kiki
noun
| KEE-kee
A gossipy get-together; (to have) a lively chat
What does kiki mean?
Kiki is a slang term used for an informal gathering among close friends, typically involving laughter and gossip. More generally, it means “a gossipy conversation” or “to chat,” especially on a colorful topic. It is especially used in and associated with LGBTQ+ and Black communities.
Examples of kiki
Gurls, we need to have a kiki about the new League of their Own series on Amazon Prime. WOW- they went for it: sexuality, gender norms, race and segregation- they are talking about it all!
—@ratrusty, Instagram, 22 Aug. 2022
Kikis are great excuses to see one another and keep up to date on the actual goings on of those around you.
—Let's kiki about dating app/site algorithms real quick: could there be racial/visibility biases against us?
—
Where does kiki come from?
While its exact origins are unclear, kiki has roots in the house and ballroom community, a Black and Latin LGBTQ+ drag subculture that spread in US cities in the 1980s–90s. Here, kiki is believed to imitate the sound of laughter—and perhaps even more specifically the sound of snickering, as a pair or group of people may do when chattering or gossiping on the side. Scholarship on house and ballroom culture often gives “having fun” as an early definition of kiki.
In the early 2000s, a movement emerged within the house and ballroom culture that was often referred to as the kiki scene. This involved support groups for LGBTQ+ youth providing social services, and also offering opportunities to socialize, including in the form of so-called kiki balls, or festive, party-like drag performances. This scene was notably captured in the 2016 documentary Kiki, popularly considered a sequel to 1990’s Paris is Burning, a landmark record both of house and ballroom culture as well as its distinctive vocabulary. Its slang, including yaaas, queen, slay, and kiki, has since become well-established and widespread beyond the LGBTQ+ community, popularized in the mid-2010s by RuPaul’s Drag Race, Black women, and then other groups who subsequently adopted it.
How is kiki used?
While kiki still refers to a casual hangout among friends, it has expanded as an informal word for any lively, gossipy conservation or as a verb for having such a conversation. The word, however, is typically used for an honest, open chat that a smaller, more intimate group of girlfriends—including gay and nonbinary men who frequently address themselves as such—may hold as a kind of ‘debrief’ after some juicy bit of drama or other such intriguing, intense matter. It is commonly used in and associated with the LGBTQ+ community and by women, especially Black women.
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