How Kori King Translates Authenticity Into Currency

Each season, RuPaul’s Drag Race crowns a new queen as America’s “Next Drag Superstar,” which inevitably means that there can only be one winner amongst a serious cast of performers. Still, despite the show only crowning one winner, some contestants show that there is more than one way to walk away from what RuPaul calls the “Olympics of drag” as a winner. Take, for example, Kori King, who came in ninth place on the 17^th season of Drag Race. Despite not walking away from her season with a crown, she walked away with something equal in value: popularity.

Many queens have talked about how Drag Race has caused the industry of drag to become supersaturated with queens, all of whom are talented. With that saturation comes a struggle to find steady gigs that pay a queen’s worth, lack of funds to go to events that could increase a queen’s notoriety by connecting with fans and not being picked for tours that are inevitably booked with talent that’s filled with fan favorites. It becomes harder and harder to stand out, with fans having developed archetypes for contestants to see who fits where: Who is the art queen? Who is the pageant queen? Who is the funny queen? Who is the dancing queen?

This is where Kori stands out. Following in the footsteps of many queens before her, Kori King found much of her success following her run on Drag Race through the Cameo platform, where stars and popular figures can directly interact with fans and get paid for making videos for it. Cameo also deals with the same level of supersaturation that Drag Race alumnae have faced in other mediums of the entertainment industry, but King managed to set herself apart by addressing fans not only as herself, but as a colorful cast of characters parodying real life and fictional staples in pop culture.

From Shrek to Michael Jackson, from a parody of Trixie Matel that she calls Kori Matel, and even a parody of her fellow season 17 contestant, Suzie Toot, that she refers to a Kori Toot, Kori King has managed to stand out on cameo in ways that no queen from the franchise ever has, earning her top dollar requests from her fans and keeping her relevant in the supersaturated community of former Drag Race contestants. King’s popularity on Cameo grew astronomically high that she ranked consistently in the top 3 for the most popular cameos, even attaining the coveted top spot at one point.

With her larger-than-life personality and her show romance storyline with fellow contestant Lydia B Kollins, Kori King has shown that she is a force to be reckoned with in the world of drag entertainers. When a season ends, fans of Drag Race speculate which of their favorite queens will be offered a slot on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, where past contestants return to compete against each other for another chance at the crown. While King’s staying power has been showcased across social media following her run on Drag Race and her placement on a future All Stars season seems inevitable, fans can admit that Kori walked away from her season with something that so many queens on this franchise covet: Relevancy.