ABSTRACT
Even while Brazil lives in a moment of political and social conservatism, drag culture has been gaining popularity on social media spaces since the launch of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2009. This cultural revival occurred after periods of ostracism of Brazilian drag culture, especially within virtual communities and their search for LGBTQ visibility and connectivity in online spaces. Given Brazil’s recent political and social landscape, this chapter identifies and understands how collectivity, a characteristic of Brazilian drag culture, has changed in online space. We consider Brazil’s recent history of drag culture from the transformists to the present day to elaborate on understanding the construction of drag culture as collective practice in Brazil and, in particular, in prominent YouTube channels featuring the collective work of contemporary Brazilian drag queens.
