please, don’t take my gay card but i don’t know that i have a diva. it seems like an important decision but how do you know who is worth stanning?
You're not alone, Anon - diva worship seems to be tragically on the decline, these days. I'm still not sure whether the queens self-consciously yasss!ing Carly Rae Jepsen were genuine, and I'm choosing to pretend the Dua Lipa adoration on my dash is a bit. I have so many thoughts about the dying practice of diva worship but I'll spare you the theorizing and just answer the damn question.
For me, it's never felt like a choice - my heart seizes onto someone and there I am, fully in it. I remember pressing my ear to the tinny speakers of my best friend's boombox the first time I heard Mariah's Daydream album. Of course, I'd heard "Hero" on the radio, but once that voice had a name I had to know more, and once I heard her story - at first in songs like "Looking In" and later in interviews and her masterful memoir - I was all-in. I listened to Daydream over and over, internalizing those rhythms while I slept with my Walkman on. When that aforementioned best friend broke my heart, at the tender age of 10, I remember feeling oddly grateful for my shattered state because it made Mariah's saddest songs feel more real and relatable to me. For me, that's the crux: when I find someone whose emotional expressions make me curious about all the news ways I might feel shattered, I know I'm starting to stan!
It's been so long since I found someone who made me feel that way that I was starting to question whether I was too jaded to be reached in that way anymore. But then I heard this song on DI.FM and got literal goosebumps hearing Róisín Murphy sing, "I'm totally in love with you/I'm head over heels." It felt so strikingly familiar that I was absolutely convinced I'd heard the song as a teenager - but it came out in 2020! I felt the same way with Mariah, that instant familiarity and unshakeable sense of something clicking into place. I wish I could get this excited about someone new on the scene but honestly, I'm just relieved my stanning capacity remains. This week I was feeling particularly devastated in a way I swore no living soul could touch, and then I decided to put on Moloko's last album (the one Róisín and Mark made during their break-up) and fuck, my sadness became exquisite in the context of the perfect soundtrack. Precarious as shit felt, that surge of recognition and feeling seen and celebrated by those sad-ass lyrics was nothing short of life-affirming, and put me right back in touch with my full range of feeling and a sense of wonder in this world.
Your diva will likely find you - perhaps she'll come through the airwaves on a lonely drive home, or over the speakers at Safeway during a 7 a.m. spiral in the dairy aisle, or maybe she's been soundtracking your life unappreciated all the while, and you won't know until a crucial moment hits and her voice cuts through what no one else can. If you're very lucky, you'll be graced with a diva on the up&up and will have the profound pleasure of watching her success unfold - but just as your diva is there for you when you need her most, you absolutely mustn't desert your queen should she experience a wardrobe malfunction or diva fit. This should be a lifelong love, and sweeter still than seeing your diva break into stardom is witnessing her hard-won comeback after being raked across the coals by the press. Go forth and stan, Anon, but choose wisely - our divas, more than our Enneagram types or our exes, illuminate our values and subterranean desires and adoring them is one of life's greatest, gayest pleasures.
