Consuming queerness: Jeffree Star and the paradox of profit and pleasure in the queer male beauty influencer

Chen and Kanai (2021) raise debates about a privileged subset of gay men occupying the beauty space as equal, if not more compelling, in fulfilling contradictory postfeminist demands of authenticity and femininity. The suggestion is that queer beauty influencers can embody idealistic postfeminist traits without the stigma a woman may face for doing the same. This paper explores a counterargument for this performance of hybridised gender and sexuality, in that the repetition of gender performatives through the queer body is an attempt to ‘re-present’ the social media beauty sphere through a queer lens where wearing makeup is an act of resistance. Using the influencer and makeup brand owner Jeffree Star as a case study, I argue that the queer beauty influencer exists as a body for fantasy projection, with makeup acting as the mediator for affective transference to bestow the audience with the transformative effect of queer resistance. However, the influencer and audience become bound back to the neoliberal ideals from which they attempt to break free. In positioning their own brand of cosmetics as a conduit through which their audience can obtain a sense of queer resistance, it ties the influencers and their audiences back to a capitalist framework.