I never understood why my dad would yell at the TV during football games. He had no control over the outcome, and it seemed to me like he was stressing himself out for no reason. I often wondered whether he was even enjoying himself while watching.

RuPaul’s Drag Race is the last thing I ever expected to shed light on the alien heterosexual experience; if anything, it’s where I can retreat from such concerns, a glittery oasis of queerness in a tacky, straight world. And yet these past few weeks, in crowded gay bars throughout New York, I have become my father: screaming at televisions airing All Stars 3, trying to project my will onto the uncontrollable events unfolding before me.

Following Shangie-Gate — which saw season favorite Shangela disqualified by a jury of eliminated queens in last night’s finale, in a controversial, Survivor-esque twist — toxic Drag Race discourse unfolded anew, along the same lines it has in the recent past, where racist abuse was spewed at Kennedy Davenport on Facebook earlier this season. Following her coronation last night as this season's winner, Trixie Mattel, a queen who has her own show on VICELAND, was dismissed as mediocre by displeased Shangela fans. Insults were flung. Wigs flew. Friendships nationwide potentially ruined. I would not be the least bit surprised.

In light of all the fuss, I might posit the same question to my community of Drag Race fans that I did to my dad: Are we even enjoying ourselves?

For transparency’s sake, I’ll admit that I slept through the All Stars 3 finale on Thursday night. For one, I needed a nap. And at some point this season, watching the show began to feel more like emotional labor and less like a party.

To be clear, this is a ridiculous way to feel about a show that very recently featured a chorus line of men in wigs farting along to the tune of “Here Comes the Bride.” The loser quacked like a duck and was critiqued by the panel of judges for not quacking hard enough.

But my problem isn’t necessarily with Drag Race itself. Though the show does have numerous issues — there’s RuPaul’s troubling comments on trans queens in the competition to start, not to mention the flawed way the Drag Race empire has handled race — my problem is more with its community of viewers, who have taken to treating it with the kind of deathly seriousness one would approach, say, a presidential election. They’ve begun to treat it so seriously, in fact, that my first thought at the close of each season is to wonder which queen will receive the most death threats.

Contrary to popular belief, RuPaul does not determine the true winners of this show. Popular consensus does. If a competitor is lucky, their run will be cut tragically short and they will become a queen of the people, a la Katya. If they’re unlucky, they will become a sacrificial lamb at the altar of rabid Drag Race fans on social media.

Each season, once the glitter has cleared, viewers are left with a number of queens whom we love; the remainder are excoriated for their sins in the hallowed Werk Room. Milk, with her sense of entitlement and lack of self-awareness, was the whipping boy of this season of All Stars. There will be another, perhaps even two or three, on season 10 of Drag Race proper.