Drag couple viralizes with culinary and lifestyle program on YouTube

It was in the middle of Carnival that it all started – but without confection or conversation. Thairone Cavalcanti, 27, and Eduardo Kunst, 32, now known as the creators of the Dragbox channel, exchanged glances in João Pessoa during the revelry, but only spoke the next day after a “match” in a relationship application.

From the virtual exchange was born a romance that, shortly thereafter, became coexistence and, later, work joint on the internet. “I accepted a job just to be closer to him,” Thairone tells F5who at the time left his city, Monte Horebe, in the interior of Paraíba, to be a teacher at a state school in João Pessoa, where Eduardo lived. He plunged headlong into the relationship and work, playing the project together in parallel. It worked out. “I never imagined achieving everything we have today.”

And they have a lot. Created in 2019, Dragbox, on YouTube, was thought of as a space where the two could create any kind of content, either as drags or ‘dismantled’. With over 400,000 subscribers, the channel already exceeds 1,500 published videos, including content that reaches over 700,000 views.

On Instagram, the account accumulates 583,000 followers, while in Tiktok the range is even greater: there are over 1 million fans, with videos that often viral and record hundreds of thousands of views.

The Dragbox name came from a word generator used by a couple’s friend. They enjoyed the idea of ​​”box” for allowing variety. As the option of appearing as drags – not, which soon realized, makes a difference.

The couple also began to realize that always being assembled, as impressive as it was visually, created a barrier with the public. “People dehumanize. It looks like you’re not a person back there, just a character,” says Thairone.

He says the show started to really pump when they started to appear without makeup or special costumes. “We grew up more when we appeared dismantled. Beating 1 million in Tiktok was because of that – recipes, routine, things that show our human side,” he says.

During the pandemic, the plan to live together came with a strategic excuse. “I said: ‘It will be easier to make the channel and we will be able to enter the gym we want.’ One of the two things worked, because the gym never saw the color,” jokes Eduardo.

The first two years were dedicated without financial return. They continued to produce even without sponsorship, views or promises. The turn took place in 2021, when the channel actually started to grow. For Thairone, it was at this moment that the decision to leave the job at school finally gained sense. “The day I left, I remember that I cried desperate with a loud song. It was a cry of relief, like, ‘Thank God.’ It was the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.”

The first two years were dedicated without financial return. They continued to produce even without sponsorship, views or promises. The turn took place in 2021, when the channel actually started to grow.

For Thairone, it was at this moment that the decision to leave the job at school finally gained sense. “The day I left, I remember that I cried desperate with a loud song. It was a cry of relief, like, ‘Thank God.’ It was the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.”

They explain that they usually reserve drag art for more produced presentation moments, such as ‘dragbox in the kitchen’ – diatv culinary framework, where they act as presenters – or in humor paintings and curiosities, from which they approach fans sent to unusual themes (and somehow poetic) of science, such as the transformation of a caterpillar into butterflies. With a footprint that resembles names such as blogger and depression, they mix entertainment, mockery and information in a light and humorous way.

In Eduardo’s view, this balance between simplicity performance and truth is one of the main engines of the couple’s success. Behind the scenes, they continue to produce together, thinking ideas, adapting formats and following the changes in public behavior in the networks.

The adaptation, by the way, was what allowed them to remain relevant even when engagement in mounted videos decreased.

“There are people who still expect drag to be just exaggerated and comical performance, but today the internet also welcomes those who show feeling and even education. When we appear dismantled, cooking or traveling, it is not because the art has been aside, but because we are too. And the audience realizes when it is real,” says Eduardo.