About

Queer Eye But is a phrasal template in which people rewrite the premise to the 2018 Netflix television series Queer Eye using the introductory phrase "Queer Eye but."

Origin

On July 15th, 2003, Bravo aired the first episode of the American reality television series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.^[1] The show ran through 2007. In February 2018, the American streaming service Netflix rebooted the series.^[2]

The earliest known usage of the phrase was posted on February 6th, 2018 by Twitter ^[3] user @nanoyaBusiness (shown below). They posted, "Queer Eye but it's just 5 femme gays lecturing a Masc4Masc gay on queer culture and history."

Spread

While the format had been used between February 6th and August 2nd, the phrasal template did not reach a viral level of usage until August 3rd, 2018. That day, Twitter^[4] user @rubot tweeted, "Queer Eye, but its about a massive omnipotent eye that floats about the city, watching the people in silence, and is gay." The post (shown below, left) received more than 19,000 retweets and 111,000 likes in four days.

Later that day, Twitter^[5] user @tulukaruq tweeted, "Queer Eye but it’s five Native elders trying to convince a New Age hippie spiritualist that their practice is entirely fake. The tweet (shown below, center) received more than 2,500 retweets and 14,000 likes in four days.

Over the next week, more users posted variations on the meme. On August 5th, the Twitter^[6] account for Dictionary.com tweeted, "Queer Eye but it’s five people with cans of red spray paint adjusting instances of atrocious apostrophe usage. Also, these grammarians are gay." Within two days, the post (shown below, right) received more than 630 retweets and 4,300 likes.

Several media outlets covered the template, including Mashable, ^[7] Cosmopolitan,^[8] The Daily Dot ^[9] and more.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References