It was supposed to be a casual night — low expectations, midweek energy. I wasn’t even dressed to go out. But around 1:30am, the DJ dropped a bootleg of SOPHIE’s It’s Okay to Cry. The bass rolled in like fog, and everything else — bodies, strobe lights, my inner critic — disappeared. I started crying, quietly but uncontrollably. I didn’t know why. It just… happened.
Back home, I couldn’t sleep. I googled “crying at SOPHIE” and ended up deep in queer music Reddit threads. One user wrote, “SOPHIE makes music that hurts on purpose.” That hit me. Another called her sound “emotional maximalism” — too much, too loud, too beautiful to stay contained. I thought about how queer people are often told they’re “too sensitive,” “too dramatic.” Maybe queer music embraces that “too muchness” as a form of protest.
Halberstam’s “queer time” theory suddenly made emotional sense — this idea that we live outside of straight timelines, and feel outside of straight proportions. SOPHIE didn’t give me a reason to cry. She gave me a space where crying made sense.
I’m still not sure exactly what triggered it that night. But maybe that’s fine. Maybe music, especially queer music, doesn’t have to be explained. Maybe it just needs to hold you, until you’re ready to scream or collapse or weep — and know you’re not alone.
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