{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/biggayparty","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"biggayparty","excerpt":"The posters for the Big Gay Party depict a raunchy rave. But when PRIME writer Keira Feng attended the party, she discovered it was so much more.","headline":"Big. Gay. Party.","author":"Keira Feng","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/biggayparty/coverimage-3b5a164d76d3f155275f47d507777151.JPG","covercred":"Myka Fromm","coveralt":"Pictured is the crowded dance floor at Big Gay Party with dark purple lights, a disco ball, and strobe lights in red, yellow-green and white shining from the ceiling.","articleType":"article","updated":"","content":[{"type":"text","value":"We emerged from Catch One with smudged glitter eyeshadow, a stiletto injury and at least 50 photos of go-go boys in compromising positions. Sweat clung to my forehead. Ironically, I felt refreshed."},{"type":"text","value":"Among the plethora of promotions taped to traffic lights throughout Westwood, few are as striking as the advertisements for Big Gay Party. Harkening back to the nostalgia of the 1970s queer party scene, these colorful posters are sure to crop up in any student’s peripheral vision on the walk from Gayley Heights to Powell Library. The 18+ parties, which occur on a loose monthly basis across the Greater Los Angeles area, advertise themselves generously, yet these posters offer Bruins only a glimpse of what they entail."},{"type":"text","value":"Despite the rising dominance of digital promotions for social events, Big Gay Party keeps things simple. Students who come across one of its infamous posters need only jot down the date and pay $15 via Eventbrite before they’re ready to show up. This approach has captured the rapt attention of UCLA students, including me."},{"type":"text","value":"I was curious to discover if the \"Big Gay Party\" lived up to its posters and reputation. Why the brazen name? Why the mystery? So, the weekend before spring quarter finals, while the rest of my friends crammed for exams, I squeezed into a tube top and headed to Big Gay Party’s SoCal Pride Kick-off at Catch One. Armed with free press tickets and accompanied by Daily Bruin Assistant Photo Editor Myka Fromm and senior staff reporter Justin Huwe, I was determined to find out."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"DJ HamCran’s booth is illuminated in purple and blue light with a gogo dancer and the dance floor in the background.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/biggayparty/image1.dj-8b66d6a9643f8e9f976a036293ce1380.JPG\",\"credit\":\"Myka Fromm/Assistant Photo editor\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Less than five minutes after we stepped out of our Uber, there was a commotion in the street. Anthony Waite, Big Gay Party’s founder, ran into traffic to greet his friend. He yelled, \"Hey, bitch!\" before embracing a woman exiting her own ride-share. She nearly toppled over from the impact."},{"type":"text","value":"I had already spoken with Waite two months prior about his journey with queer raving. Between cigarette drags, he had shared that he views LA’s nightclub scene as a found community. At 15, his family kicked him out. Underage and living in his car, he turned to nightclub dancing and marketing to make a living."},{"type":"text","value":"\"I really found a lot of loving, accepting people,\" he said. \"I would not trade it for anything in the world.\""},{"type":"text","value":"After working in nightclub promotion for two years, he was inspired to build a queer nightlife hub of his own — a place that would serve as a home open to anyone. In 2017, he took this commitment a step further by hosting the inaugural Big Gay Party in his Landfair Avenue co-op. Waite claims Big Gay Party has grown into California's most frequent 18+ event, and he now seeks out larger venues that better fit the party’s name. Despite the venue change, every promotional poster still features a house, embodying Waite’s original sentiment."},{"type":"text","value":"After moving past the bouncer, the party opened up to an outdoor courtyard with a table of free contraceptives and pre-exposure prophylaxis, a medicine that helps prevent HIV. Remarkably sober attendees waited for their friends to arrive. Middle-aged men in fruit-patterned button-ups took Pepcid without any water. Two teenagers with Sharpie X’s on their hands picked at a platter of fried chicken."},{"type":"text","value":"Inside, it seemed I had caught the party in a frantic phase of preparation. A drag queen fixed her eyeliner in a large dance studio mirror upstairs. A performer in a zebra bodysuit feverishly typed on her cell phone, the tapping of her acrylics somehow audible despite the booming music. Waite himself seemed to materialize in a different location every few minutes."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"Waite was inspired to build a queer nightlife hub of his own — a place that would serve as a home open to anyone.\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"\"I’ve only been doing this for six months,\" one of the performers said, fidgeting with the long chain of buttons on her leotard. I took this comment as my cue to leave them alone."},{"type":"text","value":"After an hour of wandering the scene, the party started to draw some more enthusiastic members. Among them were two people in partial fursuits dancing to a remix of \"Ghost\" by Justin Bieber. I cut through the crowd and introduced myself to the person wearing a white canine head. She surprised me by taking off her mask and offering to speak in a quieter space."},{"type":"text","value":"In the relative peace of the outside air, she introduced herself as Wolfie, one of the names she uses depending on which persona feels truest to her performance. She told me that although she initially used the juvenile nickname to hide her identity, it is now a reminder of the person she wants to become."},{"type":"text","value":"Before her partner pulled her away, she shared her thoughts on intersectionality within the queer party scene, commenting that queer spaces have historically embraced white cisgender men but rejected people of color and gender-nonconforming individuals."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Wolfie sits on a bench wearing an all-black outfit without her face visible. She holds her blue and purple furry mask in her lap.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/biggayparty/image2.wolfie-e5da9982efe295a37880cb486bc7a0f4.JPG\",\"credit\":\"Myka Fromm/Assistant Photo editor\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"This exclusion is ingrained in the history of LA’s queer nightlife. Studio One, one of LA’s most iconic gay clubs, was heralded as a lavish oasis for gay people in the 1970s and 1980s and was even graced by celebrities such as Joan Rivers and Bernadette Peters. In its glory days, the club was known for its male erotic performances and guidebook ads of young, athletic men — a marketing tactic not unlike that of Big Gay Party."},{"type":"text","value":"However, Studio One was also regarded as a symbol of racial discrimination and white male privilege. According to the LA Times, the club arbitrarily required identification documents and dress codes for particular groups in order to limit the number of women and people of color in attendance."},{"type":"text","value":"In contrast, Big Gay Party is adamantly inclusive, welcoming guests and performers from all backgrounds and experience levels. When I reentered the dance room, the party had become noticeably warmer and was pulsating with music from Sam Cranis, a half-Filipino artist and one of the night’s DJs."},{"type":"text","value":"Cranis, known professionally as DJ HamCran, is still fairly new to DJ performing. Cranis said that directly after an early DJ gig for Valentine’s Day 2023, a Big Gay Party representative approached Cranis with an opportunity to perform at its next rager."},{"type":"text","value":"Cranis is not the only new artist Big Gay Party has taken a chance on. According to Waite, Big Gay Party books a different DJ every hour. Its goal is to provide opportunities for new performers and jump-start local creatives’ careers."},{"type":"text","value":"Cranis also did not come alone. Outside, a group of adults in 2000s emo band T-shirts revealed they were old friends there to support Cranis’ budding DJ career."},{"type":"text","value":"One of them said she was proud that Cranis was getting an opportunity in the spotlight. Despite not sharing Big Gay Party’s affinity for Top 40 music, she admired how the party welcomed fresh artists and attendees alike."},{"type":"text","value":"\"It has been quite a fast and exciting journey to be known as DJ HamCran,\" Cranis said. \"I didn't expect to be in this position.\""},{"type":"text","value":"Tonight was Cranis’ second event with Big Gay Party. Attendees gravitated toward the middle of the dance floor, entranced by his 2010s crowd pleasers punctuated by pops from the balloons scattered on the ground. However, the concentrated sea of dancers drew my attention to the quiet perimeter of the room, where vendors waited expectantly behind tables of goods."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"A hand with rings on it places three different tarot cards face up onto an ornate tablecloth.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/biggayparty/image3.tarotcards-4c5658c76ae597bb33cff0fd741ec284.JPG\",\"credit\":\"Myka Fromm/Assistant Photo editor\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"One of these vendors was Morgan Cochrane, an artist and tarot card reader partnering with Big Gay Party for the fifth time. Their booth had a collection of cards, hand-held illustrations and crystals with chains threaded through them. After an artless back-and-forth of \"what?\" and \"excuse me, I can’t hear you,\" I asked them to do a reading for me."},{"type":"text","value":"As Cochrane explained the meanings behind the three cards I had drawn, a dancer welcomed a pair of go-go boys to the front stage. My attention drifted to the increasing volume of the crowd, and I struggled to focus on Cochrane’s strong voice. The booming atmosphere of Big Gay Party seemed to me like a not ideal place to read cards."},{"type":"text","value":"Cochrane appeared to disagree, insisting the environment and their craft are entwined."},{"type":"text","value":"\"There is an element of surrealism to it (tarot card reading),\" they said, gesturing to the dance floor, where heavily intoxicated people waved miniature pride flags to PSY’s \"Gangnam Style.\" \"Queerness is also surreal.\""},{"type":"text","value":"On the other hand, Joel Sitanggang, a rising fourth-year psychology student, thinks that the development of the queer rager is nothing mystical but instead a natural outcome of queer culture’s evolution. Sitanggang, who attended Big Gay Party’s 2022 Halloween and ‘90s vs. 2000s events, first noticed Big Gay Party through its flyers around UCLA."},{"type":"text","value":"\"You really can’t go 5 meters on campus without seeing one of those flyers,\" he said. Because of the ads’ graphic design, he initially thought the party was \"shady\" before researching the production and attending with a close group of friends."},{"type":"text","value":"According to Sitanggang, the party is a place where queer people can be unapologetically themselves without fear of judgment. He told me that queer people party hard as a sort of release from their long history of being silenced."},{"type":"text","value":"\"We’re going to take that (opportunity to party), we’re going to take it hard, and we’re going to party like it’s the last time of our lives,\" he said."},{"type":"text","value":"By the time I returned to the dance floor, the party was beginning to look like what had been promised in its sexualized advertisements. Scantily clad dancers kissed and grinded on stage while the crowd whooped their approval."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"We’re going to take that (opportunity to party), we’re going to take it hard, and we’re going to party like it’s the last time of our lives.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Oliver Mangulabnan, a rising second-year musicology student who attended Big Gay Party’s 2022 Halloween event, said that Big Gay Party’s suggestive posters can perpetuate an oversexualized image of young queer people."},{"type":"text","value":"\"I guess the intention of trying to lure people in with sexy guys on the flier, it rubs me the wrong way,\" he said."},{"type":"text","value":"Sitanggang echoed this statement and said that queer people are more likely to be generalized as hypersexual, a sentiment further perpetuated by apps such as Grindr and Scruff that connect gay men looking for sex. As I wandered the diverse groups of attendees, I noticed that one of the prominent sponsors at Big Gay Party was Headero, a social app for oral sex. I wondered how this \"beginner party\" enticing new UCLA students influenced their perception of the LGBTQ+ community."},{"type":"text","value":"Both Mangulabnan and Sitanggang felt that this one-dimensional, hypersexual portrayal of gay people does not exemplify the nuances of queer identity — nor does it represent how the Big Gay Party’s community takes care of one another."},{"type":"text","value":"For instance, Mangulabnan shared that at the end of the Big Gay Party Halloween event, Big Gay Party staff rushed to provide his vomiting friend with water and bags."},{"type":"text","value":"Waite said this caretaking aligns with the party’s efforts to provide as many resources as possible and keep people safe. At his events, his team provides free sexual health supplies to attendees and hires trained EMTs. He also takes this mission outside of the club by fundraising and promoting housing associations that support communities at risk for HIV/AIDS."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Four individuals sit on a bench in conversation at the side of the party while some hold each other and look at a phone.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/biggayparty/image4.community-890d6c05be946cf9f399cdb6a05a7e2c.JPG\",\"credit\":\"Myka Fromm/Assistant Photo editor\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"\"Thankfully, there's so many good people that are giving back to the community that allows them (people) to be safe in the club and outside the club,\" he said."},{"type":"text","value":"The air had grown thicker throughout the night. Bodies were alight with neon drawings that had been carefully applied by a body paint artist working in the corner of the club. A girl asked another girl if she was feeling alright before asking for her name. I realized that these strangers — burgeoning performers, college students and queer vendors alike — were taking care of each other too."},{"type":"text","value":"As my group stepped out of Catch One and awaited our Uber, I thought of the cards I pulled during my tarot reading with Cochrane. One of them, \"The World,\" was a drawing of a woman flying above the Earth, encircled by faces and an infinite green wreath."},{"type":"text","value":"Cochrane said this card symbolizes a desire to bridge the divide between different facets of the universe. The four heads surrounding the woman represent the harmony of elements."},{"type":"text","value":"\"It’s a desire to connect,\" they said. \"Like you’re doing here. Like all of us are doing here.\""}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"summer23","slug":"biggayparty"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}