CC Cambridge Uni ramble

Hussein: Caroline, you’ve been described as many things - a writer, an influencer, an artist, a modern-day celebrity, but also a grifter, charlatan and scammer, to name a few. As one of the most divisive but also most famous people on the internet, how would you describe yourself and do you think any of these descriptions hold any weight or any authenticity?

CC: Erm, thank you guys both for that really kind introduction! I… I also wanna thank everyone who’s watching this live streamed event because I definitely would not be watching it if I was a Cambridge student, I’d be deleting the emails as soon as they came to me and be like ‘this is spam, I don’t want this’, so like, thank you so much for taking the time to find the YouTube channel and watch this. And as for the list of things I’ve been called, I mean - you forgot so many! You forgot narcissist, you forgot toxic.... friend, you forgot criminal, you forgot slut, you forgot - gosh, there’s so many names, like I’ve been called lots of things and I’m sure I’ll be called lots of things in the future and I hope I will because I think that, you know, art is meant to be disruptive when it’s done well, and a lot of people don’t see me or my online personality and content as art but I’m glad it’s disruptive but I consider it art, so I’m expecting to be called a lot worse before I go to my grave. And no, I don’t think it’s that true! I often say that if someone has a problem with me, my personality, my business, they can text me and if they don’t have my phone number then they don’t really know me well enough to make comments on who I am as a person or the inner workings of my business.

Hussein: So I think a lot of people will have been introduced to you via The Cut article, which we’ll talk about in a second - I know you’re wearing the tshirt [...] In 2015 or before, when you had a public persona on Instagram you lived a fairly normal experience, charting yourself as an American who was studying at Cambridge and your Instagram feed was described as a fairytale because of its high levels of curation and showing the kind of, real enchantment and beauty of the Cambridge campus [...] While you were trying to seek an authentic British experience as someone who described herself as an Anglophile, you were also very aware of the metrics and the algorithm at the time. Indeed in terms of trying to build an aesthetic you had to know how that platform worked. I wanted to ask you, first on influencer culture and your aesthetic around that time [...] What formed your thinking around the purpose of social media and by extension your time at Cambridge during 2015/16?

CC: Erm, well, uh, as someone who has trouble doing Cambridge exams which are like, one essay question that is like one sentence long, I’m the sort of person who halfway through my paper will be like, what was even the question? What was I even answering? - these paragraph-long questions are going to be a huge challenge for my attention span, but I’ll try my best to answer them! First of all though, you’re like ‘you lived a pretty normal life!’, and like, that is THE craziest thing anyone has EVER said to me, including when they called me a narcissistic toxic slut. My life at Cambridge was not normal at all. I was literally working full time making this business, while being a full-time student, while being in my first adult relationship, while trying to make friends and have genuine connections while living all the experiences I could then funnel back into my business and on top of that I was trying to get this brand off the ground. Like I remember  from my drinking society initiation I literally had to leave mid-way to take a phone call with, I think the UK Times or something like that? Like, it was just - and what was so weird was that I was so shy about it too, because I almost felt guilty that I wasn't having a more normal college experience. And I remember when I left this drinking society initiation to go take this call in the parking lot at St John’s chophouse I didn't tell anyone where I was going, I was like ‘oh, I’m just going to the bathroom!’ and I went to the parking lot pretty wasted and, like, those sort of odd moments categorise 2015 for me. Sort of, like, ducking out of grand, you know, everything from study halls to shitty predrinks, to like, go field press enquiries that I was trying very very hard to get. I know it sounds unbelievable but there was a time where I was literally begging these reporters to write about me! I was like, please, I’m important, please! Now my manager is like, ‘what questions are you planning on asking her? I wanna see them first!’ My manager sent that to Hussein before this.

Hussein: Heh.

CC: But er, 2015 was really tough. And I don’t wanna put you on the spot but I’m currently publishing my response to Natalie’s piece, which has been so amazing - I’ve used the chance to - I’m so sorry by the way! I haven’t turned off my email notifications and it’s too late, I would just panic if I had to go into settings and figure it out now so it’s just gonna be, like, a nice little symphonic orchestral part when the screen goes to me! But, er, also if I get a text I’m sure it’ll ding but it’s really not my fault I’m so popular! I’m joking, I’m kinda panicked about this and don’t wanna, like, figure out how to turn it off right now…

Hussein: I guess what I mean is, even though that’s a very intense situation for anyone who’s in their undergraduate, I guess I mean for an influencer trajectory where you gain popularity but it’s not as integrated with the rest of your personality - so you can do your whole social media stuff while you’re doing your studies and extra curricular - I guess it doesn’t feel as integrated to your life as it is now - or it doesn’t feel as essential to you - you could separate your life as a student and your other identities.

CC: Well, yes. I was getting to the point that if in my response to Natalie’s piece I talk a lot about the Adderall addiction I was dealing with during all three years I was at Cambridge - Adderall, for all the British people watching, is a study drug, it’s basically legal amphetamines or legal speed in the US, and the fact that I literally have to explain to a British audience what Adderall is should give you all the information you need to know why this was so easy to hide for three years at Cambridge. I’d literally just take it in front of people and they’d be like, what is it? And I’d be like, Adderall! And they’d be like, oh, okay! But, that addiction it was really really serious and I was also dealing with suicidal depression at the time which I say really off-handedly now - I still don’t know the right way to talk about it, I feel so - I feel even weird being ‘I was unwell, struggling’ than I was like, off-handedly being like, ‘oh yeah, I didn’t really see the point in living!’. Both ways of explaining it feel so wrong. But I was so connected to my content, even more so in 2015, because I really used it as like, honestly - a coping mechanism for my shame. I just felt so broken and it really was a vicious cycle, because the more people commented on my photos being like, ‘GOALS!’ - because it was 2015 and that’s what we said online in 2015 -

Hussein: Uh-uh.

CC: - after I’d walked, like, eight miles in the snow to make my post, back in the day, but people would be like, ‘GOALS!’, and I’d be like, ‘I don’t like life’. And people would be like, ‘GOALS!’, and I’d be like, you know, awake for the third day in a row because I’d taken that much speed. And so I really felt I was drifting away and becoming increasingly unmoored from the normal world and from an interest in life I sort of used my online presence to like, I don’t know, counter-balance my shame. And it’s something I’m still unpacking in therapy. If I’m doing a bad job explaining it it’s because I don’t fully understand it! But I also take issue with you being like, it wasn;t like a normal influencer - like you had a better ability to like, compartmentalise. One, there was this shame, addiction, perfect outside shell-cycle going on that was a very tangled knot, and on top of that in addition to contacting reporters and trying to get myself out there, the way I built my Instagram brand was I bought 40,000 followers and then - before the FTA laws about disclosing hashtag ads existed - I bought ads from specifically book fandoms. I knew I wanted not just followers but readers, and not just readers but readers who were predisposed to become obsessed with what they read. And so I targeted accounts like Harry Potter, The Fault in Our Stars, The Hunger Games, and I would run ads for myself with these accounts. So I’d have to write the ads, find the accounts, send the ads to the accounts, make sure they went up, sometimes I got scammed cause I was like, Paypaling money to strangers on the internet, and it took so much time! And it was really tough.

Hussein: Yeah. I wanted to talk about - cause that sounds like a very crazy period - but I wanna talk about another crazy period, post-Cut. I don’t want to go into the ins and outs because you’re in the process of writing a response to Natalie?

CC: Yeah, I published the first - it’s a three part series and I’m using it to raise money and so far we’ve raised 50,000 USD for Covid relief and I’m hoping to get to 100,000 USD. And I wanted to donate the other 50,000 USD to the EJI, which fights racial inequality in the American prison system.

Hussein: Cool. So I don’t want to talk to you too much about the details or the kind of gossip dispute about the Cut [...] What I found interesting is how it became inserted into online discourse, in particular Twitter discourse [...] It morphed into a story about privilege and power and how power dynamics play out in friendships, the nature of influencers, and it was the first time I really saw a really concerted discussion about the reality of influencing and the kind of stuff that goes on behind the scenes and the internal mechanics that expose the capitalist logic behind influencer culture. So I guess I wonder if you think the article was a turning point in influencer culture or even online culture, and if demands and expectations that are put on you and others are going to be far more scrutinised because of how many people could engage in this conversation [...] And as someone who understands herself as an online character, I wonder whether that informed your decision on how you responded to Natalie? I’d be keen to find out what actually happened - did you have to discuss with managers or agents or was the response to Natalie something you constructed on your own? How did you rethink your online identity after that particular moment?

CC: [sighs] Wow. Well, I -

Hussein: Sorry, I’ll try and shorten the question. [laughs]

CC: [shrill laugh] Yeah, I mean I’m really making Cambridge look really bad because you’re asking me all these questions and I’m like, thank you so much for all these interesting questions! Here’s an unrelated anecdote to everything you’ve just said! [laughs] And I feel like, you know, I’m gonna keep living my truth and I’m gonna try and answer your questions, like, all 30 of them - but more likely I will get through this and be like, I’m telling an unrelated anecdote. Let’s try and jump into it. I think honestly as you were talking I was sitting here and I was like, nodding and silently freaking out behind my eyes because I was like, ‘should I just tell this guy that I disagree with everything he just said? Or should I go along with the questions and try and make this a more professional and coherent Zoom meeting?’ But honestly I disagree with all of the questions. Like, starting with that you thought it was a really interesting with online culture and the help that people need, I mean - it’s - [pause]. Natalie and I worked together for a period of six months over a span of two years. I’m sorry, two periods of three months over a period of six years, so six months’ total. And she was very careful to take the focus of the attention of the reader in that essay from when we worked on Instagram captions before my Instagram was famous and when she helped me write my book proposal, after I’d become famous and sold the book and established a brand. And I think she - Natalie’s brilliant. She started writing that article when I went viral as a scam. She literally started as soon as I was being cancelled and seven months later, I think she was very smart to really tap into a lot of topics in our culture, like the idea of having the pretty friend and the ugly friend, or the idea of the influencer and the person who does the work, like the brains behind the operation. If I read that article - I mean when I read it - I was like, wow, this Caroline Calloway is very dumb and very mean, she has no idea how to run a brand, thank god she had Natalie there to hold it all together! When in fact Natalie actually wasn’t part - I was away in Cambridge for three years when I wrote the captions that made me famous and sold the ads that sold my brand myself. And although I think it is interesting to think about how influencers have help, the truth is we don’t fit perfectly into that narrative of the pretty dumb face who was just the shell, and Natalie that had less power and was doing all the work and all that complicated dynamic she was trying to present. I also disagree with you when you were like, ‘do you think there’s more pressure on influencers now?’. I think things - there’s such taboos around so many things online. Like when Natalie published her article it was pretty taboo that I’d bought 40,000 Instagram followers, but like now the more I’ve been unburdened of that shame, it’s like one of the smartest business decisions I ever made! Like, starting with that bump and then building the brand from there - genius! And like, other things like buying ads and hiring help - I paid Natalie! I paid her 35% of everything. I treated her well as an employee. When she emailed me to tell me she was writing this article for the Cut she wrote a couple of paragraphs - and actually this anecdote is going to be so fucking realted to your question, it’s actually, like, dazzling, this is not going off topic at all! Well, I mean, fingers crossed. Well, she wrote me an email, she was like ‘I’m so glad that you’ve gotten over your addiction; I know that recovery must’ve been, like, so hard for you and I’m really happy you’re not sick anymore.’ That email, as I said, was a couple of paragraphs - like, her essay is almost 6000 words long! It’s a long piece and she doesn’t use the words ‘addiction’ or ‘recovery’ or ‘depression’ or ‘sickness’ once. She’s very careful to erase my mental illness from the record because by presenting my behaviour out of my mind on amphetamines as my sober personality she mischaracterised fundamentally the core of who I am and my struggles with mental illness. And the next question which was whether your management tried to regulate your response! The answer is no. The biggest obstacle to writing this response was that my father died of suicide the week that her article came out. I found out the day after Natalie’s article came out. The last day I spoke to my father was the day I got Natalie’s email. And the reason it took me seven months to write this article is because I’m really mentally ill! I struggle with suicidal depression; I go to therapy three times a week - that’s a lot of therapy! That’s like renting two apartments in NYC which is extra ridiculous because my one apartment that I’m renting is inhabitable because of the global pandemic we’re living through. But, like, it wasn’t a management team issue - it was me and in addition to dealing with public shame and being characterised as - all the worst things I ever did in my addiction, like not remembering - or leaving her alone at that bar, or being a better friend, or being more conscientious coupled with having the business that I built - like having that authorship taken away from me - coupled with my father’s suicide - it was a lot of trauma to recover from and that was the obstacle from making what I wanted to make. I’m a writer just like Natalie and I wanted to really be in the most capable, clear-headed space to write an artistic response.

Hussein: Hm. I guess when I asked you if looking back -

CC: [laughs] I’m so sorry! It’s like, you didn’t understand ANY of the questions! [laughs, laugh resembles a sob]

Hussein: No, it’s okay - I guess it’s more about how people put stuff as there [...] the thing I was trying to get at was that as the Cut article began to get shared and the discourse became about broader questions about power and privilege - whether this informed how you think about putting out your content now, when it comes to self-publishing, self-editing, producing your own art, curating your social feeds. [...] When you have more ownership I wonder if it gives you more sense of control over how you express yourself and how people understand and relate to you.

CC: Ummmm. Can you repeat the question? I’M JOKING! You don’t have to.

Hussein: Haha!

CC: I think that I certainly had a sense of a loss of control when Natalie - I mean, imagine if someone published an article with the title ‘I Was’ and your first and last name and told the story of who you are but left out the one detail who, you know, is the thing that’s been most dangerous to your survival in this world and the literal reason you don’t have a father anymore. It was so - it’s funny that you look at it as ‘having control’ or if I feel empowered about it. I don’t mean to be glass half empty, but I see it as the pain of having my - it would be one thing if Natalie had included the pain of depression and addiction which so fundamentally characterised those five years of my life, but she didn’t. And she purposefully left it out. And you know what’s so fucked up? If I’d been her editor I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It’s a better story. People loved to root for the plucky underdog and they hate the rich in longform prose and the more complicated and nuanced way you make a story the more you risk leaving your reader unsatisfied. And I think Natalie’s power as a writer comes from being very cinematic and Hollywood and she made a very cinematic, Hollywood story. But as for being empowered now and having more control over my stuff and how I think about self-publishing or working with, er, other brands - I mean, not really. I think it affects - but no. Because you know, it’s not like I was working with a bunch of brands before and, like, all my sponsorship deals got pulled because of this article and I had to sort of, like, forge a new brand. I really just wanna make the things I wanna make. And just as Natalie’s strengths are the cinematic element of the prose, my strengths are my weirdness; I have a high-risk tolerance; I like experimenting; I like - I’m a lot - I’m like a loose cannon as a writer and it’s a great weakness but it’s also my strength! And the reason I self-publish or do anything online is really just to make the things I see in my head come to life. And I’ll really take whatever - I really don’t think much about larger questions like, influencer culture or like, all that stuff. I really just think: how will I make the thing in my head? Did that answer the question at all?

Hussein: Yeah. [...] Do you think the term ‘influencer’ is outdated? When we think about the people who are influential online [...] I think about TikTok stars for example or people who blow up on Instagram - do you think the way we understand influencers outdated?

CC: Yes. To be honest. I think you’re so great. When I was talking to his editor Alana, we were like [texting motion] ‘Eee, he’s the shit! He’ll love you!’.She said specifically that you have really good politics, which like - we stan a woke king! I love that for you.

Hussein: Okay. Haha.

CC: But no I do think it’s outdated.

Hussein: Yep.

CC: As we - as more and more online content is generated every second of the day we’ll have more and more niche communities and like I - it used to be that on Instagram there used to be a couple main influencers and they had more of a monopoly. I think it’ll break down and you’ll see people get a lot more niche and a lot more, just, like - people will find exactly what they want. But I don’t think influencers are going anywhere. I think the idea or the practice of popularity made visible by online metrics is here to stay.

Hussein: Mm. So you did art history at Cambridge.

CC: [beaming] Yes.

Hussein: And you’re also an artist, you produce art and you sell art. I’ve been thinking about curation… the way in which we curate ourselves online [...] Particularly now that some celebrities or influencers have been criticised for not using their platforms to promote BLM causes or to promote organisations that work with marginalised communities - also at the same time people who post stuff [...] I wanted to ask you about curation. I’m a big fan of your Instagram stories and just how many there are! Do you curate them? When you’re pushing out and producing content, do you see that as curation? On a normal day, what is your thinking behind putting stuff out?

CC: That’s a great question and the honest truth is that I try and be as Kerouac/beats poets about it as possible. I’m really aiming for that stream of consciousness. My friend once told me that she describes my Instagram stories to - cause they’re super weird! And they’re super unlike anyone’s Instagram stories! And someone was like, what the fuck is up with Caroline Calloway’s Instagram stories? Is that what she’s like in real life? And my friend was like, it’s less what she’s like in real life than what I imagine the experience of being Caroline is like for her inside her own head. And I always really loved that explanation - shout out to Morgan! - and she - it really stuck with me. I really just try to make my stories as - I think of it as a 24/7 reality TV show that’s broadcasting… my consciousness and what I’m interested in and if I go down a rabbit hole of stuff I find really interesting. Obviously sometimes I’ll be a little more strategic in my Instagram story if I’m trying to push a new product, brand deals, or if I’m trying to raise awareness or money for a cause I care about, I’ll be like, swipe up, swipe up! Normal Instagram stories! You know how Instagram stories go.

Hussein: Yeah.

CC: But really I just try to not think too much about it because I know there are a lot of people who make fun of everything I post and if I think about that too long I become paralysed with self-consciousness. That’s just not the sort of artist I want to be.

Hussein: Do you consider the sort of stuff you put out on Instagram to be art?

CC: Oh, absolutely. ABSOLUTELY. In the late 1800s when the camera was first invented people were like ‘this is science, this is technology, this is too democratising, anyone can buy a camera! To be a real artist you have to go to art school, only painting can be real art!’ And now almost every major national museum in the world has a photography collection. And I’m not saying every tweet is the next great American novel, but I’m also saying that every novel is not the next great American novel. I just think that social media like any expressive medium has the potential for human greatness. It’s sort of sublime self-expression. And I think Instagram is no different. It’s so fucked up that a sentence that I write printed in a book - the same sentence is somehow less intelligent, less valuable, less important if I put it in an Instagram caption. That’s a really real bias we have in this world. Despite all the people that definitely roll their eyes when I’m like, ‘yes, my Instagram content is art!’, I just can’t deny that I’m so fucking in love with all the strengths of the internet, especially Instagram, as a medium. Like with pastels you can smudge the colours and get really great tonalities; ditto charcoal or, you know, with glassblowing you can make all these beautiful designs and shapes and smoothness - and with sculpture - what I love about Instagram is it’s one of the few artistic media in which you have, like, the ephemerality of it disappearing immediately, you have the connectivity, I don’t have to wait for anything to get published to speak to people. You have the immediacy of it - it’s current, you can respond in real time to real events and I just -

Hussein: Yeah -

CC: - I get so excited about that!

Hussein: Yeah. Do you think [...] when it comes to highlighting activism and social injustice, does art - can art be reconciled with that? Can Instagram be reconciled with the very material needs of the current moment?

CC: Well, I mean - I think it’s just like - a lot of Norman Rockwell’s stuff were ads! Or magazine covers for the Saturday Evening Post! He was paid for that and they were commercial products and some of them were too commercial - like you wouldn’t say that a Coca-Cola ad from the 1950s is art but sometimes commercialised stuff can be brilliant and provocative and boundary-pushing. I don’t think there’s any blanket answer for influencers. Some girls are so basic on Instagram and their problem is not posting about politics enough! And then there are like, people who need to pay their bills and are just like - maybe - I don’t know! It’s so complicated. There is no one-size-fits-all-answer. I’ve forgotten what the question is.

Hussein: [looks tired] No worries. I mean -

CC: [laughs]

Hussein: - one thing that happened recently - [asks about Colston statue in Bristol and other statues being defaced etc]

CC: [looks blank]

Hussein: One of the big things that’s happening right now is at Oxford where the statue of Cecil Rhodes is currently being debased once more…

CC: [looking sincerely impressed] WOW!

Hussein: During the 2015/16 moments when the Cambridge aesthetic fed into your online persona and brand and that period of time when you were known as the American girl living in this regal setting - I wonder whether you look back and rethink the Oxbridge system knowing that lots of the things that make the campuses enchanting come from this period of British colonialism. I wonder whether you’ve rethought your relationship with this institution that as far as I’m aware you still have a lot of affection for.

CC: Er. I mean, bruh! BRUH!

Hussein: [laughs weakly, rubs forehead]

CC: The problem is so much worse than Cambridge and Oxford! This is a history of art problem. This isn’t like all the things I love aesthetically about these institutions are dripping in blood. Everything I love in art ever in the Western curriculum can be traced back to - at least - not everything but at least 99% of the objects we consider valuable today were made with money. And that surplus of money came from colonialism, and I - of course my attitude’s changed! I really feel like it’s terrifying the way we expect not only our public figures but each other to spring from the head of Zeus as this fully-formed woke Athenas. We never wanna see the process of them learning, we want to see them learn-ed - we wanna see the finished product of them knowing everything. And that’s so fucking bullshit! Because we are all still so racist, been so racist for so many years, and anyone who says they’re not racist now - that they’ve somehow removed all the poisonous biases in their heads are fucking lying to others and especially themselves in a way that benefits absolutely no-one. And so yes, my opinions have changed. I was so blind to white privilege when I was at Cambridge and I can choose to either wallow in the guilt of that and feel like I was the only one or I can be honest with myself and be like, a lot of people are waking up to the situation. My journey with racism started in 2018 so yeah, I am better than you because I started earlier! I’m joking. Obviously I’m a white girl. I’m so much dumber than you are. I’ve no idea about marginalisation. Er [laughs] don’t worry, I won’t be cancelled for this, I’m truly post-cancellation! I’d truly like to see someone come for me on Twitter.

Hussein: Yeah, we can talk about cancellation in a second.

CC: But yeah, my views have changed so much. And I know the most palatable thing for any not just public figure but person - like if we were just friends at a bar it would be most appealing for me to come out here and be like, ‘yeah my unifying theory on art history!’ and to have sort of like, it’s - we don’t really like it when people say they’re still learning and figuring things out and unsure but I’m still learning and I’m still figuring it out and do I need to reject all the art history that I love? I love art history! Do I need to shun Cambridge and Oxford? I love Cambridge and Oxford! I love this little guy in the corner of the screen - Keir Bradwell - of our call [squeals] look at him, he’s so cute! The way that we - ok on YouTube you only see my face but on my screen I see everyone on the call Adam, the president of the Union, is so fucking lucky he blocked his screen otherwise I’d be like, ‘Adam, so adorable!’. I just like, love these little posh British kids! They’re so well-meaning. And I just have such a soft spot for their culture in my heart. I don’t know!

Hussein: [looks doubtful] Yeah.

STILL TO COME: Communism, OnlyFans, a shoe, umbrellas and bats.

Hussein: [on Oxbridge-like institutions that thrive off their elitism] That type of exclusiveness feeds into the type of stuff you were known for back then and I guess the kind of stuff you’re known for now. Being a Cambridge person, being someone who really believes in what Cambridge represents aesthetically - that’s what I was trying to get at. It wasn’t necessarily disavow, it was more about how your relationship with that type of institutions changed when you know that your persona - or some of your public persona - comes from that place of interacting with British elite institutions.

CC: Yeaaah. I mean, I definitely made that persona because I was trying to compensate for how tumultuous my interior world was and my mental health at the time and I was definitely trying to - I think compensate for how deeply fucked up I felt inside. And I wanted to build a business! And I knew - you know, every fucking rom-com! Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts! I was like, this will fucking sell. And the businesswoman in me - I had no idea -

Hussein: Hm.

CC: - how lightly I had to tap the gas pedal of that whole American and Oxbridge ideal. I had no idea that, like, so many years later this is what I’d be known for. If you could count up all the posts I’ve ever made about white supremacy, dating back to 2018 - or trans right, or climate awareness, Jesus fucking Christ! Every day I make tens of those posts in my stories, on my grid - and how much people associate me with my political views (which is not at ALL!) and how much people think of me as like, loving the Pitt club! - I’ve maybe talked about the Pitt club four times on Instagram in my goddamn life! And I’ve talked about political issues that are important to me tens of thousands of times. It’s just strange to me - you know, I never even wrote about going to a Cambridge ball. If you go back like, look at the Instagram, look at my posts - I never wrote about going to a May ball on my Instagram ONCE. It’s what people associate my content with and it’s how I can actually tell if people have read my posts. I can tell you’re not a true fan, Hussein! I forgive you! I can tell you’re not my main demographic. Obviously didn’t read my fucking content! But like my first May Ball that I live posted - I DID IT LAST SUMMER! 2019! I’d graduated! I went back with my friends to like, New College ball. And I’ll probably go in three years when it happens again. But like. What was the questions? [bursts out laughing]

Hussein: I’m aware we don’t have much time left…

CC: I got so fired up. I got distracted.

Hussein: We don’t have too much time left…

CC: WAIT! Can I do something I think would be really funny?

Hussein: [resigned] Sure. Okay. [sigh]

CC: Okay. Okay. Let me talk, so it focuses on me. Ask me a question that’s one sentence long.

Hussein: [brief laugh, then very promptly] Haha, so how’s your OnlyFans (OF) doing?

CC: [inexplicably balancing a shoe on her head] My OF is doing great! [laughs hysterically; removes shoe from head] You should also subscribe to [url]. It makes a really good Cambridge graduation present, you know? It’s sort of the perfect present for that Oxbridge grad in your life.

Hussein: [pause] Let’s talk about OF.

CC: [cackles, sips on unidentified drink]

Hussein: You’ve gotten a lot of criticism from the sex worker community but also in general about being on OF and part of that criticism as far as I understand is because your public persona in a space which some sex workers view as a means of material sustenance in order to continue working especially during the pandemic - I guess there are other people who criticse your OF because maybe it’s [looks pained, like he’s choking] how do I explain? What was your thinking behind going on OF rather than TikTok or other platforms? Or are you on TikTok?

CC: I’m not on TikTok. But I do have a notes folder in my phone with TikTok ideas! But I don’t have time. If TikTok were paying me I’d do TikToks but like, I have other things to do. But I love watching TikTok, so I am, like -

Hussein: Because you’re very good at adapting to platforms, understanding what the platforms demand of you and how you can succeed on platforms. So what made the OF appealing to your demographics or demographics that weren’t on Instagram or Twitter?

CC: Well honestly I was going to publish my Natalie response with a… major… news platform which - they were really chill about me pulling it last minute and I hope to publish a different piece maybe with them someday! But I pulled it, and instead of getting, you know, all this money, I sold it for ten dollars a pop for charity and I’m really happy that I raised 50,000 USD for Covid relief because like, world peace! I’m just so - what’s the word?, - angelic and not a scammer - but I needed money, like. The things people pay for are writing and then I gave that away for free, this piece I’d been working on for months - you know Natalie sold hers to the Cut for 5000 USD, like - and it’s easy to be like, to look at that as somehow wrong, but like - she’s a writer! It’s how she makes her money! So I needed a way to make money and I felt like OF, no-one thought I’d actually do it - and there’s nothing that makes me want to do something more than being underestimated. And so I signed up for OF and it’s quickly becoming the most lucrative thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. It’s actually demoralising how much people are paying to see me naked. It’s not as much as they’re paying to read my writing, so… thank you patriarchy! But yeah, I really like it and I think it’s so fucked up people are like, ‘oh, you shouldn’t be on OF - you should save the money to be made for other sex workers’. That is the most fucked up communist bullshit I have ever heard in my entire life, like name another profession where you’d be like, ‘oh no no, don’t enter that profession, cause other people who are not you need to succeed at that profession’.

Hussein: [with a glint in his eye] Wait. How is that communist?

CC: I - it’s just - it’s the idea of - ok MAYBE what communism is [dry laugh] -

Hussein: [belly laugh]

CC: - I think it’s communist in the sense that it’s like, ‘oh, you have too much, you can’t  have it anymore’. Like it’s limiting in terms of how much wealth I could accumulate. Like, somehow other people get to decide - first of all, I’m not that rich, because I gave away the money from that essay which was the most valuable thing I had at that time - and second of all, I really believe that sex workers should be more protected in their industry, I think there’s a lot of room for reform, I don’t think that they should be - lose respect or anything for dabbling in sex work but I don’t think a way to solve that is to tell other people who can and can’t be a sex worker.

Hussein: [pause] Hm. I guess I also remember a caption where you said something about being the only Cambridge grand on OF, right - and that caused a little bit - do you think it was perceived as elitist or snobbish? I remember looking back and thinking maybe it wasn’t about your participation in OF but also how you present yourself on the platform and how you present yourself in relation to other people on the platform. Because there’s a number of people who use it as labour and as a means of sustaining themselves -

CC: [rage simmering] People like me. Who use OF as a way of sustaining themselves.

Hussein: But - but like as their main way. And I guess -

CC: [outraged] It’s my main source of income.

Hussein: Yep. Er, so, um, do you see yourself in the same category as the sex workers who have moved to OF as a means of working while they can’t be out - or because it’s more dangerous for them to be out because of interactions with the police state and - laws that discriminate against them.

CC:[condescending] Listen. I’m glad you brought up that tweet because I think - I feel - it frustrates me - you know, I think I’ve just done such a good job of surviving being cancelled. I think people like me, James Charles, maybe some other people we’re sort of, like, the poster children of being cancelled and continuing to persist as a figure in this culture that is - people talk about. And that tweet - UGH. The exact words were something like, ‘I know this is gonna be provocative but when has that stopped me before? I think I might be the only person on OF who went to Cambridge.’ And then because this tweet was a fucking [comes closer to the camera] THREAD, that no-one fucking read, a two-tweet thread, like, go back and look at this tweet - it’s not like I added this 15 minutes later, the tweets were there at the same time! But I’d be so happy to be proved wrong. Let me know! And people did not read that second tweet. And I think it’s because one lasting effect of being cancelled, no matter how well you survive it, the only permanent downside that I can tell, is that you permanently lose the benefit of the doubt. Like, people don’t think - ‘maybe - maybe she meant it kindly! Or maybe she’s a good person!’. You just lose that benefit of the doubt which is why I knew it was going to be provocative. But I’m glad you brought that up because I think it’s such bullshit that people don’t look at the second part of the tweet and as someone who’s been very cancelled I don’t, like, open my DMs to people, I’m like, ‘oh, contact me!’. I get contacted enough every second of the day without soliciting more of it. And so I really stand by how I phrased that tweet, like, prove me wrong! I phrased it in the way that was like, if you’re a person that can prove me wrong or has information that can prove me wrong - like, contradict me! But don’t contact me! A really lovely podcaster responded and she was like, ‘for a marginalised community be careful about using kinder, gentler language - especially because there’s so much physical and emotional violence around sex workers’ and I [shrugs] really appreciated it. I thought about it and I think Olivia’s right and if I tried to find any other Cambridge grad on OF which as of right now I still haven’t found any! I found a girl who went to Oxford who hates me although I retweeted her OF and I wish her all the best! But I - yeah, if I tweeted about it again I would maybe make my phrasing gentler cause I think Olivia had a good point, but I stand by what I said and if you know of anyone on Cambridge OF… [pause]

Hussein: [nervously] So I’ve been told we only have time for one more question - I think the question about cancel culture is an interesting one because the last question was about apologies and staying relevant, so - you kind of issued apologies for posting you’ve done recently [...] an anti-Semitic image [...] and there was another post that I think you did more recently which was about the bat going down on someone [with all the Covid/patient zero implications]. I think you apologised for both of those things -

CC: [with disdain] No, I only apologised for one.

Hussein: Oh.

CC: ...I’m not sorry about.

Hussein: What do you think is worth apologising about and [...] when you’re doing an apology - you said this was on you and you needed to do the improvement - what do you think of apologies on social media now?

CC: [rolls eyes] Ok, well - the anti-Semitic cartoon, which [sighs] - I mean, did you know umbrellas are anti-Semitic? I didn’t. But umbrellas were seen as the symbols of the pretensions of Jewish people’s claims to upper-middle class mobility, and you know - I really - as a lover of Harry Potter and a girl who was raised on Disney - I think I’ve been desensitised to the idea of hook-nosed villains? Just whether it’s a Disney witch or [flips hair] the goblins at Gringott’s. I - you know - I take full responsibility for that! It’s a privilege that I just never had to learn about those associations because they just didn’t affect me. And I think that’s - if you try to mix what to apologise for with how to stay relevant you will fuck yourself up so badly. You will - you can’t mix the two. Being relevant should be, like, making… [pause; waves hands] ...I don’t know, you shouldn’t think about it as trying to be relevant. Try to make the best things you can make. And you should try and see apologies as like, I don’t know, just try to be a good person, like when you actually have something to apologise for. And with that anti-Semitic cartoon I totally did and it was totally on me and it was such a blind spot for me. And as for the bat! [deep sigh] So, I posted this photo of a - shunga, which is erotic Japanese art - and the woman is clearly wearing the box sleeve of a kimono, she’s lying back getting eaten out, you can see her kimono sleeve, and it’s in the traditional shunga and this art history major still stands by the idea that fuck you ignorant people if you think this is Chinese! This is a Japanese lady getting her pussy eaten. This is not a diss towards Chinese people. And if you don’t know what shunga is and the very Japanese tradition it represents, I’m not going to apologise for your ignorance.

Hussein: But as someone who understands intimately the dynamics of social media and that at this particular moment the images and connotations can be interpreted and reinterpeted - and that’s why it seems to me you want to take ownership of your work and how it gets articulated and understood - so doesn’t that put the onus on you to explain or at least understand why people might be offended by this?

CC: I can understand that and I do have empathy towards it. But you know, you really - when it comes to apologising you have to think about it as being a good person with your own moral compass and the reason I apologised for the anti-Semetic thing was because I didn’t...know, and it was on me to learn. And if I go by the inner compass, it’s on everyone’s… shoulders to really learn what an image means, and really learn what that image is saying - then by that same logic it’s on the viewer’s shoulders to understand that that’s a Japanese image and that I was honestly just making a commentary on - this thing is saying ‘subscribe for more’. [offended] Are we just like, on longer on this, or - oh no! Keep talking. So it was more as a pro-possy eating and more about, like, I think it’s fucked up that guys -

Hussein: [giggles]

CC: - I just think there’s still a double standard! Like, I think it would be so funny that you want head so badly you’re getting it from a bat and that’s how corona starts. I think that’s hilarious! I have one more question before we end.

Hussein: You have a question?

CC: I have a really important question.

Hussein: [resigned] Ok, go on.

CC: [seemingly holding the shoe] What’s the funniest thing that’s been happening in the group chat? Cause you my friend have actually been sweating with laughter, just like - wiping your brow sweating.

Hussein: [wearing a jumper] Oh no, it’s just that very hot in my flat.

CC: No, not you Hussein - Keir!

Keir: You know what, that’s a very good question actually because it gives me a good excuse to help wrap this up - thank you very much Hussein and Caroline - the answer to your question is that people got very excited that I’d become a temporary celebrity there. Thank you both for what’s been a fairly remarkable event and I should say at this point that Cambridge University does not necessarily share the views of the people we invite. On behalf of the Cambridge Uni I would like to extend a huge thank you to all for joining. If you enjoyed this, do join us tomorrow for a panel on climate change!

ENDS -