English Version | It's giving mother

“She put slayonaise in the mother burger.” An international trip can be difficult to understand. You'd think that if you knew English, the universal language of the Internet, you'd be able to understand most of what you find on social media. But online discourse can't be found in any dictionary (except, of course, the urban dictionary) and to know it you have to browse through hundreds of references, many of which originated decades ago. It was during the existence of social networks that this linguistic labyrinth was built. Through memes, pop culture references, and often outright absurdity, colloquial English is distorted to the point of the unrecognizable. Navigating sites like Twitter (yes, we still refuse to call it X) is a task that can be challenging for minds ignorant of online culture. “Call the plumber! The mother toilet is flushing.” Without prior knowledge, it's almost impossible to decipher what the phrase means. But for those who understand, the phrase is just a simple compliment, equivalent to a simple “I'm amazed at the quality of this song.” Online compliments are, in themselves, a complex artistic expression. “She ate”, “get off my neck”, “you're mother” - all are equivalent to “good job”. The last term in particular is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on someone on social media. The distinction is usually given to women, although this is not a solid rule. After all, when it comes to online slang, the more unexpected or wrong the better, that's how memes evolve, constantly testing the limit of semiotics in favor of comedy. When it comes to online language, common logic is irrelevant and absurdity is god.

According to this basic law, a mother is an attainable status, synonymous with iconic. But a mother is much more than just an icon, she is a person who is seen by society, or rather the online community, as a force of comfort and protection. Asking where the expression mother comes from is not the right question to understand where this peculiar linguistic trend comes from. We don't need to travel back to the cradle of humanity to locate the etymological origin of mother, the journey is much shorter, just go back to the 18th century. According to Paul Baker, author of the book “Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language", the origin of mother as it is used today was first recorded in 1720. According to the researcher, from what we know, the term's debut was an honor given to Margaret Clap, the owner of a café in London who, with the rooms available in her building, made homosexual intimacy possible at a time when it was considered a crime of the highest order. At the time, any sexual act between two men was punishable by death. By making this possible, Clap was saving the lives of dozens of people. This decision earned her the title “Mother Clap”. The café owner went as far as lying so that one of her guests wouldn't be convicted. However, eventually, the authorities understood what was going on in “Molly House”, as the café was known, and the mother of 18th-century British gays was imprisoned for two years, cementing her place in queer history. 

That the term mother has its roots in queer language isn't exactly surprising - most of today's colloquial terms derive from the wellspring of language that the LGBTQIA+ community has built up over centuries of oppression. Tea, trade, slay - the expressions have become part of the vocabulary of youth growing up online. But the origins of these words, as fun as they are to use, are not born of today's queer community, they are symbols of survival. The expression mother in particular comes from the ballroom scene, a subculture that was born and thrived among African-American and Latino communities in the major metropolitan areas of the United States. Ballroom culture is a complex mix of drag, art, and dance. For the more ignorant, think of Madonna's song Vogue, one of the first mainstream excursions into artistic expression. In the ballroom scene, the term mother is used almost literally. No, not in biological terms, but in affective terms. The subculture is organized into families of dancers and the mother is the leader of each family, the person responsible for the emotional support expected of a mother.

The proximity of ballroom culture to the queer community, in general, has led to the term being adopted by a large proportion of LGBTQIA+ people. The expression is not just a form of organization within an artistic expression, it is a reflection of queer history. Names with rigid definitions such as mother, father, and sibling are interpreted less seriously by a community that has historically been forced to build their families from scratch. A mother may not be a biological relative, but a person who is at a later stage of childhood and provides maternal support. It is necessary to understand the concept of chosen family to reach any kind of conclusion when it comes to queer language. Of course, in the era of RuPaul's Drag Race and Queer Eye, the oppression faced by the LGBTQIA+ community is different from that of the past. The mainstream generally accepts open expressions of homosexuality. With firm roots in African-American queer culture, queer language grew to the rest of the community and eventually flourished in mainstream culture. These days, the word is adopted comically. “She flew to the mother plane and crashed into the cuntogon,” “he ate contaminated food at the mother buffet” - there are phrases that are best left untranslated. 

However difficult it may be to understand from time to time, the term is used and abused, but always as a compliment of the highest order. Of course, as you might expect, it evolves from the same adjective. Its most common form is as a verb through the recognizable expression mothering. I mother, you mother, he/she/they mother, we mother, they mother. Reciting the verb is part of the initiation for any Twitter user and can be used by anyone. Zendaya mothered in Challengers (2024), Beyoncé once again asserted herself as a mother in the album Cowboy Carter, and on the March cover of Vogue Portugal, Ashley Graham is mothering. It's no coincidence that the term is used almost exclusively by women. Not that mother is exclusive to those of the female gender, but femininity is usually the quality being praised. Celebrities like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé have long welcomed the distinction. Since 2009, the former has called herself a mother monster and on her album Renaissance (2022), an album inspired by ballroom culture, Beyoncé pronounces herself the mother of the house of Renaissance. As a rule, if a celebrity is considered an icon of the LGBTQIA+ community, they are automatically called a mother. In any case, if someone calls you mother, there's only one thing to say: thank you.

Translated from the original on Vogue Portugal's Mother Nature issue, published May 2024. Full stories and credits in the print issue.