Fish—An iOS App to Help Drag Queens Transform from Human to Fish
“If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” — RuPaul
Slowly but surely, the art of drag is finding its way into the forefront of our Twitter feeds and television screens. Drag has been a part of the LGBT+ community since the late 1800s, while MTF crossdressing has played a role in theatrical productions since the time of Shakespeare, when men were often casted as female roles. With the rise of RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag culture is finally becoming normalized, with many new queens starting careers in cities all around the world.
In the “there’s an app for that” generation, we are now able to find specialized and relevant solutions to once-mundane problems. A member of almost any niche community can find love, anything can be delivered straight to our doorsteps at any hour of the night, and there are more ways than ever for a performer to get his or her name out there. To not forget about our drag brethren, I question: what is the problem space within the drag community, and how can we use mobile technologies to solve it?
Discovering the Problem
While I have had my runs with makeup and wigs, I have never performed in a club setting to warrant the “drag queen” label. Thus, to discover what drag queens need in a new platform, I reached out to the greater community on Reddit. I started in r/drag, a community for drag queens to share and compare their looks. My initial post was written as so:
While this was the most appropriate subreddit, I did not receive a single response. Any Reddit user can attest that striking the right moment when people are on Reddit and ready to respond can be daunting. With my time constraints, I had to keep moving.
The next best place was in r/rupaulsdragrace, which is a subreddit focused specifically on the show. I was nervous about posting here, as I was afraid the commenters would quickly change the subject to fit RuPaul’s Drag Race rather than the greater drag community. To my surprise, I got several great suggestions:
However, the discussion did get distracted pretty quickly as well:
I grew quickly disgruntled, as none of the valid suggestions seemed viable for me, given my timeframe and my elementary expertise in the drag world. Then, like a message from the heavens, I finally got a response on my original post in r/drag:
I loved this suggestion, and thought it was something I could work with. Drag queens have Reddit to get feedback on their looks, but only when their posts are actually seen. There is little need to develop an entirely new social network for drag queens, as many are heavily successful on their other platforms (especially Twitter and Instagram) and have little reason to switch to a new service that would inherently give them the same experience with a smaller audience. Instead of replacing what makes Reddit useful, let’s make a network that takes what made it great, but with greater visibility to all queens. Thus, my problem statement was born:
Drag queens need something to get and share feedback on their mugs in real-time so that they can look as fishy as possible and have the best performance they possibly can.
With this, I started brainstorming.
Understanding the Demand
Once I had my problem, it was time to start designing a solution. Instead of starting from scratch, I considered what was already working in the drag community, so my app could act as a complement to performers instead of a replacement. Why fix what is not broken? Here is the summary of my investigation into the current state of the online drag world:
As I mentioned before, the Drag subreddit is a great place for queens to submit pictures and get feedback on their look. To begin, I started by analyzing the typical timeline of a queen looking for suggestions. Because my app would theoretically be for both binaries of feedback (both positive and negative), I started by looking at a post that was garnering a lot of positive feedback.
The user lamaze-ing only submitted a caption (“Cleanest beat i’ve ever done!”) and a picture of her face. With only that small input, she was able to get a ton of support, many pointing out exactly what they liked about her look.
I now wanted to find a post with some criticism:
It is difficult to find constructive criticism on Reddit because of users’ ties to their profiles. The only thing I could find that was not overwhelmingly positive was the above comment, and the suggestion was very concise. The commenters do not want to start any arguments—they want to give a quick suggestion as politely as they can.
With this Reddit analysis, I was able to pinpoint exactly what information would be required to create the best revision timeline. However, I did not want my new product to simply reinvent this community, but instead augment it. Thus, I had to keep looking.
Grindr
Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room that most drag queens are in the LGBTQIA+ community, and most members (at least the male-identifying members) have dabbled on Grindr, an app for queer men to network together for friendship, dating, or… other… purposes. Its success is unparalleled in the queer community, and as many users of my future app will come from experience with Grindr, it makes sense to design my app in a similar fashion.
This above screenshot reflects the Grindr homepage, in which users are shown the men closest to them to begin deciding who to initiate conversation with. In a minority community where members are looking to connect with others, the more options they have, the better, which justifies the seemingly overwhelming display of users to click through. Once a user is selected, you can swipe through the remaining users by swiping right, so you do not need to navigate back to the feed. Thus, I knew that drag queens, most of whom are on Grindr, are used to a feed atmosphere where they click through many people at once.
Tinder
While Fish will not be a dating application, Tinder can help us understand how to encourage users to efficiently click through many users and give as much as feedback as possible. For the feedback to be useful to the queen, they need a lot of it. However, I also know that most people are not naturally philanthropic unless it is convenient for them. Thus, I thought I could integrate Tinder’s addictive design philosophy into my new platform.
Like my app will, Tinder uses binary options: either you like or you don’t like. Tinder showcases the user in a large photo on the page, and then uses simple user commands to either “like” a person or “pass” on them. With updates, this UI has become a little more muddled, but at its core, this is how Tinder gamified the process of online dating.
Conclusions
With my analysis of Reddit, Grindr, and Tinder, I have made the following discoveries:
- Users really only need to submit a picture and some context of what the look is for. If a queen is dressed as a big rabbit, it might make sense if they are covering an Easter celebration, but would not in other context. Thus, this metadata matters.
- Drag queens only need quick, succinct feedback, and they want it quick. Makeup sweats off, and many need to perform within the hour!
- Using a profile system might discourage many from opening up about their criticism, even if it is completely constructive. This is because the drag community is mostly uplifting and many only want to build each other up, so users will need some motivation to really open up with their criticism.
- Members of the community would not be overwhelmed with too much information. In fact, the more feedback, the better, for we are creating an app for such a niche community where feedback may be difficult if not impossible to find in real life.
- If we want to motivate users to give feedback, we need to make it convenient for them. Binary responses can trigger a decision. Starting with a “yes/no” is easier than asking for a full analysis right from the beginning, and it gamifies the process.
Initial Mockups
This feed design comes from Grindr. To allow us to see the queens better on this feed, I made it showcase two per row instead of Grindr’s three. Once a user selects a queen, he or she can get a better look and begin their review.
Shown below, reviewing a queen is quick and easy, and once the user clicks submit, they are given the next queen to review. They can be done reviewing a user within twenty seconds, so someone idling through the app can review ten queens in all under three minutes.
Here, Laganja receives her feedback in a concise, anonymous atmosphere. Let’s cut to the chase—instead of mudding around the details, queens will see their feedback quick and in real-time, so they can move on to changing their look if need be.
With these mockups, and many long hours in the design studio, a full wireframe was developed.
Designing the Solution
First, I wanted to come up with a color scheme. By default, Sketch opened up with bright pink as the main color. I found an online color scheme matcher, which gave me the following color swatch:
I liked the diversity in these colors and how bright and loud they were (to represent how bright and loud our users will be!). I did not want to follow a color scheme revolving around one single hue… so this color palette, it is!
Next, I wanted to design my app around a motif. Because we are in the drag sphere, the motif can be something more sexualized. I settled on sexy lips (channeling Frank N Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show). I went online to grab some inspiration, and recreated some lip designs that show up intermittently in Fish.
With the color scheme and motif, I was able to develop a full prototype.
A Quick Drag Glossary
As I learned from exploring Reddit, drag queens love puns and inside jokes. Thus, it makes sense to incorporate them into the application. Here is a quick glossary of terms required to fully understand the prototype, along with them used in a sentence:
- Fishiness — A measure of how woman-like a drag queen looks. Often, queens strive to look as fishy as they possibly can. “Courtney Act is one fishy queen!”
- A mug — One’s face, usually with a full face of makeup. “Have you seen Bianca’s mug? She looks like a clown!”
- Sickening — An adjective to describe looking at someone who looks so good, it makes you sick. “Shangela can provide for herself. She doesn’t need a sugar daddy, because she’s what? Sickening.”
- To beat your face — The act of putting your makeup on. It’s not nearly as violent as it sounds. “You can insult Alaska’s dancing skills on stage, but that girl can beat her face like no other.”
- To feel one’s oats — Dubbed by queen Gia Gunn, this is the act of feeling confident or beautiful in your look. “Are you feeling your oats?”
- To sissy that walk or slay the stage — The act of owning the runway and doing well on stage. “With that look, she’s really going to sissy that walk on the runway tonight!”
- To spill tea or throw shade — A heavily popularized term, this means to give criticism. In most contexts, it means gossip which is rarely constructive, but in this app I will use it as a double entendré to represent criticism of any kind, positive or negative. “You were throwing so much shade to her while she was on the runway! Are you both okay?”
Walkthrough
A full playthrough of my app is available here. Play around, and please find ways to break it!
When users open the app, they are prompted to create an account or login with an existing account. Instead of developing a new login with usernames and email, I decided to tie users on the app to their Instagram profiles.
Now that our queens can log in, they are prompted with two choices: spill tea or take the shade?
This simple design allows us to get to the meat of our app quicker.
Spill the Tea
Once the user clicks “Spill the Tea”, he or she is greeted with a feed of the queens requesting help with their mug right now. This design did not change too much from the initial mockup, except to incorporate the Fish logo at the top. Like Grindr, if we click on a queen, we can continue reviewing their look in order of the feed.
Now that we have selected Laganja Estranja, the user is greeted with a quick and easy interface to review the queen. We start with a binary thumbs up or down, followed by an overview of their stats and a portal to submit a one-to-two line comment. The feedback should be short and sweet to get to the point quick without rambling, and the UI encourages this.
Through my research, I discovered that Instagram is the main promotional social network for drag queens. Thus, Fish integrates well with Instagram, through its enforced Instagram login and a follow tab after reviewing a queen. Then, queens can continue to communicate on there if need be.
Take the Shade
Alright—we’ve dished the shade, and now it’s time to take it.
When DeLa wants to get feedback on her look, she can click on “Take the Shade” and upload a picture. While waiting for feedback, she is encouraged to spill tea to other queens, engaging more user involvement in the reviewing section.
When the feedback comes in, users will receive push notifications. You will notice that this feedback is no longer anonymized. Considering anonymous services Yik Yak and 4chan, I found that anonymizing feedback might encourage bullying in an atmosphere that is meant to be constructive, so I added names on feedback from my initial mockups to final prototype.
When Ben swipes on her notifications, she will be prompted to a screen with their donut score (how is she doing?), and then finally a page with the feedback.
The pink messages correspond to downvotes, and the green messages correspond to upvotes. As this is constructive criticism, there is no full profile support or ability for responding to feedback. For one, none of the feedback is displayed publicly, so it is solely to help the queen and thus there is no need for the queen to defend herself. In addition, although names were included and feedback was un-anonymized, this app is not meant to replace a social media, so there is no following or profile support. The only way to keep up with a queen you reviewed is to follow on Instagram and interact with them there.
As always, if a user wants to see their previous feedback, it is viewable via a feed of previously submitted posts.
User Feedback
Some feedback I have received on this prototype:
- The app currently has little flexibility for users who want to join just to lurk and not to post. My prototype currently forces users to add a photo and Instagram when they sign up, but if they are only going to be spilling tea, this data may not be required. With the current sign up model, users are more likely to actually be drag queens if they are giving feedback, which will make their criticism more valid, but it is not true that those who do not do drag are not allowed to have an opinion.
- How sure are users that pink means “bad” while green means “good”? Typically, designers use red and green for this purpose, but I wanted to use pink to match the color scheme. However, this could be misleading.
Moving Forward
Moving forward, here are some developments I would love to see in v2 of Fish:
- An emphasis on the context of a particular look. For instance, Ben’s pin-up might make more sense if we knew why she was wearing it. Is she performing? What song is she performing? The look might be inappropriate for “Tik Tok” by Kesha but might be great for “Timber” by Pitbull. Or maybe not the best for a performance, but great for hosting a cocktail party. When posting a photo, users would be able to add a blurb about why they are wearing this look so reviewers can understand a deeper context and take that into account when leaving feedback.
- A gamified experience when reviewing. We could incentivize with points, achievements, even money driven by ad revenue… but what do users of this app really want? More reviews of their own looks. In the future, I would love to incentivize leaving quality reviews with more spotlight time in others’ feeds.
Finishing Thoughts
In 1993, RuPaul released his single “Supermodel (You Better Work!),” which got the world talking about drag. With this came many questions: Why was he dressing up as a woman? Was he questioning his gender identity, or simply playing dress up? How can anyone support this?
In 2018, his show is one of the most viewed reality shows on air, with each week’s new episode rising to the top of the iTunes charts and the weekly hashtags trending worldwide on Twitter. Beyond the show and its fanbase, the impact in our local gay clubs and bars has been unparalleled; more than ever, we are encouraged to challenge our gender identities and play around with the rules that society has placed upon us on what it means to be a man.
Now you ask me: what’s the manliest thing to carry in my backpack? In 1993, I might have said a football. In 2018, I might just say lipstick and some concealer. What is “manliness” anyways?
