by margarita louca
images julie goldstone
images julie goldstone
Margarita Louca: I really love the caption you wrote: “The girls need more praxis.” And I was just hoping you could elaborate on that for me as a starting point. So, what would that look like?
Star Amerasu: This is something that’s been on my heart and mind because, ‘cause I think it’s so weird. I think that people don’t realize we’re all under the constraints of capitalism. And I think even just realizing we’re all under the constraints of capitalism would make people react differently to other people online. Because we’re all having to either work jobs or having to sell ourselves, or sell a product that we’ve created, or be some sort of commodity in society. And I feel like when we view everything from a consumerist mindset, then we are not viewing people as people anymore. We are viewing them as a product.
And I think for me specifically, as a trans woman and a Black woman, we have learned how to be commodities at one point. Forced to be commodities, literally being sold and bought by people. And now, as in the larger context of the world, not just Black women are having to sell themselves or become products. I think that the growth of “slavery” is this idea that now there’s so many different ways in which you can truly be not a person anymore and become like a product. I just feel like a lot of people don’t think, who is this person online and why are they online? And what are they trying to do? And let me just spew my hate onto them,” and I don’t like that.
ML: I’m in exactly the same frame of mind. When I started engaging with the internet, I really thought it would be a space where we could escape all of that. And I’m wondering if you also were hoping for that, or is it something that you’re exploring in your work currently? Because again, if I’m right in understanding, you are also a big science fiction fan. For me as a child, as a young woman, science fiction gave me this escape from my corporeal body. I really did love this idea that you could become something more, something other, something new. I really feel like that’s something that’s present in a lot of your characters. Is that an accurate read, do you think?
SA: Yeah, I think you’re a hundred percent correct on that.
ML: I guess you’re gonna laugh. I’ve been such a massive nerd. I’ve been trying to read as many interviews with you as possible. But I really loved something that you said, which was that you think of your brain as a computer. And I loved this example that you gave where you “downloaded” the actress program and that you were gonna install it into your reality and live that fantasy. And it’s so fascinating to now see all your personas through your Instagram reels. It’s almost like you willed that into existence. It’s like a form of hyperstition. Was that an aim? Is that something that you just manifest in your creative work?
SA: Oh my God, you’re gagging me… I was going off-dome, I was really spittin’. I think we have so many possibilities in our human body and the abilities that we contain. I think a lot of people don’t even probably consciously realize that I have a point of view about the world, but the whole point of me even being on the Instagrams and making the videos is so that I can get the public, who would be my public, ready to see me in this acting capacity. I don’t know if that’s hyperstition, but you have to like prime people to be ready to receive you. Sometimes, especially coming from a person like me where the opportunities aren’t getting offered like, “We want you to be in this TV show, or we want you to audition.” At some points, I have gotten audition opportunities, but it’s like “I have to make it for myself.” And I think I resisted social media because I don’t like how we have to distill ourselves into something that’s really accessible and relatable. I’ve looked at the creator’s pages on Instagram and they use that word “relatable” a lot and try to be the most “relatable” person. We can relate to each other, but the general population’s not gonna always relate to what we’re doing.
ML: It’s almost feels like it’s a gentrification of the mind. It’s really a point of privilege to not have to acknowledge that other people exist. It seems really distressing how flat we need to become. Is that also why you are so proactive in making a lot of your own work from the ground up? So obviously you’re a musician, you’re directing, you’re acting. Is that also an extension of, “If I don’t write these stories, if I don’t make this music, then who is going to do it?”
SA: When I was young, I’ve had friends give me nepotism. Like I would say I am a nepo baby in the fact that I have friends that are nice. That’s my nepotism and the old, original type of it. It’s not like my family’s from some lineage, but my friends have helped me along the way. I’ve always had to be like, “Okay, let me make something and then somebody will see me in that way.” And I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s nice to be a part of your own creation. And I think if everybody viewed themselves in that way, and if everybody took that sort of belief in their lives, we would live in a radically different world because people feel more empowered to explore and try things out.
ML: These fictions that you’re creating are almost like a refusal to be bound by what’s acceptable, right? So, you’re speculating and you’re not asking permission. You’re making these new myths. I love that you were framing having nice friends in a community as nepotism, which weirdly is depressing to me cause when I think about nepotism, I would almost argue that you’re surrounded by these wonderful people that want to uplift you.
SA: I just like the idea of being like I’m a nepo baby because my father, the creator of the universe loves me. But no, I totally get what you’re saying and I agree with you. I reframe that and a woman always has the right to change her mind. As Wendy Williams has said before, it can be a prison sometimes when you have to do the same thing but change it up, but not too different. This girl and I were talking and she has around the same amount of followers, 50,000 more or something. She has a super viral video where there’s a picture of these Asian women making a star with their hands, and she did it on her birthday. The people in the comments are fighting about calling her a Zionist—and she’s not, she’s pro-Palestine—but calling her a Zionist because it looks like a star of David, but not really. But that is what she became that’s what made the video go off—people fighting. so I feel like sometimes the space of what did you go viral for is like a prison, because then it’s she’s not going to be able to keep doing that. Recently, I filmed two videos on the same day. Multiple characters. I edit them separately, posted them a week apart. They’re different. And I’m starting to get comments from people saying it was repetitive. And I was like, “You’re only saying this because I brought up the fact that you have to be repetitive.” I can never please these people because there’s always going to be these people. And I look at the profiles and it’s like another artist, oh, like white gay artist. I’m like, bitch, why are you coming for me? Do you girls even think to yourselves maybe I should just be supportive of this young woman on her journey? I just became influencer. Sorry I’m rambling now, but it’s true.
ML: This is very salient. It really is.
SA: I just started the idea of me being an influencer and it is a means to an end because I want a TV show. So, in this economy you have to showcase that you can pull numbers and show them that you have this “thing.” You girls are lucky that I’m even making this. It’s because I decided that I wanted something from this world.
ML: It’s eternally frustrating. It almost feels like we are monitored through prediction by the tech companies and each other. We’re so conditioned to it. Now that it’s seeping into the comments, it’s seeping into our own supposed community who are now monitoring and feeding this back. There’s self-policing.
SA: When you said monitoring, it made me think of that term ‘monitoring spirits.’ I think that because we live in a globalized police state, that people feel like they’re cops. We feel obliged to police other people within our community for not adhering to the rules and regulations of the community. Sometimes I get comments of can we get a, like a win for Diva (the protagonist of 2099)? I’m like, “Girl I don’t know if you know this, but it’s chaotic out there,” and actually the things that I’m making are not even like the worst of the things that happen in the actual real world. Everything is becoming illegal. Being a diva is illegal. They’re making being a trans woman illegal in a lot of places and the United States is becoming a pressure cooker against the LGBT community because it’s easy. They’ve put so much money into advertising to make “trans” a buzzword.
ML: How does it feel to be watching this unveil in real time in front of you? And how do you feel about having to maybe employ humor? Because I guess a lot of people are just closing their ears and eyes to what’s happening.
SA: It’s this idea that I’m creating in a vacuum, like I wasn’t even thinking, right? I don’t think that when I started filming a video every day, I wasn’t thinking like, “Oh my god! This situation, that situation.” But people were feeding into it online. Now that it’s been three months of making different ones, I think they’ve become a bit darker on accident or on purpose. I had the comments from people that felt they’re the wardens of my jail cell on Insta- gram, so every day I upped the ante of this sort of way in which it’s a stressful situation for my character, the character, Diva, that is new to the world that I’m presenting. People are just so wrapped up in their own reflections of things that they don’t even think about how their actions are affecting other people. It’s really made me think about it. Especially because I live not just online.
I was in Brazil for two months and hanging out with mostly older people. My friend was this like 75-year-old woman who was my neighbor. We would get lunch. She would drive me around. She’s not on Instagram and there was a day I did a character in Polari and she saw me dressed up like a boy. And I explained it was for Instagram, and she thought it was funny. But for her, the reality that she’s living in offline is so different than the reality that the left-leaning internet people live in—and she is left-leaning. She voted for the left-leaning new President Lula in Brazil, hated Bolsonaro, and hates Trump. But she and I were just vibing and we don’t like living online in this way. I guess the point of that is to think like there are people whose who just live in the world and who aren’t constantly bombarded by the stress of being online.
ML: I guess there’s a reason we call it doom scrolling. You mentioned the Polari video and you were just saying you’ve always been fascinated with language and culture, specifically syntax. And I wonder if other people you feel are picking up on that. I think sometimes when there are so many kinds of pop culture references, it was really interesting how outside of a lot of people’s framework and comfort Polari is, even as part of the queer community.
SA: I think people just don’t know. We are being psyoped into hating each other even though we have so much more in common with each other. I downloaded the Fantabulosa Dictionary and then as I was writing I would have Polari YouTube videos on, and I wrote it on a piece of paper. I would write like I was transposing how I wanted the character to say something. I want them to talk about trade like a man.
ML: I wonder how many people were then actually encouraged to go away and actually investigate themselves. And thinking about the way you use language, nothing feels accidental, and then how you’re thinking about AI. A conversation I have a lot with my students is that they’re terrified by this idea that AI is learning. And I was reading an interview with one of the really early computer scientists who said their biggest regret was the words they used when creating AI, that they shouldn’t have called is artificial intelligence, shouldn’t have used the word “learning.” I’m really fascinated to know what you think about all of this.
Cause I’ve seen you speak about AI and it seems like you’re quite hopeful, especially with regards to things like the singularity.
SA: I’ve watched so much Star Trek. Data is my favorite. If we hate AI, we’ll never get Data in real life. We’ll never have the AI doctor from Star Trek: Voyager. I didn’t really think that it would be so like spooky to people. And I think as a trans woman too, I’ve encountered this idea of am I real? People don’t view me as being a real woman, don’t even view us as being human in some contexts. We’re striving for this world where we can also be acknowledged as being real. And I think maybe that’s where it comes from, is this feeling that my life, I felt othered and AI is also this other thing that knows a lot and is smart. And I’m like, wow, I feel like I’m in The Jetsons. This is fab. Because the perfect use of AI to help is as an assistant to my choices.
MA: I’m very much with you. I have a healthy skepticism of all new technologies, but that’s more to do with who is developing them and for what means. It’s very easy to blame the technology, but really, we should be asking ourselves why are we using it and how are we using it? But I also wonder if maybe the reason we’re both more open to it is because of our love of science fiction. It’s more about what the possibilities could be. So, I was thinking, in all the chaos, why not build an alternative? And it really feels like that’s what so many of your characters and scenarios are doing.
SA: I want to start making sketches and keep doing that because my ideal scenario is actually called It’s a Journey with Star, and it’s like in the seventies when everybody had a variety show. It’s like my version of a Carol Burnett Show or a Sonny and Cher—or I also watched someone who I thought was really funny… I’m being fucked up because I’m thinking “Coochie,” but that’s not her name!
ML: Charo?
SA: Yes! Charo had a variety show. It’s like everybody had one.
ML: I don’t understand why variety shows aren’t more in demand, considering the way that we consume media now. If we’ve only got a short attention span, of course it makes sense to have these skits and have the musical numbers and like that keeps it alive. People are so obsessed with this idea of authenticity at the moment. But somehow, it can’t be authenticity that is in any way embarrassing, right? I just find it strange how people don’t want friction in what they consume anymore.
SA: It’s easier to be unchallenged in the media we consume. And I think that with the corporatization of our whole lives makes it so you can’t—you can’t even cuss, because that’ll lower the video in the algorithm. Everything is sanitized. I was thinking about the idea of double speak from 1984 and how we have created double speak. Like this person “unalived” themselves. I’m always thinking like, wow, we can’t even say “suicide,” the word “kill;” you can’t say the word “kill” when people are being killed or dying. The way that people like rewrite genocide with the three e’s. It’s like we are living in a world of double speak because we are being, if you say anything normally, then apparently, like the algorithmic thing doesn’t show your stuff.
ML: I wonder how much of this kind of sanitization is actually the algorithm and how much, again, is almost self-policing? I’m always really fascinated by the idea of trigger warnings when you’re talking about real world events. Like you were saying, if we can’t talk about what is unfolding politically in the world without giving it a kind of cute alternate, you can see how that reinforces a lack of empathy or a lack of genuine understanding. If we can’t even say these words out loud, how can we then deconstruct what’s happening?
SA: It’s almost impossible. This morning, I woke up with a notification on my phone that one of my comments was removed from one of my own videos where I was speaking in Polari and I said, “Read the caption, ducky.” And they removed my comment because of bullying or harassment cause I “compared” somebody to an animal or whatever in Polari. That’s funny that they would remove that, but people literally post gifs of monkeys—whenever I have a video go super viral in just like a random world, not just with queer people— saying racist things; or that they know that I’m wrong because of X, Y, and Z. Or that I’m stupid because I’m a woman. These things don’t get removed, but me saying “Read the caption ducky,” on my own post does.
ML: So there’s just something so vile about the way that developers and technocrats designed everything: this kind of move fast, break things, ideology, but they never actually go back and fix anything. I was thinking about how Dr. Safiya Noble wrote her book, Algorithms of Oppression, where she highlighted all of this stuff even before we were training AI and before we really engaged in heavy content moderation. It pains me, cause again, I always viewed the internet as somewhere we could be more and we could escape and we could build these better worlds.
SA: When I was younger, that’s where I learned about like how you access hormones, how you access care. YouTube was a sponsored long-form type of creation so that you could really sit with something. That is where some of my humor comes from and at the time it was like funny to be able to see people being so creative. It is by design that the Instagram story only shows 15 seconds of a thing. It is by design that like you are rewarded the if your video is like within a certain timeframe, and then it is also by de- sign that they reward you with attention. And that is insane actually. I have to product productize myself or become a product. I’ve had to do that in order to get the attention so then I can make something for myself.
ML: It’s so tricky. Maybe it’s naive of me, but I still live in hope that we can resist all of these structures. It is really interesting what you were talking about earlier, about our bodies and how we use them and our personality. Legacy Russel says you become a body rather than being born a body. And I think for me that’s a really liberating way of thinking. And I wonder if we can take that into the digital sphere? So you can become this digital body and you can explore in lots of different ways.
SA: I’ve realized that in the context of this reality I had. I transitioned when I was 19, I was homeless, but I moved to San Francisco because I just knew in my heart that I’d be able to access healthcare there easier. And I did. I had all of my surgeries there. I got jobs, I was able to integrate, train myself, go to school. And if I had to be homeless for a bit of it, it was worth it because I feel beautiful, and I get to be beautiful in this body and feel sickening and cunt and that was like the point. But all that to say back in the day I was a musician, right? And that’s where I had my clout online. I remember once I was really depressed and I was just like so sick of it and how people treated me online and I was like, I’m just gonna delete my Instagram. It’s like microdosing suicide for somebody whose whole work lives on this online thing. Like not having it means that like I have disappeared to certain people.
I don’t think people realize that I have already done that before and I would a hundred percent delete all of my socials and disappear and I could go get a job, which I’ve done. I’m beautiful. I could find a man; I don’t need to be on here. I’m on here because I have goals that I want. But if that doesn’t work out or it doesn’t feel good anymore, I don’t have to be there. And I think like people don’t think about like, why is this girl here and why is she doing this and this way? It’s a thousand percent because I want my TV show. And if I don’t get the TV show, then I’m not going to be on here. Cause I don’t have to be. Cause I can live in the real world without being online and have my needs met.
ML: This is the thing: It’s so difficult to navigate the constantly shifting mess. The world is stranger than I think anything we can imagine at this stage.
SA: I think that if we survive, if Ray’s right and we just survive the next 10 years at this point—because I think they’ve moved the singularity sooner—we’ll be in like a different world. Here I am 33 years old, and I’m just talking to the computer and it’s helping me formulate my thoughts. As a child this would’ve been a fantasy. That’s something that we could not do five years ago.
ML: I’m a little bit older than you, but I still remember seeing the first advert for a mobile phone that you could play MP3s on. And that was even world shifting for me as like a teenager who was obsessed with music. But I will say, you mentioned The Jetsons earlier, and I’ve got to admit, I’m still really mad at them because everything they promised by the year 2000; I fully was ready for this. So, I’m slightly annoyed that we’re this far behind…
SA: We’ll get some of the stuff. All right, so the timeline is like shifting. Things are different. I’m open. I feel like I’m in a very open-minded state of being. I was thinking also like in the context of our world, what’s really happening is also all these older men are having like emotional responses that they don’t know how to deal with. And they happen to be in positions of
power and they’re also having to deal with like their own emotions and trying to say that they’re not emotional. Everything’s about pathos. Anti-trans legislation is using emotions to try to get old people into having a response. If we knew how to process our emotions and everybody was able to truly sit with how they feel, then we would live in a different world. My utopia is a world where we have an emotional learning class every year— It’s like these kinds of complicated things that we don’t get into.
ML: You’re far more hopeful than me saying once a year. I was thinking free therapy for everyone once a week. I guess talking about capitalism I’d be remiss not to mention like Mark Fisher and talking about this idea of capitalist realism and how it’s still easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism, right? But interestingly, I think we do imagine the apocalypse every day on the internet. I wonder why there’s that safety behind the screen for us to explore that?
SA: I think also people in real life have experienced apocalyptic events and survived it. There are people all over the world who are experiencing hardships that I could never even imagine. There are literal people in mines, mining cobalt, not just in my imaginary 2099 Jeffree Star Yak Mines. It’s not just word salad online, it’s real. That’s already happening too with content mining. They have like people who are in rooms with hundreds of phones and they have to manage the like phones clicking to get people’s likes and numbers up. That’s a real thing.
ML: I think that’s far more dystopian than AI doing the content mining for you. I’m like, if we can liberate people from doing those awful things with bots on Facebook just talking to themselves now, why not? Cause I think, great, they can keep each other busy. We can have some conversations and do some creative stuff.
SA: I want to live in a world where we don’t have to be online all the time in order to survive. Girl, like what happened to like where we like met up and talked? I haven’t been to like a coffee shop chat type of vibe in forever, but I remember going to meetups with people to pontificate about shit; or when I went to college for the first time, I had my friends that I met in college and we just hung out and just chatted for like hours about concepts. And I don’t know if young people are doing it in the same way anymore. I don’t think they are.
ML: I wonder if a lot of what we’re talking about is how really, we’ve all been focused on or funneled towards focusing on culture war when actually it’s class war, right?
SA: Sometimes I get comments on my videos about what a rich person looks like in th world of 2099... Girl, I don’t care.
The one person I made rich in my world is doing community service because she was making money off other people. So, if that’s going to get us to be living like Star Trek, we’re cooking with gas!