Thammasat University students who are interested in mathematics, gender studies, education, sociology and related subjects may find a newly acquired book useful.
Math in Drag is by Kyne Santos, a Canadian drag queen who was born in Manila, the Philippines, but moved to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada and studied mathematics at the University of Waterloo, Canada, receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a major in mathematical finance.
The TU Library collection includes many introductory books about mathematics.
Kyne Santos posted on social media a series of videos on general mathematical concepts such as pi and googol, math riddles and memes, and analysis of the use of mathematics in the news, such as demonstrating the numerical flaws in bad reporting on issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic and race-based crime statistics.
Santos has described the math tutorials as intended to present math in a fun and entertaining way, and to counteract stereotypes that LGBTQIA+ people do not generally appreciate math and science.
Santos told NBC News:
“The classic question that people ask in school is, ‘When am I ever going to need this?’ And that is a question that I try to answer in my videos,” she said.
One example of how math is used in the real world, she said, is understanding whether a graph is portraying information fairly.
In one video, she explains why a graph showing COVID-19 cases in the state of Georgia is “misleading.” The graph posted by Georgia’s Department of Public Health appears to show confirmed case counts declining. However, Santos shows that the dates on the x-axis are not in order, causing the highest values to show up on the left.
After people on social media called out the graph’s mistakes, Georgia officials apologized and corrected it.
“Math, whether you like it or not, is used to manipulate people because lots of people can be led one way or another by seeing numbers,” Santos said. “It is really important that when you see graphs, it is something that you have to analyze critically.” […]
Growing up in a Filipino household, Santos said the way math and academics were talked about at home was what made her want to pursue it as a degree.
Despite the stereotype that all Asians are good at math, Kyne said she doesn’t really see it play out in her own life.
Instead, Santos said being a drag queen who loves math shows that the Asian community is not a monolith.
“I do want to show people that you can be smart and successful and be whoever you want to be,” she said. “You can wear green hair and long nails and black lipstick and have those same accolades.”
While Santos and her family share a love of math, they didn’t always agree when it came to her doing drag.
Santos, who’s been doing drag for three years, said she started by watching makeup tutorials. That passion eventually evolved into her becoming a drag queen. […]
For now, she continues to explain mathematical concepts to her viewers because she sees that she is helping others.
“People will be like, ‘You inspired me to continue pursuing math. I want to get a math degree. You make me want to enjoy math,’” Santos said. “If I can show people that math is a lot more fun than they learn in school, then that is a good thing.”
Santos recalled to Toronto Life:
Math has been my best subject in school ever since grade three. I remember playing a game in class where we’d throw a ball to another student while asking them times tables questions. If you could yell out the correct answer before catching the ball, you stayed in. I was terrible at sports, but at that game, I was king—or maybe queen.
I didn’t really learn how beautiful or elegant math could be until high school, though, when I attended a math camp at the University of Waterloo. For most people, math is about crunching algorithms and solving for x, but I saw that high-level math is less about getting the right answer and more about how you get there. It requires a lot of creativity. […]
For my first math TikTok, I got dressed up in full drag and talked about adding up every number between 1 and 100, one plus two plus three and so on. I didn’t think anyone would be interested, but it really took off. I started getting comments like “I want all of my math explained this way” or “I wish my math teacher were a drag queen.”
Between math and drag, I’d always thought I was alone at the intersection of a very niche Venn diagram, but there were so many queer people in STEM who felt really seen by my videos. I guess it was refreshing to see someone dolled up in glitter and neon outfits while talking about a serious subject like calculus.
I started posting videos once or twice a day, compiling little math riddles and tidbits I’d read in books or learned at school, like Fermat’s Last Theorem or the Four-Colour Theorem. A few weeks after starting the account, I made my first viral video on TikTok. In it, I talked about how, if you took a standard piece of paper and folded it in half 42 times, the thickness of the paper would reach the moon.
It wasn’t an original thought, but I guess it blew people’s minds. Every time I refreshed the video, the views would jump—from 10,000 to 20,000 to 30,000. Within a couple of hours, it had a million views, and when I woke up the next day, it was at 2 million. I suddenly went from having a couple hundred followers to tens of thousands, and it just kept growing.
After that, things started moving really fast. Within months of creating the account, I received a message from Johns Hopkins Press offering me a book deal. Brand deals and sponsorships started rolling in. To date, I’ve worked with Taco Bell, Sephora and Maplesoft, a Canadian software company. Within a year, being a social media influencer was earning me a full-time income.
Appearing on Canada’s Drag Race helped boost my follower count too. I was a contestant on season one, which premiered in July 2020. More people started following me because I was “that queen from TV.”
My most popular video is one where I explain a Möbius strip.
It has 14 million views. People seem to love a visual mind bender or brain teaser. It just goes to show that math is more interesting than we give it credit for. When you present it in a fun way, by talking about infinity and multidimensions, people get excited about it. […]
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)