OPINION: ‘Clock it’: How the internet strips Black, brown queer culture of its influence
By Angelica Villarreal
Marketing Manager
Published Friday, Oct. 16, 2026
“Clock it” and “clock her tea” have continued in the tradition of phrases taken out of context and fallen victim to the disfigurement of online discourse. What once were phrases used solely in ballroom events and Black queer culture has, like many sayings, have become part of the larger social dialect. From the popular use of “slay,” “spill the tea” and “she ate,” many parts of ballroom culture have continued their journey into internet slang.
Marketing Manager
Ballroom began in the mid to late 1970s, as brown and Black drag queens and queer people were discriminated against in traditional drag pageants. Individuals like Crystal LaBeija created their own spaces and pageants, now known as ballroom, where people from any background and race can have the chance they were previously denied, not just in traditional drag pageants but in everyday white heteronormative life. Ballrooms offer brown and Black queer people the ability to be anyone and everyone, from a CEO to a military general.
These runway categories of ballroom don’t just let brown and Black LGBTQ+ people fantasize and play roles they would never have the chance to be in everyday white America, they also produce a sense of pride; winning a ballroom category means you are someone in this space. At home, ballroom participants played the part of everyone else, denying their more feminine or masculine parts, which are not allowed in a very binary world, but at a ball they can play into personal aspects that would otherwise remain stifled, denying who one is for who one should be.
Now, in 2026, “clock it,” like many other terms, has spread and, with it, diffused its meaning. What was originally a term used to call someone out for a truth they hadn’t recognized or tried to hide, has now shifted into a way of cheering someone on. While words have always changed meaning across time, the inability of many who use these phrases to place them in their original culture. It denies Black and brown LGBTQ+ the legacy and recognition of a fundamental group influencing mainstream culture, from the clothes we wear to the phrases we say to the music we listen to. Artists like Madonna and Beyoncé, among others, have stated their ballroom influences. The clothes we wear are inspired by the runway and fashion lines, which were inspired by ballroom culture, like Mugar and John Paul Gaultier.
By picking the parts of a culture that we find fun or trendy and not caring for the people and groups, especially in today’s hostile environment against drag performances and prevailing transphobic messaging, we become vultures, taking on the words, clothes and sounds created by the same group being erased by regressive policies, and by not caring and understanding where these cultural touchpoints stem from, we too become complicit in that erasure.
