Totally not gay. Not gay at all.
It’s not a gay anthem, it’s only coincidence that it’s played in nearly every gay pub I have been to, on every gay radio station, every gay pride event (with performers), and when my first boyfriend sucked my dick. People just like picking straws, man.
Friendship with Village People’s YMCA is over. Chappell Roan’s Hot to Go is my new best friend.
Welp, now we know cultural anthems are one more thing people with MAGA brain rot don’t understand.
I mean, Trump hate aside, I personally never thought of the song as gay. It has certainly such a wide appeal that it can be thought of as just a party song, surpassing whatever context may have provided inspiration for it. But reading the statement, I have to say that was a lot of words just to say it isn’t gay lol. And saying my wife will sue you for claiming something I wrote was gay sounds even sillier and like he’s trying to compensate for something.
Plausible deniability went out the window for me after I learned the album is called Cruisin’
Way to destroy your legacy!
Sadly, a legacy doesn’t pay the bills.
Iconic EDM group Kernkraft 400 has denied their hit single Zombie Nation is a sporting anthem. “It’s not played at sporting events. It just isn’t.”
News from a fever dream.
This is sad. This makes me sad.
why would he do that?
he stands to make “several million dollars” due to Trump’s continued use of the song.
oh, right.
Ha. That implies that Trump would ever pay him anything.
He didn’t even pay his lawyers, and he actually needs those.
Surely, Trump won’t stiff me with the bill.
I cried all the way to the bank
Liberace after winning a libel suit against a news paper calling him a homosexual
He’s saying anything for a dollar. I can almost respect his dedication.
Selling out. It’s the American way.
TIL that Victor Willis of The Village People is a fascist.
He did dress as a cop. The clues were there.
TIL he’s still alive.
“You have to understand, I’m set up to make millions from this song”
Only if Trump pays for using it.
Very slim odds there.
Zero isn’t very slim, it’s just nothing
That may be the first time anyone has described anything relating to trump as “slim”.
“Fat chance” would be more appropriate here eh?
You’ll come to find many people you would have never suspected are OK with fascism, when it makes them rich.
Damn, that was a compelling read. When I clicked on the link and saw it was from 1941, I felt a grim resolve to read it in full, because when people post decades old pieces on fascism, it always hits hard (like that Sartre bit about antisemitism that gets shared quite often).
Reading through this piece was a curious feeling, because I was wondering which of the people at this party I might be. Certainly not Mr A, because I am descended from no-one great. I certainly didn’t go to the same school as any Mr A, so I’m also not Mr B. With a certain sense of dread, I considered that maybe I’m Mr C, given that I also started out very poor and worked my way up to where I am (I’m the first in my family to go to university, for example). I concluded that whereas Mr C’s battle against class has left him cold and hard, I have found myself becoming warmer as the years go on.
I was thinking like this throughout most of the piece, perversely waiting for someone I will never meet to tell me whether or not I’m the kind of person who becomes a Nazi. In the end, none of the archetypes described seem to fit me. It turns out that although fascism today functions remarkably similarly to how it did then, the world itself is different enough that the archetypes today don’t map onto the past.
Thanks that was a good read.
Yes it’s very mature and reasonable to call everyone a fascist. You’re doing the right thing here.
What do you like about Trump?
Probably the fascism.
I don’t see anyone who’s calling everyone a fascist.
But you know what you call someone who carries water for fascists? A fascist.
A man who supported the Nazi party because he just wanted better highways is still considered a fascist
My step-son was 11 and constantly singing YMCA.
“Look, I don’t want to freak you out, but in case you get made fun of at school, YMCA is a gay anthem. No problem with that, but you should know.”
He was horrified, so he started singing “I Will Survive” instead. I just didn’t have the heart to tell him.
fast forward 10 years, he sits down to “tell you something important” and then is shocked when you already knew 😆
He just needs to embrace them. I’m a straight dude, I love gay anthems. I made $20 one time by singing I Will Survive for karaoke at a crowded bowling alley, in front of my wife’s entire company. Whatever, can’t embarrass me. I love that song. Didn’t even need the karaoke screen.
Joke’s on them, I would have sang it for free. Any or all that I know. Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper (I just saw her a couple months ago), The Weather Girls (I have an It’s Raining Men 12" single) and I will belt them all out with my own terrible choreography.
Well done singing that in public. I would have been afraid at first, then petrified
The oracle has spoken
Where is he learning his songs from?
The fluoride in the tap water
Gay frogs probably
Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal…
His stepmother Amy has a cousin named Randolph.
My brother and I both became obsessed with I Will Survive around the age of 10/11. He’s a full decade older than me, and our parents still don’t understand why that happened with either of us. He’s straight, I’m gay. Gloria Gaynor is just amazing in general, and while we gays have claimed her (and her us), her music could, should, and hopefully will be appreciated by all.
I Am What I Am is just straight up queer, though. No reclaiming that one for straight folk. Gayest song ever, and it’s wonderful. Lol.
Microsoft Cinemania had a clip from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert where they sing that song. A shortened version of this clip (because space was a premium on that CD-ROM).
I used to watch all the clips on that software, and that was my introduction to the song. Didn’t know anything about the movie, just that scene. But I loved the song.
I didn’t realize until literally today, trying to find that clip, that the movie is about drag queens. 🤣
Maybe he’s singing the Cake version.
Wait - I sing “I Will Survive” for karaoke, what’s the deal with that? Does everyone now think I’m gay? Because they would be wrong, I’m actually bi.
Lol like Trump is actually going to pay you for using the song, it really is rubes all the way down
The more I read the funnier it gets
As for the idea that “Y.M.C.A. is “somehow a gay anthem,” Willis said that “is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay
“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not.
…
I therefore wrote ‘Y.M.C.A.’ about the things I knew about the Y in the urban areas of San Francisco such as swimming, basketball, track, and cheap food and cheap rooms. And when I say, “hang out with all the boys” that is simply 1970s black slang for black guys hanging-out together for sports, gambling or whatever. There’s nothing gay about that.
“As a straight member of a gay band, I totally didn’t get the point of the gay song I wrote for my gay band”
I’m not gay I just like hanging out with the boys
I hate him saying “get your mind out of the gutter” as if even thinking about people who are gay is itself a perverted sexual act.
Gay people exist. Acknowledging this and discussing whether a piece of media is directed at them is not “mind in gutter” stuff.
I don’t want to go so far as to say this person is homophobic, but it sure does sound like some internalized homophobia, perhaps.
He knows the audience he’s playing to
Bingo!
“the gutter” here is the idea that the YMCA — a youth organization helping out young men in need — has sexual intentions in its existence.
That would be sketchy as fuck.
You’ve got some impressively long arms for all that reaching.
I can reluctantly believe that is true (despite the laughable first paragraph where he gives example after example about why such “assumptions” are reasonable) - but he’s old enough to know that once an artist puts art out into the world, their interpretation of it is no longer the only one.
The song IS a gay anthem even if it wasn’t written that way.
edit - they the
There could be some plausible deniability but contextually it doesn’t pass the sniff test
And we’re SURE this isn’t The Onion? How sure?
Offering young men ways to have a good time when they’re short on their dough sure as hell doesn’t sound straight.
I mean, the title and situation is a lot more straightforward than the nuance behind his reasoning and the history of the band.
Its not “a” gay anthem.
Its the gay anthem. FTFY.
Dancing Queen by Abba: “Fuck my drag, right?”
“I Will Survive”?
Samwell - What What
Okay, that’s just the gay anthem according to south park. :D
There’s also Freedom, which I really like
Not anymore, we’re doing HOT TO GO now!
So there’s an underlying spelling fetish? Interesting.
Instructions unclear. House soundtrack still Pink Pony Club.
Excuse me, my D&D group is exclusively frolicking in the fields to Good Luck, Babe
Jonny McGovern - Soccer Practice
Young Men’s Christian Association?
Yes. If you weren’t aware, the YMCA was a very common meeting/cruising place for gay men back in the day. The YMCA used to be known for providing cheap food and housing, so it attracted a lot of dudes to come stay there and some of them were gay. Gay bars weren’t really a thing for the most part, so other places like the YMCA became the default. It’s even more convenient if you already happen to live there.
As early as 1919, the YMCA was already a common cruising spot for both members of the US military and civilians. Some guy went up to FDR (Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time) and was like “Want me to catch some of the gay dudes in the Navy?” When FDR approved, the Navy sent undercover twinks to the YMCA in Newport, Rhode Island to fuck a bunch dudes and report back like, “Yep, they were gay. I know because we fucked.” Pretty shitty, since the result was a court-martial and some people ended up getting sent to naval prison or dishonorably discharged (a few were found not guilty). The investigators rarely expressed any objection to the sexual acts in their reports, either, so it’s a little messed up that they’d get dudes in trouble for fucking by fucking them. I can still find an element of humor, though, in the fact that the US Navy was cool with sending specifically young, good-looking dudes to honeypot sailors into boning as a means of investigation all the way back in 1919. It was known as the Newport sex scandal if you want to read more.
Ah, the “good old days” before entrapment was established by case law. I would say our joke of a Supreme Court would like to overturn that too, but it’d apply way too often to their own hypocritical party. Although they would probably just make exceptions for their own party.
That’s hilarious
undercover twinks
Lol
I enjoyed their latest album, “Bone to Be Wild”
