Theater Kid / Theatre Kid

About

Theater Kid or Theatre Kid, previously known as Drama Kids, is a slang term for a subsect of adolescents that primarily spend their time in the school's drama or theatre department, practicing and performing plays, as well as being avid fans of musicals. Online, theater kids are heavily associated with cringe behavior, mostly for reciting parts of plays out loud, singing in public and generally being out of pocket and abrasive. Since the early days of the internet, this term has evolved, with former theater kids reflecting on their experiences in the theater. The stereotype is also often associated with short-form video content and skits in which a person is overly dramatic or quirky in an attempt to be humorous.

Origin

Existing well before the internet, the official definition for the slang term was uploaded to Urban Dictionary on June 9th, 2005, by the user All Drama Kids Annoy Me.^[1]

This definition, which already shows the negative bias towards drama kids, touches on some of the most cliche parts of what makes a theater kid, such as LGBTQ affiliation, love for singing show tunes and cliquey nature of being a closed community (shown below). Over the course of 19 years, the definition received over 70 likes and 100 dislikes.

Spread

Online, stories about drama classes, theater kids and shenanigans taking place within them were shared on various websites, with YouTube commonly being used to showcase theater kids in action. On November 5th, 2010, the YouTube account belonging to Drew Russell^[2] uploaded one of the most infamous theater kid clips, titled "My JOKER Performance," in which he tries to recite a monologue from The Dark Knight in Joker makeup and costume. This early example of theater kid activities earned over 2.6 million views in 14 years (shown below).

Over the following years, memes about theater kids increased as the term became more widely used, spreading across websites like Reddit and TikTok. On October 26th, 2019, the subreddit /r/StarterPacks had an upload by Redditor u/considerthegoats^[3] of a theater kid starter pack, which featured a lot of things popular in the theater kid community, including Hamilton, earning over 1,300 upvotes in five years (shown below).

With the rise of TikTok, more light began to be shed on theater kids as their behavior was shared on the app, often showing them trying to be quirky. On February 29th, 2020, TikToker keithfromthetryguys^[4] uploaded a snippet of a performance in which a group of theater kids, reenacting the song Summer Nights from the play version of Grease in a Denny's restaurant, with many commenters lamenting the plight of the work staff (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References