Mercedes Iman Diamond's "Opulance"

About

Mercedes Iman Diamond's "Opulence" sometimes spelled "oppalance" refers to RuPaul's Drag Race contestant Mercedes Iman Diamond repeatedly mispronouncing the work opulence.

Origin

On March 7th, 2019, the RuPaul's Drag Race^[1] season 11 episode,"Good God Girl, Get Out," aired. The episode featured a challenge in which contestants had to act in parodies of movies Black Panther and Get Out. Contestant Mercedes Iman Diamond struggled with the line "opulence, you own everything" while voguing into the scene (shown below). The clip was uploaded to YouTube and viewed 198,000 times in a week.

Precursor

In 1990, the documentary Paris Is Burning premiered and features the line, "opulence, you own everything" (shown below).

Spread

On March 7th, 2019, following the airing of "Good God Girl, Get Out" Twitter users began to comment on the opulence scene. Twitter user @controald^[3] tweeted, "oPuLenCe, YoU oWn EveRyThiNg. that’s gonna be stuck in my head all week" (shown below, left). The tweet gained 78 likes in a week. On March 10th, @bendelastclair^[4] tweeted the line with gesturing emojis imitating Diamond's dance (shown below, right). The tweet gained 4,300 retweets and 13,700 likes.

That same day, @ageofaquafina posted a video of someone in a club dancing and saying the line with the caption, "just when u thought 'opulence, you own everything' was out of your head" (shown below).

On March 11th, 2019, @JJsimon18^[5] tweeted an edited photo of the scene with the caption "Appalance you… bend… everything" (shown below, left). That same day @arielversace^[2] posted a photo shopped version of the scene that places the contestants in an ambulance with the caption "ahmbulahnce you broke everything" (shown below, right). The tweet gained 1,300 retweets and 6,400 likes.

On March 12th, 2019, Adam Joseph uploaded a house remix of the Drag Race scene's audio to YouTube (shown below). The video gained 12,600 views in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References