Is UTA student Trey Cruz the only out queer blogger in North Texas?
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| CHECK MY SITE, BITCHES: Tracy Nanthavongs shows off TreyCruz.com |
Unless you can’t Google them, North Texas barely has any openly queer bloggers who are making a dent. (And don’t start bombarding Dallas Voice with e-mails about GuyTV or MagMoZine. I said openly queer.)
On June 1, 2007, Tracy Nanthavongs launched TreyCruz.com. On Sunday, the University of Texas at Arlington student turns 21. And he says he’ll spend his birthday promoting his site at the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade.
When he’s not Web designing for a Dallas company or studying information systems at UTA, Nanthavongs is busy cruising the Net, posting and making connections with art directors, photo agencies and other tech geeks.
Most of the TreyCruz content is about fashion and photography tailored for gay men: hotties who appear in movies and on runways; studs with music careers; and even beefy-calved dudes whom Nanthavongs snaps on the street.
Turns out, his blog career is too legit to quit. Nanthavongs is slowly making money.
“Right now, it’s enough to pay for gas,” he says.
And at $3 a gallon, that ain’t too shabby.
Earlier this week, we caught up with Nanthavongs a former president of UTA’s GLEE (Gay, Lesbian and Everyone Else) group to find out what the fresh queer bloggers are up to nowadays.
What kind of laptop do you lug around? A Dell Inspiron 600m. I got it for $600. It was a graduation gift, and I’ve been attached to this bitch ever since. I use it strictly for schoolwork, which includes AIM, photos, music, Photoshop and all that other jazz.
Does your mom check your blog? If she did, she’d probably spend more time on it than I do. She supports my queerness and all, but letting Mom read about my life and my sexuality that would be totally weird.
Who is Trey Cruz? “Trey” is a nickname that my uncle gave me because he thought Tracy was a fag name. “Cruz” is my boyfriend’s last name.
How is Trey different from Tracy? Trey is a fashionista whore. Tracy is a sweet guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Do you track your unique hits? What tech geek doesn’t?
The site started as Tracy.Centriclink.com a personal blog that only got 25 hits a month. Now, TreyCruz.com is getting 8,400 a day. The site’s ranking on Alexa jumped from 8,000,000 most-visited site to 214,74096.
What’s the feedback like? My very close friends don’t like it. Neither does my boyfriend. Aside from them, the whole world loves it!
I have no idea how some people find me, but they do.
Last month, New York magazine was tracking Zac Efron’s catapult to fame, and they quoted me in their “Vulture: Apropos of Nothing” section.
Anything Perez Hilton does that you’d never do? I’d never draw cum stains on a photo. That’s really trashy. I also try to avoid curse words.
Do hot dudes approach you, asking you to put their pictures on your site? People who recognize me from my photo section have stopped me in the gayborhood. I’ve also had hot dudes e-mail me their pictures. But I don’t think X-rated stuff would be tasteful to my advertisers.
The Pride parade coincides with your birthday. What are you doing that day? Working! If you guys see me, say hi. I’ll be walking around advertising the site and hopefully find some sponsorships. I’ll also try to interview some hotties. And of course, I’ll be collecting around 500 pics to post on TreyCruz.
Do you know of any other gay bloggers in North Texas? Nope.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 14, 2007