Drag Performers’ Online and Offline Identities

"Drag Performers’ Online and Offline Identities" explores how contemporary drag artists construct and negotiate their identities across physical performance spaces and digital platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. While drag has long served as a powerful practice for challenging normative gender roles, the rise of social media has transformed how drag personas are created, curated, and experienced by diverse audiences.

This doctoral project investigates the dynamic interplay between live and online performances, asking how drag performers navigate visibility, self-representation, and community across different contexts. Grounded in queer and gender studies as well as intersectional perspectives, the research understands drag as a critical site of resistance to binary and heteronormative frameworks.

Methodologically, the project combines qualitative approaches with innovative visual research methods, particularly photo interviews that foreground performers’ agency in shaping their own representation. Netnographic research further examines how drag artists engage with digital publics and negotiate identity in online spaces. By focusing on the intersection of drag, visual culture, and digital media, this research contributes to queer studies and offers new insights into identity formation in the digital age.