CLUB KIDS AND PARTY MONSTERS: BULDING A QUEER SUBCULTURE IN NEW YORK CITY NIGHTLIFE (1986-1998)

This thesis asserts that the ‘Club Kid’ subculture that arose in the 1980s and 1990s in New York City nightclubs was representative of a shift in American queer culture away from assimilation and conformity and toward directly challenging heteronormativity and the silencing of LGBT voices at the height of the AIDS crisis. This work posits that the Club Kid subculture has been absent from queer scholarship because of their lack of conventional activism in favor of performances of aestheticized queerness and the flaunting of laws and heteronormative conventions. The importance of the New York City Club Kids is felt across several key areas of study: the formation of queer community, particularly in urban centers and through formative and performative spaces like nightclubs and the community-building network that is urban nightlife; the ways in which subcultures express collective identity through shared values and modes of expression; the ways in which the AIDS crisis shaped a new generation of queer Americans to rebel against heteronormative repression; the mainstream, white queer community’s perpetuation of racism and misogyny; and finally, the role of media and public image in building and branding a subculture.