The Str8ys Did It Again: Handing Out the Golden Beige Awards for 2024's Most Aggressively Heterosexual Moments

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone who's ever described themselves as 'fluent in sarcasm' on a dating app — welcome to the annual Golden Beige Awards, where we honor the heterosexual community's boldest achievements in making it everyone else's problem.

This year's nominees were vetted by a panel of experts (three queens, one bisexual with opinions, and a barista named Devin who has seen things). The criteria: maximum straightness, minimum self-awareness, and a certain beige quality that cannot be taught. Only purchased. At a mall kiosk.

The Lifetime Achievement in Unsolicited Heterosexuality

Awarded to every male celebrity who opened an interview with a variation of "I'm secure enough in my masculinity to..." — a sentence that has never once preceded security. If you have to announce the masculinity, babe, it's not secured. It's on layaway.

Our winner this year delivered the line while promoting an action movie in which he fought a helicopter. Sir. The helicopter was gayer than you.

Best Performance by a PR Team in a Crisis

This one goes to the record label that responded to months of very reasonable fan speculation by staging a beach paparazzi shoot so heteronormative it qualified for a federal subsidy. Sunglasses. Matching towels. A lingering hand touch captured from 400 yards away by a photographer who was definitely tipped in crypto.

The photos ran in a tabloid that nobody under 50 reads. The fans responded with a meme of a raccoon looking directly into the camera. The gays won. We always do.

Outstanding Achievement in Sitcom Nostalgia Cosplay

To the streaming platform that greenlit not one but THREE reboots of shows whose central joke was "men and women don't understand each other, isn't that wacky": congratulations on solving the housing crisis by building apartments out of laugh tracks.

We watched twenty minutes of one of these. In one episode, a man failed to locate the dishwasher. Revolutionary cinema. The laugh track did more emotional heavy lifting than the entire writers' room.

The Khaki Award for Bravest Use of a Podcast Microphone

This category honors the comedian-turned-podcaster who spent ninety minutes explaining that comedy "can't be funny anymore" while never once being funny. The episode was sponsored by a meal replacement shake, which, honestly, tracks. Why chew when you can chug and complain?

Dishonorable mention to his co-host, who nodded along so aggressively he sustained a minor neck injury. We hope the settlement covered the chiropractor.

Best Original Song in a Heterosexual Panic

Awarded to the country track that spent four minutes listing everything the singer is NOT — no city, no soy, no feelings — and somehow became the biggest wedding song of the year. The gays did the Electric Slide to it ironically and then unironically, because we contain multitudes and excellent rhythm.

Dishonorable Mentions

• The luxury brand that discovered "gender-neutral" and priced it at $890
• The reality dating show where all 30 contestants were named Ashley and the lead couldn't pick one because "they all feel like my best friend" — sir, that's a friendship, go home
• The talk show segment where a host asked a gay actor "who's the wife?" in the year of our Lord 2024
• Every airline safety video that got "diverse" but kept the same aggressive jazz flute

And the Golden Beige Goes To...

The enigma himself: the celebrity who spent the entire year denying something nobody asked about, in interviews nobody requested, on podcasts nobody finished. The dedication. The commitment. The sheer tonnage of cologne. We salute you, whoever you are, and we gently suggest that the closet door has a hinge for a reason.

Your Turn, Besties

The Golden Beiges are a people's choice ceremony, which means the floor is now yours. Drop your 2024 nominations in the comments — the cringiest interview, the most desperate PR stunt, the straightest thing you witnessed at a Whole Foods. Winners get nothing. Losers get everything. That's the deal.

Until next year: stay gay, stay nosey, and never trust a man who says "the female body is a mystery." Read a book, Kevin.