I am so glad that in last night’s excellent episode of Drag Race UK we got to see Silllexa Diction open up about something that I feel like not a lot of people actually remember. Before Silllexa Diction was the drag powerhouse she is now and a formidable force in this competition, she was known to a lot of us of a certain age (25-30) for being part of the ‘Facebook famous’ circle in the early 2010s. In last night’s Drag Race UK makeover challenge, where Silllexa Diction nearly won with her partner Shobna Gulati, we got to see a small clip of Silllexa opening up about the impact her Facebook famous past had on her – but here’s what went down back in the day in more detail that the show didn’t air.
Hang on, what’s Facebook famous!?
It might be hard for most people reading this to conceive, but before influencers on Instagram and TikTok there was the era of Facebook famous. It ran alongside Tumblr famous as the main place people were using the internet to get a big following. There were a circle of people around this time who would get thousands and thousands of likes on every post – and it was quite unheard of at the time. These people would be scrutinised in an era of the internet far nastier than now. The type of people who were becoming Facebook famous was quite random – but in Leeds, there was a little squad.
Silllexa Diction opened up about her time being extremely Facebook famous on Drag Race UK last night. Silllexa said “I came out when I was 12. I went online and I posted a picture of me in heels. I woke up the next morning and I had 50,000 followers – just from that one picture. Back on Facebook in 2012, was a really big thing.
“Everyone who followed me followed me to be nasty. Because it was like a joke. Back then it seemed exciting that people knew who I was. But also, heartbreaking that so many people could be so vile to one person. I’d go into town and people would throw glasses at me. People would hit me. People would just attack me. They’d film videos of people hurting me to put online. My entire childhood was based around fear.”
Silllexa spoke candidly about the Facebook famous crowd – who were all sorts of ages when she was only 12. “Some people were in their 20s, some people were in their 30s. And I was 12. I didn’t leave the house. I couldn’t go to school for three years. I really didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
She spoke about how her parents were there for her throughout this time.
I remember the era of Jake McManus
Silllexa back in the Facebook famous days
The Leeds Facebook famous lot were it girls, to me as a young queer person watching them online. I remember this crowd used to have meet-ups in city centres where the Facebook famous and the Tumblr famous would all link up. I remember loads of viral posts from this time where people mocked Silllexa Diction for wearing a chain on her face, and when Silllexa spoke about the horrible ordeal of people attacking her – I distinctly remember a video of someone throwing a yoghurt all over her head in the middle of town to go viral.
It was an extremely nasty time – and one of the first eras where you saw the perils of online fame. Some of the other Facebook famous crowd have not managed to make a success of themselves like Silllexa has. I am so proud of Silllexa Diction for making a star of herself despite this trauma in a long gone by, fever dream era of nastiness online.
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