When did the 70s propensity for shocking the mundane middle class libs become just annoying and tryhard? I'd argue that, in addition to it ceasing to be novel, it's when queer folks just started living their best lives in public, doing a better job daily than anyone in the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo could do.
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@Aradia Purely out of intellectual curiosity/missing chatting with you... Do you have any examples in mind of something good and effective from the 70s and something annoying from contemporary culture?
I think you have a damn fine point though: we are a lot more effective at moving the culture when we're just being calmly, unapologetically ourselves, however "weird" or "mundane" that might be, instead of putting on a deliberately provocative show. It's been a huge boon that we even _can_ do that now.
I can't help thinking of me in 2005 on LJ, desperately afraid "They" could actually meaningfully harm queer furry culture compared to now. Now I can't even get a rise out of Trump cultists by being an inflatable zebra at them... and that has its own ineluctable power.
Queer people take up space now and there's no point in Them fighting it. We're part of the scenery. We're as alien as a tree to most of America, and we're rooted just as deep here.
