“Drag has finally arrived at the place it deserves in pop culture, in a way that cannot be ignored,” Randy Barbato, co-founder of World of Wonder, which produces “Drag Race” and its spinoffs, said by phone. “For us, it’s just the beginning.” (RuPaul declined an interview request.)

Lucrative sub-industries have emerged: wig and cosmetics lines, rhinestone peddlers and hip pad pushers, and YouTubers showing you how to don it all; online shops like DragQueenMerch.com selling T-shirts and enamel pins; and managers, publicists and assistants helping these brand-new celebrities meet the demands of their success. “Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon,” Bianca said by phone. “Anyone on Instagram who wears mascara is a makeup artist. Anybody who knows two queens is a manager.”

But beyond the set of “Drag Race,” even more queens are working for unsteady pay at one-off gigs, and angling for their shot on the show.

“Who is good at ‘Drag Race’ is equated to who is good at drag, and queens palette themselves to get on,” Charlene, a Brooklyn queen and trans woman, said at her kitchen table. “There’s this dance you do on Instagram and way you network yourself. We’re like, in ‘Toy Story,’ the aliens in that machine waiting for the claw to pick them up. We have this stagnancy of queens doing the dance rather than focusing on their art.”

The show, which first aired on Logo, has on VH1 attracted a larger, more female audience, many of whom embrace drag as an arena for gender expression. While some are quick to cite earlier eras as truer golden ages — the 1980s, with its kaleidoscopic club and ball scenes, or the 1990s, with RuPaul’s talk show and the drag movie “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” — they admit today’s popularity is extraordinary.

“I will say, this has never been seen before,” the New Orleans-based Varla Jean Merman said by phone. “Drag is a viable career.”