Why do people seem to hate Venus?
It's been 2 years, 7 months and a week since season 4 ended and Venus officially won, but this past year especially it seems that people have...soured on her? Why?
TL;DR I love season 4 and I liked Venus on it. Is it something she did beyond the show that make people irked by her? I wanna know, but please let's be civil and not rancid. You can dislike someone and not antagonize them and I don't want this post to be locked up. I'm just trying to learn.
Full disclosure, I haven't kept up with her socials or personal life. Aside from everything shown on her season, the most I know is that she changed her mug and she's wearing body/has given up on the androgynous bent entirely.
While I was prepared to dislike her in Episode 1 for just having the fashion/look queen stereotype vibe, she won me over as the season got going. She seemed determined to push herself comedically (such as in the Rusical and a bit in the infomercial, for what that challenge was worth), her lip syncs to "Invited" and "Pull Up" were completely raw and while her non-tucking "brand" was a bit whatever, I think she was incredibly inventive and creative with her looks. Even when they amounted to just showing body, most of them had a little detail that just elevated them a bit. I had to give props on her red fur runway (although I did get schadenfreude when her leg fur slid down during the lip-sync 🤭), her finale gown, mug and hair were so gorgeous they gave me body dysmorphia and my favorite look of her's is her bridesmaids flower gown with the petals for hair! She also had my respect in Untucked when combatting with Melinda (whomst I ADORE). While most queens of her calibre and age would become shrinking violets during a crash out like this, I commended Venus for shouting back and trying to keep the peace without being a pushover (I think of "Woah...woah....WOAH!😡" all the time).
I hope I don't sound too glazing, but I'm saying that she had a narrative that justified her win ultimately. I wasn't fully satisfied with out top 4; They were all strong, but they all had glaring issues that held me back from rooting for any of them to fully win, but out of all of them Venus seemed to have the clearest storyline. She'd never been in the bottom but she also wasn't coasting. She was super present and consistently produced good work even beyond her look-queen sensibilities and on top of that she had a point to represent her indigenous heritage. I'm not saying that representation automatically deserves brownie points, but there seemed to be substance to her is all. Maybe not the most astonishing winner in Drag Race ever but she wasn't a roach. She did very good.
But that's on the show and that's behind the edit. Has she done something off of the show that I didn't hear about? Did she say something? Do her out-of-drag thirst traps on Insta annoy people? Did they just hate her step-down look? (fair) It just blindsided me how dismissive people seem of her as a winner when at least in the edit of the show her win seems justified.
Again, be civil. I'm genuinely trying to just learn.