The lights go down. After getting into the theater about 10 minutes before the show and hearing a mix of My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade,” BTS’s “Mic Drop” and an EDM audio remix of of the word “LadyDoor” over and over again while trying to find my seat, the show is about to start.

Internet sensations Daniel Howell—previously known by his Youtube screen name Danisnotonfire, and Philip Lester—known as AmazingPhil, embarked on their second ever world tour, “Interactive Introverts” earlier this year. With millions of fans worldwide who dream of meeting them and seeing them live, this tour seemed like a dream come true. Despite being a dedicated fan for years, I had my reservations about how two vloggers could pull off a two hour live show. I am here to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly of the “Interactive Introverts” tour.

Even though they are usually genuine in their videos, recently, Dan and Phil have been overplaying their personalities, seeming almost fake. So, knowing that they would be doing a scripted stage show worried me because I thought the "fakeness" would be more apparent. Despite reservations, I have to admit that I could not stop smiling.

The whole event passed in an exciting, funny and sometimes cringy haze. They did a few rounds of their board game, “Truth Bombs,” a game in which friends ask each other questions about themselves and get to hear what their peers think of them—and a few fun original challenges they made up from YouTube, like the “7 Second Challenge” where, as the name suggests, you have to do specific actions in seven seconds or less.

They also did a lot of skits based on their personalities and references from their videos and tweets, ranging Dan doing one-liners about his depression to call backs of long running jokes like Dan being a furry and Phil liking slime too much. They even performed an original song talking about their relationship with each other.

Most of the show, however, was them reacting to what their fans wanted them to do. There are parts where fans submitted prompts and they would improv based on that. In one skit, Phil was evil and Dan was pure (complete opposites of how they are in real life) and fans submitted hard good and bad things they had to defend (for example, one question Dan had was to explain how pollution was good).

Despite reservations, Dan and Phil benefited from a lot of this show being improv. Even the scripted bits were still entertaining and came off naturally. I honestly laughed way more than I thought I would because of this. All in all, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this show. If you have a chance to see their final shows of this tour but are unsure if you want to invest your time and money, I would definitely recommend you bite the bullet and go see them.

5 out of 5 stars

In the past few decades in America’s history, we launched our first space station, witnessed the September 11 attacks and watched the election of the first black president. One thing held constant in those two decades, and it is the drug epidemic that took the lives of tens of thousands. However, there is one difference between the 1980s and 2018, and it is the repercussions for those using drugs: incarceration vs rehabilitation.

The Nixon administration locked up those who sold and used drugs and created an image for the public to “associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” explained former Nixon Aide John Ehrlichman.

This rigid economic policy defunded inner-city schools and pushed away many jobs. It pushed the black unemployment rate to 20 percent in 1980, ripping black families apart due to unstable job markets that were forcing many men in economically unstable communities to sell drugs.

According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, throughout the 1980s, black people were doing drugs at the same rate as white people, but black people were being arrested and sentenced disproportionately. By 1990, the US held 25 percent of the world’s jail population, with the largest percentage being black men who were charged with non-violent drug offenses. 

Now in 2018, addiction is being classified as a disease according to research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This ideology has shifted to prescribing synthetic opioids to help victims come down easier from their addiction instead of just throwing them in jail. While this is beneficial for many facing the opioid epidemic, one cannot look past the fact that there is one major difference between 1980 and 2018—race. Treatments and perspectives of drug users has drastically changed, especially considering that those who use are now predominantly white teens. 

“It is very clear that this epidemic is overwhelmingly white,” explained Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert and professor at Brandeis University, in an NPR interview. 

While times certainly have changed, racial stigmatization has not. Like any point in American history, privilege and power equate. There seems to be a racial advantage to being white. 

“They are able to flip the narrative and play innocent because it's the doctor’s fault for prescribing them opioids, and now it’s the doctor’s fault that they have to go out and get heroin,” Johnson continued. 

White teens have been able to switch the narrative, and they became victims of an ongoing drug war. Opioids used by white people started a quick and effective transition to better and healthier drug prevention and rehabilitation. This distinct difference has caused a lot of confusion and hostility towards the U.S. government for how they reacted to these epidemics because truly, the opioid epidemic finally became a crisis when white people became involved. 

In January 2018, Donald Trump's former communication manager, Jason Miller, was arguing with CNN correspondent Brian Karem, when he surprised viewers with some unexpected vocabulary. “If it’s not true, then we need to go and make sure we’re being very clear here. So, please don’t try to throw shade,” said Miller.

From “throwing shade” to “getting read” to “clocking someone’s look,” much of queer slang has gone mainstream. Chad Ochocinco, former Miami Dolphins wide receiver, recently commented on his daughter’s Instagram picture saying, “you betta give me looks sis” and “come through hunty.”

In gay culture, there are many phrases unique and dear to us, such as “reading” or referring to someone as “sister” or “mother.” But it is not just our vocabulary that has been popularized, it is also our dances—voguing, death drops, duck walks—and our mannerisms. The issue for many homosexuals is when queer references and actions are used in mainstream pop culture, but are not credited as originating from queer culture. 

 Queer culture and pop culture do not correlate, explained Zach Phelan, a freshman at The Savannah College of Art and Design. “It’s annoying to me when Vanessa Hudgens says she’s ‘so into voguing right now’ because voguing isn’t a fad happening right now, it’s apart of a lifestyle and has cultural significance,” said Phelan. 

Phelan continued saying, “decades of gay people being completely isolated in a heteronormative society, and now it’s trendy to have a gbf [gay best friend] and people don’t even understand ball culture and where all our trendy moves and lingo comes from. It’s just frustrating.” 

Madonna’s iconic song “Vogue” sold more than six million copies worldwide to date. She popularized an underground, queer dance fad, and introduced it to a mainstream audience without crediting queer culture for it creation. Many homosexuals criticized Madonna for erasing the queer roots of her hit song. 

Nicole Thompson of The Latin Post, criticised the pop artist in her article “‘The Madonna-Free Zone:’ The History of the Harlem Vogue Scene,” saying Madonna “took a very specifically queer, transgender, Latino and African-American phenomenon and totally erased that context with her lyrics.”

 Voguing was the expressionary form of “shade,” explained Willi Ninja, a dancer and choreographer, in the documentary “Paris is Burning.” 

“Voguing came from shade because it is a dance that two people did because they didn't like each other. Whoever was throwing the best moves was throwing the best shade," he said. 

According to Madonna, in her song “Vogue”, her lyrics infer she views voguing as just the opposite. It was an escape from yourself, it was allowing your body “to move to the music.” “Vogue” ripped off the legacy of many queer men, discrediting and removing their acknowledgement from the limelight.

“It's infuriating when you're forced out of a space, seek asylum among other similarly marginalized individuals, create a thriving community for yourselves and those who look like you, and the people who expelled you (in this case cis-hetero black women, cis-hetero black women and white people in general) co-opt your comfort and survival mechanisms for their own enjoyment. All while refusing to acknowledge the trauma they inflicted, forcing you to create those things in the first place.” explained Ryan Sides, writer and digital strategist.

 As time continues, the way we talk, walk and move keeps finding its way into mainstream pop culture. Queer trends, fads and slang has grasped the attention of many heterosexuals, but we are not being credited for the creation of such trends. Behind every new trend and pop queen is queer culture originating the next fad.