I’m Sorry

Because I'm from Canada, it’s like a normal thing to say. But I was also trying to find the funniest, most baby-stupid name. Fashion is really fun for me, and not totally serious. I feel like I also want to apologize for what I'm going to be putting out.

Both.

I have innate guilt inside of me, and shame.

I've been obsessed with clothes my whole life. Clothing has been so much a part of my identity—it has either been a way of shielding myself or revealing something.

Yeah, and what I would want to wear to make me most comfortable. It’s what I'd wear behind and in front of the camera: sweats, underwear, t-shirts.

It was even more exciting, because it was going to be a physical piece that you can wear. I basically came up with [the graphics]: my childhood stuffed animal, Lysol spray. What else is there? I had a van growing up, a white Chrysler. This is actually a blue Dodge. It's modeled after the van that my sister has right now.

I guess your sexuality comes from your childhood. Those are two things that I always relate to each other, because that's where everything that I'm obsessed with came from. It's sort of hand-in-hand for me. I'm constantly questioning my sexuality, and my sexual trauma. I think it's something that makes me the most comfortable in all of the good and bad. Which is kind of what you see when we're shooting. It's really hot, but it's also really gross.

Well, it's also miniature. I really like the proportion of it. It's so jarring. Us doing the same hot, slutty shoot would not be funny in a normal size. I'm also so obsessed with anything that has humor in it. The one thing that I can't deal with is when either someone doesn't have a sense of humor, or something isn't funny, because everything is ridiculous.

It’s my dream of me. My anime dream. I live in a non-reality all the time, so that was my way of actualizing it.

At a young age, I had crazy, crazy body dysmorphia. I've always had so much self-hatred. My way of dealing with all that, or dealing with everything, was taking photos.

I'm ultimately obsessed with the way that people see themselves through filters, and that whole wave of basically only presenting yourself with a filter on. I feel like it started with Snapchat, when people would just be saying totally normal things, but have the dog filter on. We don't even think twice about it now. I have so many screen recordings of people—it's usually Kylie—doing like, a five-minute thing where they’re talking and the dog tongue is coming out. So I’ve tried, with [makeup artist] Marcelo Gutierrez, to figure out how to make a real life filter. That's what we're doing with this. That's what I did in my book, OMG, I'm Being Killed, too. People get so angry at it.

I think people either take something like this totally seriously, or it's a joke. If it’s both it’s a little unsettling.

Kind of, but I'm also in it, because I do put filters on my face, and I do think some of that is attractive.

Originally, when I first started photographing people taking photos of themselves, it was because I was excited. It felt like for the first time, people that weren't otherwise documented were able to have that device in their hands to create their own image. I didn't necessarily think of self-censoring. When I started seeing how they were looking at themselves, and what they were changing, and when FaceTune started, I was like, the internet isn't this perfect utopia. It has consequences. And it affects you. Because that's how I described it earlier on: an untouched landscape that we can make our own. But I forgot that—

Not even after a while.

100%. But I feel like there was a tiny sliver of time when people were trying to show an “authentic”—before it was sold—version of themselves. And as time progressed, and as these filters started being made, I've totally spiraled, and come back from it, and then gone back into spiraling. As we all do. It's fascinating, and it's also something that I've just been waiting for anyone from an educational background or community to start writing about. The internet isn't necessarily part of psychotherapy yet. My therapist barely brings it up. We don't recognize it as real.

I wish. Making art is maybe the only thing. I just spent the last year-and-a-half away from photography, after I finished my books, writing with my friend Melissa Broder, who has this Twitter called @sosadtoday. I was a huge fan of hers, and I always wanted to collaborate with her in some way. I hit the point of spiraling to the most insane degree, and I was like, “Okay, let me just write about this.” That sort of morphed into our horror feature.

Obviously David Cronenberg, he’s a fellow Canadian. There's also The Exorcist, which is the definition of going through puberty, basically a bunch of dudes freaking out around you. There's that one scene in Possession that I'm always obsessed with, which is where Isabelle Adjani has the full breakdown. I'm also thinking of the Scream franchise, because what we're making actually ended up being almost a full comedy.

A really big part was the consumption of it all. Melissa comes from a background of being a sober person and being in recovery for so long, so she very easily interchanges all of this with drugs. It's the same thing. The more you use it, the less powerful it is. A bunch of likes two years ago would have satisfied me for a week. Now it's like, two seconds pass and I already hate myself again. I also need to change my medication, go back to therapy again. Spiral is also about mental health.

So, for [I’m Sorry], it had to be really fun for me. It's something that's part of a narrative, part of the landscape, part of an image. I love fashion. I love it all. I'm not above or outside of it, either.

It’s that as well.

I was just describing that feeling to my boyfriend, trying to put it into words. There’s something about wearing feminine clothes and playing that feminine role. There’s half of me that feels really good about it and half of me that feels really guilty and horrible. You want that attention. Then once you get it, you feel horrible, disgusting. I’m sorry that I exist, basically.

It's weird being in this body, too. I look and act very young. I'm not unaware of my sexuality or how I look. There have been so many times when people don’t understand that I’m the director of a shoot. Production crew will literally say to me, “The director needs to tell me what to do, not you,” and I’m like, “No, I am the director.” I'm very lucky to be in my position, but it's also strange, because I have to figure out a way to demand respect constantly.

One of the big things that changed my way of seeing myself was when I went on Ryan McGinley's road trip. I was in a really abusive relationship. I was maybe 18 or 19 and I had lost full touch with my body. I literally couldn't see what I looked like. And I remember it was just actually so freeing to be naked and not a sexual object. I was doing every single thing that I was so afraid of doing, like, the first day. When I was doing the interview with them, they were like, “Are you afraid of heights? Are you allergic to anything?” I literally can't go outside without getting rashes, but I was like, “I'm fine, I'm good.” I was always such a fan of his, so I really wanted to go. The first thing we did was roll down a hill and climb up a tree. I’d never felt so in my body. After that, I moved to New York. I was like, “I am strong enough to leave this horrible situation that I was in and I can do stuff on my own and use my body.” I'll forever be grateful for that.