Know You All Over Again Trixie Youtube

Having a conversation with drag stars Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova (real names Brian Firkus and Brian McCook, respectively) is kind of like beingness on an extended episode of their YouTube webseries, UNHhhh. Yous may start talking with them about i topic, but the adjacent thing you know, they're off on a tangent virtually why Bart Simpson says "Eat my shorts."

It's that brand of strange, out-of-left-field one-act that landed the two their very own talk evidence, The Trixie & Katya Show on Viceland, after becoming breakout stars on season 7 ofRuPaul'southward Elevate Race. The show follows a similar format to their YouTube series; they take one topic every calendar week and examine it through personal stories, games, man-on-the-street segments and more.

In a conversation with ET, Trixie and Katya discuss going from YouTube to Viceland, their experience competing on VH1'southward reality series, why they desire to talk about serious bug like suicide and much, much more.

ET: What information technology was like watching your web prove, UNHhhh, blow up all over the internet?

Katya Zamolodchikova: I don't know. I don't really pay attention to that. I'm not trying to be falsely modest, but I became aware of the success of the web show because, twofold, it was referenced more and more at come across-and-greets than the bodily Elevate Race show. So I was like, "Oh, this is making a big touch." And then, one day, I was at my reckoner and I saw that one of them had a million views and I was like, "Whoa." So that was my experience.

Trixie Mattel: I mean, I am the opposite. I'thou a full-on nerd. I sentry the videos with a greenbacks annals and, like, a greenish visor on, checking the views, counting my money.

Katya: We gotta get those clicks.

Trixie: On a personal note, we think that the show is and then funny. And then for other people to think what we recollect is so funny is funny, information technology's only more than fun every bit a group. But even if no 1 liked it, I call back that nosotros would still make information technology. We watch information technology and full-on barnyard animal laugh at information technology. I laugh at our series, I recollect it's so funny. I heed to my own music, I look at pictures of myself naked, and you know what? Damn.

So how did this new show on Viceland come up to fruition?

Katya: Well, Bob, when you establish a seed in the middle of a field and you water it with God'due south juicy rain three times a yr, a tree doesn't abound. And then, you go to a product company and ask for a show, and they say "Yep."

Trixie: Yeah, I don't know how we got and then lucky, simply it's generally, with this political climate, I feel like ... at that place probably weren't people looking for cantankerous-dressers to put on telly, but at Viceland, they're then into comedy. And the sense of humour on Viceland is a little fleck out there, a little bit left of eye and very niche, I think we just fit what they were looking for. Where at that place's smoke, there's fire. And I retrieve they saw the fume, too, of some of our YouTube videos, and the views, and the fans. Because people who watch our evidence are not quiet most it. They are so enthusiastic about it.

Your fans are very active, and I think they have revitalized the popularity of the moving picture Contact.

Katya: I would certainly hope so, Bob. And I hope that it also points them in the direction of the picture show Arrival, which came out simply a year ago. It is, um ... an A+ film. No, A. Non A+, but an A, for sure. And you know what information technology does? Well, yous know what information technology does. Anyways, I dearest Contact because she went through a wormhole at that place. I wanna get in a wormhole, you lot gotta become in a wormhole. You gotta go on the embankment, get on the beach! Become on the embankment, come across your dead dad, effigy it out and go dorsum domicile! Angela Bassett is absolutely going to believe you! One black woman will believe you lot, and that's all yous demand! That'southward all yous demand! I hateful, expect at what's happening at present! James Wood' career is literally over considering he was in with right-wing, zealot conspiracy theorists, and Angela Bassett convinced him, in that movie, that it was existent! And he was like, "Oh, well, I judge you're correct, Bob, information technology is pretty compelling that they had xviii hours of static recorded." Anyways, that'due south it.

What tin can we expect that'due south going to be actually, really different from the YouTube testify on Viceland, and what tin can nosotros expect that's going to remain the aforementioned?

Katya: It'southward going to be longer and it's going to exist funny.

Trixie: Yeah, you're going to encounter us doing things we've never done before. Things out of drag, nosotros actually have a lot more games and organized pieces. Then if y'all're new to the series, you're not quite going to get equally, like, f--ked by the insanity of it. Merely it's going to be the same sort of offbeat one-act. I'm still screaming, that'due south my laugh. Katya's withal saying something really horrible and then looking at the camera and posing. [The show] still has a lot of that normal stuff.

Katya, are nosotros going to get more of you wearing huge wigs and posing similar you belong on the dorsum encompass of a romance novel?

Katya: ¡Dime que no! Does Dolly Parton sleep on her f--king back, b---h?

Trixie: [Scream laughs]

On the YouTube show, yous guys take covered religion, porn, death, aging, orgasms, having sexual practice in elevate, space and more than. Have there ever been, or do you think there e'er will be, any topics that you guys would want to take a step back from and not talk virtually?

Trixie: No, in that location's things that we want to talk about. It's the contrary, where they're like, "Maybe not all of human history."

Katya: Yeah, similar, I want to talk about racism, simply information technology's not the correct topic for me and her to talk nigh. Because we're two white men, can you imagine how complicated that would be? Two white men who happen to be dressed like weird doll-people trying to talk about racism? There's more articulate and of import people expounding on that topic in a existent, effective way. And then we don't need to talk nigh that.

Trixie: I mean, aye. I trust somebody similar Courtney Act to talk to you lot about gender fluidity. I think you lot can come to us to talk to you about how to pull Legos out of your vacuum cleaner, you know?

Katya: [Laughs] Oh, my God.

Trixie: Y'all know, Katya and I are non depressed, just I think we're both dark spirits that don't fear talking about things that make usa uncomfortable. Like suicide, for instance, may exist non the best thing for the states to talk almost.

Katya: But mama, we could.

Trixie: I beloved suicide and I want to talk about it! I don't beloved it, but --

Katya: No, no, no, you tin go on the record that if we get a season two, the first episode is going to be well-nigh suicide. Considering I think that'southward what we exercise!

Trixie: In either of our stories, we're not the winner. And none of our stories are about us getting it right. If anything, nosotros give insight on life through how many means we've done information technology wrong. Similar, we got it wrong, and we're still here.

Katya: Yeah! I one time took like 82 pills of ibuprofen. Ibuprofen does not impale you lot. It's similar, in that location is nothing more embarrassing than a botched suicide endeavour.

Trixie: Yeah, not only are you still alive, only everyone knows you're stupid.

Katya: Aye, and then, information technology's, like, exacerbated by the point that I have to exist hospitalized because the legality of the situation requires me to be hospitalized. So I kind of accept to go along with the charade. Just, seriously, it is bad, and if you throw yourself in front of a train and you survive, that'south a miracle. If you miss yourself with a bullet that you put in the gun, that'southward a miracle. Mine was a humiliation, and now the full general public needs to pay for it. [Laughs]

Trixie: [Laughs] Yep, this could take just been The Trixie Show if she would have f--male monarch done it right.

Katya: Yeah, I would have been out of commission at 15, with like six or vii weird paintings equally my legacy, and it would have been fine. Merely no, I lived to tell the tale, and now they have to be tortured by information technology.

Trixie: I should have been auditioning people considering I didn't have a partner. Imagine, like, Ewan McGregor in a blonde wig at a casting phone call, and I'm like, "We'll telephone call you." You lot know what I mean?

Katya: Temple Grandin would have been better than me, admittedly.

Trixie: [Laughs] B---h, you are the Temple Grandin of drag.

Katya: I would non besmirch her name like that, but I take it as a compliment. Cheers.

Mark Christopher for Viceland

I want to talk a little bit well-nigh your guys' fans, and the fans of Elevate Race, because I experience like Drag Race fans are--

Katya: Mentally ill?

I was going to say very passionate, just yeah! What exercise you think it is about the prove and what you lot guys do that pulls that weird, visceral, nearly animal side out of them?

Katya: OK, you are going way likewise far with that description. What's on your plate today? Who's chasing you?

Trixie: I volition say this: Nosotros are weirdos within a weird customs. Yous don't have to do drag, you don't have to be gay or marginalized in any way, but nosotros've all felt like the weirdo or felt like the outsider, so on Drag Race, you watch an outsider in a room total of other outsiders embrace their outsider-ness so fiercely that they command an audience to retrieve they are the coolest person in the world. Like, no matter what you're into, that'southward inspiring. Like, the feathers, the boas, the sequins, that'southward all great. But what you really lookout man information technology for, y'all watch information technology for a room full of people who know damn well that they are not women, all just agreeing to suspend atheism for the fun of it, and that's inspiring.

Katya: Yeah, I totally concord.

Trixie: I hateful, dissever but equal is fine with me. Beingness gay is and then fun, I desire ... give me my own bubbler and make it and so tearing. You lot know what I mean, I don't care.

Katya: [Laughs] Yeah, I don't want your f--king bubbler, b---h. I want there to be a gay bubbler considering information technology's a douche, and I desire to stick it up my butt.

Trixie: Aye, I want a gay bubbler, similar, there's a doorman, and when you walk in, it's similar, [singing] "Be my lover, wanna be my lover?" And it's similar pink water, and there's a disco ball hanging correct to a higher place where you drink from.

Katya: Yes, Barbara.

Trixie: Run into, I feel like elevate was the best kept secret in the globe, and I'k happy that it'southward not a secret any more, only of course anybody's obsessed with it! They're the last ones to grab upwardly on how fun information technology is.

Katya: Yeah, it's not for everybody though.

Trixie: For us it's like, "We been knew."

Well with that kind of popularity, do you lot recall that drag is becoming mainstream?

Katya: No, no, no, no, no.

Trixie: Elevate will always detect a mode to be weird.

Katya: And it'south just a numbers game. 10 percent of the population, on a crude boilerplate, identifies equally gay. I'm not maxim queer, I'm saying gay. Ten percentage of the population identifies as gay or lesbian. We're gay mascots, and a lot of drag does not make sense to straight people because it doesn't apply to them. We're actually making fun of them. Then, it doesn't need to exist mainstream, they don't need to empathize it -- nosotros're making fun of them! That'southward what we're doing. So when a drag queen tries to exist Jennifer Lopez instead of making fun of Jennifer Lopez, that brings this to a different area. It doesn't make it worse or bad, but the crux of drag is parody.

Trixie: Yes, totally. Like, I love that drag is a way for people to vacation in the gay nightlife, simply ... it's quite a different experience to perform for a gay audition than a straight audience.

Katya: Yeah, nosotros've both washed information technology ad nauseum, and working for straight people as a freak show, that sometimes tin be humiliating in a style. Only it's a bizarre, psychosexual freak show matter that happens, and I don't quite empathize it, and I don't always really want to practise it once again for all direct women who think information technology's fun to wait at weirdos who are trying to exist ladies. But it'due south never going to be mainstream, and it shouldn't. I don't always wanna be mainstream.

Trixie: Like, when you look at Drag Race, information technology has gotten then mainstream. And Elevate Race has gotten and then mainstream --

Katya: No, popular! Trixie, Trixie, I mean ... it's popular, though. It's not mainstream.

Trixie: OK, so pop.

Katya: Mainstream is something ... like Big Bang Theory. Seinfeld is mainstream.

Trixie: Right. Merely now Dragula showed upwardly. Then, on the heels of Elevate Race becoming something that the entire culture knows about, now something like that is in that location! When yous perform for a room full of gay people, gay people want yous to go dark, they want you lot to go deep, they want you lot to be sexy and wild and sad, where it's like, straight people ... information technology's a unlike blazon of matter that they look for in drag. And it'southward a unlike blazon of affair that they tin even choice upwards on.

Katya: Yeah, while Drag Race the bear witness has gained enough popularity, that allows for some spinoff and some kind of parody, which hasn't happened nevertheless, that's a smashing affair. Its influence and reach tin can tap into a lot of dissimilar factors similar makeup and beauty and gender norms, whatever, but nosotros'll always be outsiders looking in. And that's the value of elevate! I said parody, but I didn't hateful that. The crux of elevate is outsiders looking in. That's all information technology is.

Trixie: And that's an nugget too. I hateful, look at our serial; part of why our YouTube serial worked was because, yeah, people were laughing at us, but they likewise really liked how strange nosotros were. I mean, we are outsiders as comedians.

Katya: Yes! We're outsiders within the elevate universe!

Trixie: Yep, Katya and I are weird for drag queens, and that'southward weird, mama. I don't always want to be normal.

Katya: Yeah, within the drag universe -- not only within the Drag Race universe, permit me be very clear. Within the elevate universe, which is large, and which is by and large unseen past normal eyes, nosotros are regarded with, at first, suspicion and contempt prior to investigation. When someone walks into the dressing room who looks like a broke-down Barbie or a wild slut from hell, you want to be like, "Girl, what the f--k is your T?"

Well that's kind of an interesting signal I wanted to touch on -- in that location is this larger drag world that is unseen by most people. How much visibility to the drag community Drag Race has brought?

Katya: Oh, a ton, mama.

Trixie: I mean, tons. X years ago, drag used to happen, like, one time or twice a calendar week in most gay bars. Nowadays, bitch, there's a drag show Monday, there'due south an amateur show Midweek nighttime, at that place's a Drag Race viewing party with a testify on Fridays, similar ... it'due south all over the place now. And you don't have to be on Drag Race to brand a living doing elevate, but that is related to the fact that Elevate Race exists. Does that make sense?

Katya: Yeah.

Trixie: Yep. The same way, similar, when Wicked was big on Broadway, or Hairspray ... when regional or community theaters start doing those productions, it's going to drive people to come up check it out, because they've heard about it from somewhere else.

Katya: Basically, I call up that we're at the Broadway level of all of these drag queens.

Trixie: Yes, I mean, I'thou a big fan of musical theater, and I don't like to bust it out likewise frequently, but this is the right time.

And so with that popularization, how do yous call up drag has changed? I know that Jasmine Masters is famous for maxim "RuPaul's Drag Race has f--ked up elevate."

Katya: Yes information technology has! Yes it has! Can I only bound on that right now?

Trixie: Let me just conference in RuPaul, one 2d Katya.

Katya: No, no, no. When she said that RuPaul's Elevate Race has f--ked up drag, she was absolutely right. Because she existed in the subliminal space between the local queen world and the Drag Race success earth, because she went home third. So, she didn't receive every bit much benefit in each way, and so she saw the effects of Drag Race, she saw how information technology collection people to an obsessive preoccupation with Drag Race queens. Now the incorrect thing was that information technology didn't necessarily accept a lot of audience members away from the local girls. It only added. It added, mama.

Trixie: Yep.

Katya: That's true, and I'll argue with any local girl on that. Because I was, myself, a local daughter, and the bars are still doing OK. But it has inverse the landscape, and it's and then much pressure level to get on the bear witness that even the local girls themselves have to fight with this low self-esteem battle, saying, "I'm non any good because I'k not on TV."

Trixie: Information technology's just crazy. That's similar saying that you're not a good musician, or you're not a practiced singer because yous didn't practice American Idol.

Katya: Exactly! It'due south crazy talk! It's apples and oranges. The success level of a Elevate Race girl is due, in part, to her success as a reality TV personality, mama. Information technology's not all about her talent. Just go look at Miss Continental. Your wig volition exist snatched by the attention to item, the money!

Trixie: Katya and I might be two of your favorite drag queens, just nosotros are not the ones y'all desire to become come across on a Friday dark at your local club.

Katya: No! No! You wanna hear u.s.a. the next day talking nigh the prove you saw concluding night. That'due south where we come in.

Trixie: But things have changed. Information technology hasn't "f--ked up" drag, merely think most it -- MTV changed the music industry, YouTube and Instagram inverse the beauty industry, so of grade it all changed. Part of existence a successful businessperson is about adapting as your industry evolves. [Pauses] B---h, I am so smart right now. I am then up my own ass.

Katya: If I would be and then bold equally to, similar, enlarge her argument or make it a little bit more than specific, I would say that RuPaul's Drag Race has shook up elevate.

The Trixie & Katya Bear witness airs Wednesdays at ten p.m. ET on Viceland.

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Source: https://www.etonline.com/why-drag-stars-trixie-and-katya-are-ok-being-weirdos-within-weird-community-exclusive-91689

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