightly claimed that “Keepin’ It Real!” just meant surrendering to an ignorant stereotype and euphemizing it as an anti-conformity stance. Likewise, “I’m Just Country!,” a cop-out the Britster revealingly used more than once when her teen dream persona had long since worn thin, is the exact same thing.
The point is, all the money and all the teams of handlers in the world couldn’t propel Spears and her brood out of the bayou, and Crocker’s admiration of her might be dosed with a shot of envy, not just for the natural femininity she takes for granted, but because all that really separates them is an X chromosome. Deprived of her undeserved spoils of being a corporate pop princess and his notoriety of being a hanger-on, this pair are kith and kin.
this is great matt. i’m surprised you never brought it up in conversation.
His message may be worth it, but his method of communicating it bothers me.
I personally am a huge fan of Britney Spears. Who are we to say who is deserving of worship? The simple fact that we “hate” or “love” people we never met is strange and probably a little ill. Our opinions of these people also do not matter.Britney will continue to make millions and piss off the people who hate her for the simple fact her existence is mentioned and disrupts their day, which is a sad excuse for contempt.