It’s a bit of a nightmare to pin down, honestly. You think you’ve got it—it’s the feathers, the glitter, the over-the-top drag performance—and then someone points at a 19th-century Tiffany lamp or a specific scene from a black-and-white noir film and says, "That’s it. That’s camp."
Suddenly, your definition falls apart.
Looking camp in the eye isn't about staring at something ugly or something expensive. It’s about recognizing a very specific kind of failure. A glorious, intentional, or sometimes totally accidental failure to be "serious." When Susan Sontag published her seminal essay "Notes on 'Camp'" in 1964, she basically blew the doors off how we talk about taste. She argued that camp is a sensibility that sees the world not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice. It’s the love of the exaggerated. The "off." The thing that’s "too much."
The Sontag Problem and Why We Can't Agree
Most people start their journey into this world by reading Sontag’s 58 jottings. She’s the blueprint. But here’s the thing: Sontag was writing as an outsider looking in, and a lot of queer theorists have spent the last sixty years pointing out that she kind of stripped the soul—and the politics—out of it.
To look camp in the eye is to see a history of survival.
For the LGBTQ+ community, camp was never just about "liking bad things." It was a survival strategy. It was a coded language. If the world tells you that your existence is "wrong" or "unnatural," you lean into the unnatural. You make a parody of the very norms that exclude you. Think about the legendary Divine in John Waters’ films. When Divine eats dog excrement at the end of Pink Flamingos, it isn't just a gross-out gag. It’s a middle finger to respectable society. It’s camp at its most confrontational and "filthy."
But then you have the Met Gala in 2019.
The theme was "Camp: Notes on Fashion." Suddenly, you had Katy Perry dressed as a literal chandelier and Lady Gaga doing a four-act wardrobe change on the red carpet. Was it camp? Some of it. A lot of it was just "costume." There’s a distinction. Camp requires a certain level of theatricality that borders on the ridiculous, yet it often takes itself incredibly seriously. The chandelier dress? Definitely camp. A generic pretty gown with some sequins? Not even close.
🔗 Read more: Cry Havoc: Why Jack Carr Just Changed the Reece-verse Forever
High Camp vs. Low Camp
We have to talk about the tiers. It’s not a hierarchy of quality, but a hierarchy of intent.
High Camp usually involves a massive budget and a complete lack of self-awareness—or at least a very high-concept play on it. Think of the 1980 film Flash Gordon. The costumes are gold, the acting is turned up to eleven, and the music is by Queen. It’s spectacular. It’s trying so hard to be a serious sci-fi epic that it transcends its own genre and becomes something else entirely.
Then you’ve got the accidental stuff.
This is often called "naive camp." This is where someone tries desperately to be sincere and fails so spectacularly that it becomes a masterpiece. The Room by Tommy Wiseau is the modern gold standard. Wiseau wasn't trying to make a "so bad it's good" movie. He was trying to make a searing emotional drama. The result is a film where people play catch in tuxedos for no reason and the dialogue feels like it was written by an alien trying to pass as human.
You can't manufacture that kind of magic easily. Once you try to be "bad," you’re entering the realm of kitsch or parody.
Examples of Camp in the Wild
- The Architecture of Las Vegas: Specifically the Luxor Pyramid or the Eiffel Tower at Paris Las Vegas. It’s a fake city in the desert. It’s the definition of artifice.
- Cher: Honestly, just Cher's entire career. The Bob Mackie gowns, the headpieces, the deadpan delivery. She doesn’t just wear the clothes; she inhabits the spectacle.
- Old Hollywood Melodramas: Watch What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Bette Davis isn't just acting; she’s performing a grotesque version of femininity that is terrifying and hilarious at the same time.
- Eurovision: Every single year. It’s a contest where a heavy metal band dressed as monsters (Lordi) can win the same prize as a woman singing a heartfelt ballad.
The Irony of the "Good" Taste
Usually, we’re taught that there is a right way to appreciate art. We’re told to look for realism, for technical mastery, for "meaning."
Camp says: "Nah."
💡 You might also like: Colin Macrae Below Deck: Why the Fan-Favorite Engineer Finally Walked Away
Looking camp in the eye requires you to drop your snobbery. It’s a democratic way of looking at the world. It suggests that a plastic flamingo on a lawn can be just as interesting, aesthetically speaking, as a marble statue in the Louvre. Maybe more interesting, because the flamingo isn't pretending to be timeless. It’s just being loud.
Christopher Isherwood, in his 1954 novel The World in the Evening, made a great point about "High Camp." He said you can't have camp without a certain amount of passion. You have to love the thing you're making fun of, or you have to love the thing you're overdoing. If there’s no love, it’s just mockery. Mockery is mean. Camp is a celebration.
Even when it’s biting.
Why We Need It Now
We live in an era of hyper-curated social media feeds. Everything is beige. Everything is "aesthetic" in a very boring, minimalist, "clean girl" kind of way. It’s exhausting.
Camp is the antidote to the beige.
It’s the messy, the loud, the "too much." When the world feels heavy or overly serious—which, let's be real, is most of the time lately—leaning into the ridiculous is a form of mental rebellion. It’s why drag has exploded into the mainstream. People are hungry for something that acknowledges the absurdity of life.
There’s a common misconception that camp is just "gay culture." While it is deeply rooted in queer history, camp is a lens that anyone can use. It’s a way of looking at a shopping mall, a political rally, or a Victorian novel and seeing the performance behind the curtain.
📖 Related: Cómo salvar a tu favorito: La verdad sobre la votación de La Casa de los Famosos Colombia
How to Spot It (The Checklist)
If you’re wondering if that thing you’re looking at is actually camp, ask yourself these questions. Don't look for a "yes" to all of them, but if you hit three or four, you’re in the zone.
Is it exaggerated? Does it take something simple and make it complicated for no reason? Is there a sense of "failed seriousness"? Is it theatrical? Does it feel like a "performance" even if it's an object?
And most importantly: Does it make you smile because of how bold it is, even if it’s "wrong"?
The Future of the Aesthetic
As we move further into the 2020s, the definition is shifting again. We’re seeing "Meta-Camp"—people who are campy about being campy. It’s getting layered. But the core remains the same. It’s about the spirit of the thing.
You can't buy camp at a store, even if the store is selling sequins. You can't just put on a wig and be campy. It’s an attitude. It’s a way of standing in the world and saying, "I know this is ridiculous, and I'm going to do it anyway, with 100% commitment."
That commitment is what makes it work. If you half-heartedly wear a silly hat, you’re just a person in a silly hat. If you wear that hat like it’s a royal crown and demand that everyone treat you like a queen while you’re at the grocery store? Now you’re looking camp in the eye.
Actionable Ways to Embrace the Sensibility
- Audit your "guilty pleasures." Stop feeling guilty. Whether it's 1970s disco, low-budget horror movies, or wearing neon green faux fur, lean into why you actually like it. The joy is the point.
- Study the masters. Watch Paris is Burning. Read Sontag, but then read Esther Newton’s Mother Camp. Watch the films of Douglas Sirk.
- Notice the artifice. Next time you’re in a "fancy" space—like a high-end hotel lobby—look at how much work is going into making it look "natural" or "classic." Notice the performance.
- Practice "Serious Play." Take a hobby or a style choice that seems "too much" and commit to it fully for a day. See how it changes your interaction with the world.
The world is often a drab place. Looking camp in the eye is the quickest way to turn the lights back on, even if those lights are pink, flickering, and slightly tacky. That's the beauty of it. It doesn't have to be perfect to be meaningful. In fact, it's usually better when it's not.