How 2 Drag Race Queens Are Revolutionizing the Podcast Scene

There are other moguls in the drag world.

After spending hours listening to a Golden Girls recap while stuck in a Burning Man traffic jam, two former drag race contestants decided to strike out on their own. Alaska says, "We were like, 'Why don't we do this about drag race?'" They had a producer and a new show called Race Chaser.

They began to pitch the show to various studios, including the comedy upstart FOREVER dog. Joe Cilio says that the race chaser was a success. It was something we had never seen before. It was amazing to have a hit on our hands as a company. There was a market for drag fans who wanted to experience the queens in a different, long form way, and in a more personality driven way.

After seeing Race Chaser's large and loyal fan base, Cilio started pushing the idea of Willam and Alaska creating their own podcast imprint under the FOREVER Dog umbrella. During the first wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic, MOM was an immediate success. Its programming includes shows like The Chop with Latrice Royale and Manila Luzon, and Very That with Raja and Delta Work. Alaska said, "We were like, 'This has been great.'" We reached out to our drag queen friends to see if they would be interested in sharing it with our sisters.

A shift in the world of drag is represented by the use of podcasts. It's an art form based on live performance and visual spectacle, and it's almost always audio-only. During the Pandemic, when bars, nightclubs, and theaters were often closed and queens needed to find other sources of income, MOM is taking the inherent talents drag performers have for charismatic storytellers and entertaining and putting them into a new medium, something that's proven to be a necessity during Alaska says, "We were really lucky that we had a podcast because we could stay connected to people even after all of our normal ways of connecting with our community were closed off." It helped ease things a bit for a lot of people listening. More than $120,000 was raised for queer-friendly charities thanks to the power of the Pod.

The MOM queens were able to connect with their fans on a deeper level thanks to the use of podcasting. Alaska says they are talking for long periods of time. It's a very personal way of meeting someone. Fans didn't get to hear what I was saying on stage or in my music after I finished Drag Race.

She says there's a certain freedom and honesty that comes out of a podcasts. It feels like it's easier to discuss everything. As a place for candid conversation and a way to, as she puts it, "showcase things that don't get talked about a lot in our industry." She says it feels like this fun responsibility or something she gets to do that could have an impact.