When you ask the fans whose #team they’re on, RuPaul’s Drag Race fans are quite vocal about who they saw as the winner of Season 16. With almost double the other two finalists, Nymphia Wind had over 174,000 likes on the #TeamNymphia Instagram post on the official RuPaul’s Drag RaceInstagram account leading into the start of the final episode. While Sapphira Cristal had a stronger track record in the season, it is possible that the fandom swayed RuPaul’s ultimate decision toward crowning Nymphia. The Drag Race fandom has been seen as one of the most excitable fan bases, but also quite toxic. They fight for their favs and make their opinions heard, alienating many, queens included, in the process. Their influence has been seen increasingly over the years on Drag Race, almost as if they’re sitting next to Ru on the judging panel.
After an exciting 16 episode run, Season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race has come to a close. RuPaul brought three of the strongest queens to the finale. The three finalists were tasked to perform a production number of an original track created just for them. In addition to a chat with Ru and a final runway, the queens put it all out there in the hopes of being America’s Next Drag Superstar. Plane Jane was the first casualty of the night, leading to a final lip sync for the crown to Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” between Nymphia Wind and Sapphira Cristal. After a grueling battle, the winner was Nymphia Wind. For some, her victory may have come as a shock based on looking at the season and its edit as a whole. For others, Nymphia’s win not only marked a triumphant season but a celebratory moment as she became the first East Asian winner of the flagship franchise. No matter the result, Sapphira and Nymphia were one of the strongest final duos in franchise history. But how did we get there? Well, the fans may have had a bit more influence than you’d think!
‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Fans Let Their Voice Be Heard
RuPaul’s Drag Race at its core is a reality television competition show. It watches a set of drag artists from around the nation battle one another in hopes of winning the ultimate prize package. Unique to the show is the art of drag. Drag is an inherently interactive performance art. Rooted in live theater, drag has evolved over the centuries to where it has come today. With Drag Race helping to bring the predominantly queer art form mainstream, it welcomes an expanded fan base who is never shy about expressing their thoughts. To engage the fans and assist in boosting the show’s profile, at the end of the penultimate episode of the season, Ru asks the fans whose team they are on. Through the use of hashtags and likes to the queen’s post on the official Instagram accounts, it exposes a slight indication of where the fans are leaning. There is no proof that any of this resulted in swaying RuPaul’s decision, but after watching this season, it’s very likely it may have. Even just a tad.
Based on the edit and the track record of the two finalists, it felt like fans watched fifteen episodes of one season and the finale of another. Throughout Season 16, Sapphria Cristal dominated. She won a grand total of four Maxi Challenges with one appearance at the bottom. The show displayed her as a workhorse, a drag queen’s drag queen, and a well-rounded artist able to excel at every facet of the game. She even proved that in a purposely shady industry, kindness is key. Her ability to be a shoulder to lean on or a mentor during a sewing challenge, Sapphira’s heart granted her the title of Co-Miss Congeniality alongside Xunami Muse. For Nymphia, her runways were second to none. As one of the strongest runway queens in Drag Race history, she billed herself as a gorgeous goofball, but fans will forever remember her for her obsession with bananas. From a story arc perspective, Nymphia spent every challenge moaning and pining that she would fail. As the other queens noted, she was the banana who cried wolf. She rarely showed vulnerability, but when she finally did during the memoir branding challenge, Ru was instantly taken by this new side of Nymphia. In comparison to Sapphira’s journey, Nymphia was a t ad more inconsistent. She did fail in certain challenges, she was just lucky to have a buffer of lesser performing queens under her. At the end of the day, both queens proved worthy of the title, but it was Sapphira’s overall edit that seemed to be in her favor. And yet, she was only the runner-up. So what caused the shift? The fans.
From the jump, Nymphia Wind walked into Drag Race as a fan favorite. According to the Instagram account Drag x Data, Nymphia had one of the highest Instagram followers prior to the cast reveal at 24,868 followers. Over the course of the season, her follower growth was utterly insane, gaining over 400,000 new followers. Something connected with the fans. For Sapphira, she started with 13,571 followers with a season growth of only about 138,000. Why is this significant? When it came to the Instagram likes on the #TeamNymphia post, Nymphia had a reach of over 147,000 likes, which is more than Sapphira’s new followers. Sapphira actually happened to fall to third place of the three finalists at 97,000 likes. The number correlation is significant from a statistical perspective. While there will never be proof if Ru or the show took this into account, certainly knowing that alienating a large portion of vocal fans by not crowning their favorite could easily be a factor. At the end of the day, both queens would be worthy winners, but the fans truly made their voice heard about who they saw as the season’s winner.
How To Curb the Toxic ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Fandom
Drag Race has quite a history of producing an unfortunately toxic fandom. When they first came to prominence in the early 2000ss, shows like American Idol did have their own fair share of toxicity. Anyone remember Vote for the Worst? But the biggest difference was the lack of social media outlets. Aside from Facebook, the fandom stuck to online forums to air their grievances and influence votes. As social media grew to include apps like Twitter, now called X, and Instagram, plus the emergence of Reddit, the power of anonymity allowed die-hard fans to throw their opinions into the ether, hoping others would catch on. Often, without recourse.
The biggest issue for Drag Race’s toxic fandom is their fearlessness of telling the actual queens how they feel. Putting the contestants on blast for things beyond their control negates the harmony and joy that drag is supposed to bring to the masses. Reality television fans are historically passionate, but at times, the Drag Race fandom takes it to the extremes. When a Ru girl has to set their social media private to prevent the toxic voices from tearing them down, you know you have a problem. In the past, fans have threatened to burn Asia O’Hara, a Black queen, alive simply because they were the sole queen of color in the Season 10 finals. Fans of Valentina attacked multiple Season 9 contestants, as well as Latrice Royale during RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4 for eliminating her. Her passionate fans helped her win the final fan-voted Miss Congeniality during Season 9 when the rest of her cast knew that the award was really just a fan favorite vote. Fans have been vile about their ease of racist and fatphobic comments, going as far as tagging the queens they were attacking. Former Canada’s Drag Race judge Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman was bullied off social media, and ultimately the show, for his critiques of the Season 1 contestants. Even most recently, following the result of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World 2, a certain cross-section of fans were none too pleased with Tia Kofi taking the crown over front-runner Marina Summers. It took many of her fellow cast mates to savagely tell off the trolls to step sending hate because they didn’t like the result. Could the show be looking out for their queens when they come up with elimination and winning decisions? Who knows! But the psychological damage that the fans, who supposedly love Drag Race, put the queens through goes beyond the show.
RuPaul’s Drag Race is not just a reality show. It is a celebration of a marginalized community and the art they create. The LGBTQ+ community comes together at viewing parties around the world to watch Drag Race like it’s their own Super Bowl. They unite at DragCon to meet the queens they’ve fallen in love with on TV. And yet, they feel the urge to take their feelings to the extreme. Drag Race, like other performance-based shows, is partially a marketing tool to win a new conglomeration of fans to come see them in real life. With a landscape so vast with so much entertainment to consume, engaging fans to interact through social media can backfire easily.Drag Race fans are essentially another judge simply for their influence on the show. How much they’re listening is unknown, but it’s clear, the queens themselves see it. Ru tells her girls not to read the comments, but it’s hard when you keep getting tagged.
Previous seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race can be streamed on Paramount+.