In Brittany Menjivar's Parasocialite, God Is a Movie Star
How late was everybody?
Fashionably late.
How late is fashionably late in LA?
Like, set aside half an hour.
That's hanging on the locker to me.
Haha, right. I almost ended up being more than fashionable late myself though. I circled around Stories for 45 minutes without finding a parking spot–got to love LA–it ended up with my boyfriend taking the car.
I have no clue about what type of place Stories is, what made you pick that location?
It's a bookstore in Echo Park, on a sidewalk-strip, sandwiched between Prado and an ice cream shop where people go to put supplements in their cream, which is very LA. The first time I ever came to LA I tried to find a cool neighborhood, my Uber driver ended up dropping me off in Echo Park, right outside Stories. I went around to the backyard area where somebody had a performance and I remember thinking “this is so great, this is where I would wanna be at some point.” And sooner than later I’m here, hosting for my own publication. So Stories just made sense, we could definitely call it one of those full-circle-moments. Afterwards we went to a French restaurant to celebrate.
Did you have one too many drinks?
I didn’t. I’m very picky about my alcohol and what I prefer. I like absence, thus KGB–who has absence on tap!–is perfect for whenever we come to New York.
Did anybody show up unannounced? Or – I don’t know what vibe Stories is but – uninvited?
There was definitely one unexpected person but you’ve got to keep that off the record.
OTR naturally makes me ten times more curious. Who are they?
Just call him an anonymous Twitter user, whom I by the way did not know was present until one of my friends quietly told me by the time he had already left.
Did he tweet about it afterwards?
He didn’t. But maybe he will be reading this.
What about the poetry itself, why "PARASOCIALITE?"
I used to be a music journalist as a teenager, during that time I felt as if I lived a double life; I was a fan of a lot of the artists that I covered, yet I had to keep my cool while doing so in order to “deliver my duties.” It made me think more consciously about the ways in which we perform, about fandom and devotion to the people we admire.
I think we all have experience with different types of fandom or devotion. Personally I spent a lot of time back on Pinterest and Tumblr just reblogging my favorite celebrities, or in front of American Idol where you as the audience are subconsciously encouraged to develop a relation to the person seen on screen. It’s also what’s being done to us the second we open explorer-page on instagram. All of these thoughts had been marinating in my brain for the past couple of years and once Jonathan announced that he was looking for a script I felt like the right time to sort my messy collection out, make it something cohesive. I got a deadline, 30 days, and then I got down to it - I just imagined what my life would look like once the book was released.
And now that it is, what is life like?
Haha. I mean, on a day to day basis, it’s very similar. But there are also these constant manifestations of the book wherever I go; people telling me its sold out everywhere, I read a sweet review online, or, the other day I visited the bookstore myself and not only was it sold out but they were even like “sorry, we currently have a negative one copies in our inventory.”
I’m going to quote your book here, but ain't that "making it among the people who don’t need to make it?"
I guess it is. It’s a broader question I’m proposing [on the opening page of the book]. I tend to be an idealist, so generally speaking I think it is possible to–without sounding too cliché–do whatever you set your mind to. But I’m not saying it comes without costs. To achieve something can be very emotionally, physically, spiritually exhausting; this is what I’m fleshing out in the book, especially towards the final section [of the trilogy] which deals very concretely with the culture industry, the fame machine….
But “making it” is not something that exists on its own, I’m thinking about how it's inevitably tied to recognition. Thus wouldn’t to “make it” in that environment, verified against that set of ideals, simultaneously mean that you lost?
When I wrote “don't need to make it,” I had the people who have had a leg up since the beginning in mind. But I don’t think neither is right nor wrong nor that anything has to be that binary. At the end of the day it's always you who have to recognize yourself.
Do we fake it before we make it? Not only to our others but to ourselves as well.
A little bit of faking has never hurt nobody - push that persona out in that world!
What's up in that world today? What world are you currently witnessing?
What a wild question. I think that our concept of celebrity is definitely evolving. Previously celebrities were these untouchable distant figures whereas today these figures, these “icons” if we like, are quite suddenly so real, almost too close, and human. Not to mention, at the same time celebrities came close, everybody became a celebrity in their own right. This is now where our culture rests - on the basis of visual presence and performance; it's where we are supposed to forge new connections and real relations, but it's also where it’s the easiest to “be fake.” It's a blessing and a curse.
I mean, living in LA places me in the center of the phenomenon itself, all the traditional celebrities move with not necessarily just the new generation of celebrities, but more so the new concept of celebrity. It goes without saying, but obviously I am more struck whenever I run into an actor from this movie I drooled over as a kid, than whatever person popped up with millions of likes on my feed this morning.
That’s when your young journalist self is brought back in action?
Exactly. Like should I address the greatness of this person or should I keep it cool; do I really have to perform that whole song and dance around this tactic agreement? That's the code.
Do you subscribe to social codes?
I do and I don’t. Let’s just say I’m pretty straight forward. I’m the girl who will tell you how cool your last movie was, how great your last poem read, who will slide your DM if I feel like we have things in common. However, I definitely used to be more hesitant about what reactions that interaction might spark, but after I moved to LA I justify it all by being like “well, I already made this bold move of moving cross country, why not make the most out of it?”
Also, can we de-stigmatize sliding DMs? I’m personally such a fan of sliders, they’re the new cool.
Definitely. I mean that’s how I meet the majority of my friends these days.
That being said, who's the creepiest man in your DMs right now?
Oh my gosh.
Really, that many?
Well it’s just interesting because I don’t think as I perceive my persona as the one who’d they reach out to, I’ve got like the archetype of a writer, half my online presence is just text or about readings.
It's that academia-girl-dream.
The recent trend in my DMs is really fascinating actually; there are a few guys who start out by the same old same old you know? Liking photos, dropping a comment, very cookie cutter messages but suddenly–after getting a feel for my type of content I guess–have started reaching out to me for advice in their interpersonal lives. Like, “hey I don’t have a lot of female friends in my life so could you give me some advice on X Y and Z” or “why did things with this girl go down this way?” Personally I don't know a lot of people who have had that experience, so when I tell my friends about it they seem to think that I would find it annoying but honestly I find it heartwarming. There’s no skin off my back to give somebody a couple of minutes of advice.
I wonder if you’re their first person of choice.
Most likely not, likewise is it not my responsibility to respond, but then again DM is fucking cool and if somebody is approaching you in a respectful way I’m going to react with empathy.
Tell me just a little bit about your relationship to God, he’s present not only in one of my favorite poems in the book–your death poem–but the whole arch is hingeing onto him as he travels through “suburbia”, “the real world,” and, finally, into “the movies.”
I grew up Catholic and I would consider myself a very spiritual person, even if I don’t adhere to all of the church doctrine. Inevitably, religion has shaped a lot of my relationship to the world and to myself. I've naturally gravitated toward a lot of people who have some sort of religious background or upbringing; we all have these shared experiences even though we might have grown up in different cities. Like Catholic school is kind of still Catholic school at the end of the day. I also think that even if you’re not religious it is in us as human beings to strive for some sort of higher “something” - that’s what all of my protagonists are trying to do in their own ways, sometimes it's like worshiping a false idol, so to speak.
And that's where religion ties into contemporary culture, in worshiping?
There are some parallels between the relationship that a religious person might have with God and the relationship a fan might have with a celebrity. In both instances, it’s like yearning to know somebody who’s never fully knowable - God is the unattainable movie star.
Would you slide his DM?
I would, if Jesus is calling, I’m picking up.
