![backstreet gay bar atlanta backstreet gay bar atlanta](https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/mu4ym6sgWyriG-yFgzTUbg/258s.jpg)
How long have you been doing the Gay Barchives project?Īrt Smith, : So the gay bar archiving project kind of got off to a slow start at the end of of 2019. Meet Art Smith, creator of ĭave Infante, Fingers: Thanks for getting on the phone, Art.
BACKSTREET GAY BAR ATLANTA ARCHIVE
For a complete archive of Fingers interviews, click here. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed, and was conducted in March 2021. “Once the project started going, it really kind of opened my mind to all of the information that potentially could be dug up out there that wasn’t easy to find.” “I've always been like a nerd when it comes to books and information,” Smith told me when I asked about his motivation for the work. One thing that I really appreciate about the GayBarchives project is how it harkens back to a simpler internet, before the rise of social media platforms and “the attention economy” and all the attendant horrors, when people who were passionate about something-like Smith is about gay and lesbian bar logos-simply logged on and built little online shrines to that thing, just ‘cause. (The individual pages that pertain to each state’s curated shop are where you’ll find info about each individual bar it’s a little disorienting but click around and you’ll figure it out.) Since we spoke, he’s also begun publishing video interviews with LGBTQ+ nightlife figures to his YouTube channel you can also download those interviews as podcasts here. Eventually, Smith plans to write a book to catalog all the information he’s turned up, but for now, a lot of it is available on his site, where you can also buy t-shirts and stickers to help underwrite the project.