Backup Account is brief—not 280 characters brief, but brief as in each edition focuses on (1) TikTok only. Please consider signing up for a paid subscription, it helps me independently fund two queer documentary projects I am currently producing. Follow me on IG or TT where the real jokes are.
Let’s face it: lip-syncing is gay. Even the non-drag queen versions of lip-syncing seem gay. Like, how about in the 1980s when pop artists needed to start lip-syncing their vocal tracks because the dance choreography was getting too exhausting? The last decade has seen lip-syncing go mainstream and placed the practice into the mouths of people who will never step foot in a Robyn tribute night. But just when I was starting to think that our age-old tradition of mouth miming was losing its edge, I stumbled upon this week’s TikTok by TweenkBoosieChase. Let me introduce you to an evolved art form of silent mouth work that I’m dubbing onomimetopoeia.
→ → Watch this week’s TikTok (watch via TikTok):
Five years ago I survived 8 days on an EDM cruise called “Holy Ship!”. It was there that I learned the bro-step hanky code of queer ravers like TweenkBoosieChase. I was only supposed to be on the ship for three days, until an artist I shared a booking agency with canceled his set. I was hired last-minute to DJ as his replacement. My jokey vacation as an artist's +1 guest quickly u-turned into 8 days lost at sea with dudes in flat-brimmed baseball caps. Convinced I was the only gay person on this 4,000-person floating rager, I was blessed to find Brandon. With a shiny disco-ball earring dangling to one side, Brandon introduced me to his “Shipfam”. They would teach me a crash course on how to find the queer side of this majorly-hetero world. We even found a 20-something EDM drag queen performing for someone's iPhone flashlight. (Paid subscribers can enjoy some videos and photos I took of her and the gay side of “Holy Ship! 2018”). It's this side of the EDM social feed that TweenkBoosieChase operates on, a sort of wild west for queers into a cringe-y aesthetic and beats you can onomimetopoeia to.
But before onomimetopoeia got into the hands of TweenkBoosieChase there was what I think of as its originator: Mikeyyk88. Mikeyyk88 went viral in October 2021 when he set up his ring light, chose the sound “Cartoon Sound Effects - Set#5”, and hit record. Not all art forms can be done justice through description, but one thing is certain: Mikey has a God-given talent. His seductive personification of turn-of-the-century cartoon bloops and blunders racked up 20 million views. His precision facial control and tastefully ironic sound choices blasted him into TikTok fame. I would also argue that the salaciousness of Mikeyy88’s miming, which at times feels uncomfortably erotic, took a queer flame to the cis-hetero lip-syncing happening all over TikTok.
By the time Mikeyyk88’s onomimetopoeia had trended and was copied by tons of other creators, his signature make-up tutorial lighting and perfectly gelled hair was nowhere to be found. Cue the Vomitstep.
The first time I heard about Vomitstep was on “Holy Ship!”. The EDM gays were trying to warn me about how drastically the vibe was going to shift on the last three days of the boat. The culprit? A band called Excision that hailed a new sub-genre of American headbanger dubstep called Vomitstep. There isn’t any actual vomiting involved in Vomitstep – bummer, right? It’s a term coined after a particularly sludgy bassline that sounds like hurling. As the Excision fans loaded onto the boat for three days I clutched my pearls. But I would soon learn the puke was pinker on the other side of the pond.
TweenkBoosieChase is a diehard GR!Z fan. Think of GR!Z as the Lil Nas X answer to American dubstep. He is one of the first artists to come out as queer in what is arguably the most aggressively straight genres in dance music. I mean, it's nicknamed bro-step for crying out loud! TweenkBoosieChase wears dangly GR!Z logo earrings and hoodies in many of his videos. As I learned on the ship, this is one of the most obvious signals to fellow dubsteppers that you fall somewhere on the rainbow. But, what isn’t so obvious is how Zoomers like TweenkBoosieChase and Mikeyyk88 are reclaiming or even evolving queer space. They’re at the vanguard of a new age of lip-sync that lends itself to ringtones and ugly basslines and has the algorithm hot. It is yet another tool this younger generation has built to remain visible, or in Mikeyyk88’s example, become iconic. TweenkBoosieChase is slowly becoming a TikTok icon too, his followers and likes stacking up in the bassface of the bro-steppers uncomfortably headbanging beside him. Get it queen.
You won’t likely find me headbanging next to TweenkBoosieChase anytime soon, but rest assured I know all the gay Vomitstep map-points to find him if need be.
Paid subscribers take a look below for a curated selection of onomimetopoeia TikToks, a selection of videos and photos from my time on the “Holy Ship! 2018”, and a queer-ish vommity playlist…