An interesting post relating to drag....

[Sasketchewoo]

I'm not on Twitter much but I was on there today and spotted something that interested me. Pinsent Tailoring (who is an extremely talented tailor/human in lots of ways but very much TWAW and hostile to people who aren't) was retweeted by someone I follow (I think! I can't really work the platform out)

He said he had lost 3k followers for posting a photo of himself in drag. He now has 24k followers, so that's a pretty significant loss. I just wondered about it as I've seen a number of posts on MN over the last year where women have felt more free to express the fact they find drag deeply misogynistic. I think until quite recently it was quite hard to express that as the dominant narrative was that drag was fabulous and brave etc and associated with a vulnerable minority. It just heartened me - it's 3000 women (I'm guessing!! Most likely, anyway) who have made it clear that drag is not something they want to support. We are not a minority. It's being dressed up as homophobia by Pinsent and his following but meh - that is ridiculous when those 3000 were clearly happy to follow an openly gay man in the first place.

All those replies about ‘the trash takes itself out’ are exactly the sort of thing that makes me never want to go on Twitter. Dehumanising people for having a different opinion without ever bothering to look into what they might be objecting to or why. But be kind….

He could have lost 3K followers because one of the follow-bots he paid for (a bot that can add 1-3-5-10 thousand followers depending on the amount you pay) went under?

Justin Bieber got to be the top most followed Twitterer at one point, by buying followers. It's common practice.

I wouldn't pay this much attention.

You’re numbers are wrong though op. He lost the followers on Instagram where he has far more- over 300k - rather than on Twitter. IG is clearly his main thing. So it is not a specially large proportion of his followers.

Being measured and fitted by a tailor or dressmaker requires close contact. It is important that their clients feel comfortable. Drag is a sexualized presentation, which could be off putting to many potential customers. If gay men are his customer base and his order book is full, more power to him. If not, he may have limited his market appeal, despite his beautiful work.

It does look like he said that on twitter. He makes nice clothes though. Although the drag / woman face looks shit.

He said on Twitter that he lost the followers on IG.

I think even 3K from 300,000 is rather a lot! I don’t know how Instagram works but presumably, as with other social media, most of your followers don’t even see every post. So 1% of his followers dropping him after the drag post is a large chunk out of those who have seen it.

I wonder if it was just about the aesthetics though. The drag picture on his Twitter is deliberately ugly. Maybe it simply didn’t appeal to people who follow him for pictures of men looking handsome in period costumes.

He blocked on me on twitter because I liked a comment on his tweet that he disagreed with. Rather than engage in discussions he chooses to shut them down. His perogative of course.

Luckily for me I still follow him on Insta. His tailoring is exquisite.

I unfollowed him a while back for using menstruators instead of woman/transmen and then going off on one when people pointed out that’s it’s not inclusive to refer to people by maligned bodily functions.

In fairness to him I think he’s not had an easy time of life, he worked in pornography and was extensively bullied. It’s easy to jump on the be nice bandwagon when you’ve been treated badly.

I unfollowed him on FB after seeing the drag thing. I loved his tailoring,talent and his love of history but I will not encourage misogyny and stand by whilst the sexualisation and mockery of women is glorified.

Do you think it would have made a difference if he hadn't called it drag and said he was experimenting with looks? Or hadn't said 'my boyfriend put me in drag' like it wasn't his choice?

Ah, thank you for picking up that this refers to his IG, I had missed that. Apologies. I'd still like to think it was actual followers over a bot issue but I suppose we will never know!

I know who you mean. I imagine he has a range of followers (mainly historic costumers)....but they're not exactly going to be people who have an issue with the Dandy style, effeminate are they? I wouldn't have thought so anyway., so I don't think anyone could argue that these people were just horribly close minded. It's certainly interesting that he's lost so many.