Sober Drag Queens, Digital Forests, and Bloated “Lesbians”

Abstract

This essay focuses on how gay podcasters, or “Qpodders,” perform their identities in “soundscape” environments. Most of the “data” presented in the report take the form of poetry, dramatic monologue, and dramatic dialogue. Using creative reporting strategies, I chronicle how Qpodders record the ambient sounds of the scenes in which they are embedded; and, as a result, I argue that, within the context of a podcast, nonverbal sounds are poetic and narrate.