#socialLife on the Web

There’s something quite liberating about having a complete mental breakdown on social media. There’s no more hiding. There’s no more pretending to be perfect or normal. Everything is exposed, the darkness, madness, and naked brilliance is laid bare for the world to gawk confused at.

I was pushed unto the grand stage of social media by my alter ego’s, Desmina Nina Chihua and Papá Chihuahua, who gained control of my functions and social media during a mental breakdown. This was the breaking point of unprocessed grief from being exiled from my home and community. It was the breaking point of years of repression of my queer, trans, and neurodivergent Truth. And so my shadow selves, my playful inner demons, broke out of their prison and directly unto social media. Social media has an uncanny potential to break into fame and wealth. Fame and wealth have the potential to break everything, break the whole system and society that locked us up in the first place, left us isolated but desperate to fit in and survive. The logic held- right?

As I’ve regained some control, I’ve struggled to find a balance with my relationship to social media. I realized there was no turning back from this moment of nakedness- that the privacy I once had around my buried pain was no longer. I continued to expose myself, trying to find an angle, an explanation for the madness. I cleaned up my account and created a second one, following advice from a friend who stated that my main account made it look like I was having a mental breakdown. “Apparently, the basic bitches on Instagram think I’m crazy, Insane, Mad” I scribbled into a notebook in Poem form as I sat in a park in Frankfurt. “So I make a new account for Papá Chihuahua. That’s what you always wanted me to do right? Split myself in two. One girl for the aunties, mummys, and basic bitches. One boy for the queers.” 2 accounts. 2 characters. Fitting for a Gemini.

I was still held by the vestiges of the logic that presented itself, that fame and wealth could bring freedom. I decided to join the Maxim Magazine Cover Girl Contest, at first still gripped by some delusional idea that Desmina’s brilliance and Papá’s cleverness could lead us to winning the whole thing. After a month of travel, I found myself at home in Sacramento with COVID and depression, entirely confused about how to move forward realistically in my life after losing my mind, my money, and my queer community. The contest, which I applied for a few weeks earlier, was the only thing I had going for me.

I started taking making costumes and taking pictures in every color of the rainbow to celebrate Pride and prepare for the contest. For 10 days, turning into a character, snapping some pictures, and filming TikToks was the only thing motivating me to move. Social media gave me a platform to come out as queer, day after day. It allowed me to claim my alter egos as a Drag Queen and Drag King, to love and accept them and to tell their stories with intentionality and a bit more emotional control. And while I hid behind characters, the characters spoke my snippets of Truth. On the final day of the rainbow color challenge, I dawned light blue and pink colors and painted half of my face feminine and half masculine. On that faithful night before my birthday, under the glow of Strawberry Full Moon in Gemini’s season, I cuddled my stuffed animals, a blue dog Neo and a pink bunny Cookies. “2 years later and look at you now! So proud of you and I love you so much ❤*unicorn*rainbow*”, one Gemini Twin, Papá Chihuahua, commented on the other Gemini Twin’s account. !!” In that moment, the current me decided to love the past me, and all the versions of me that appeared on my social media in the past couple of years. I could feel my Inner Children heal. That night, I came out to the world as Trans- maybe the breakdown had led me to break out, truly break out of my own chains.

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For the first time, I found myself in the world of social media influencing. A couple of #maximcovergirl posts later, my main account became spammed by promoters and scammers who promised to take me to the top of the competition. “Send Dm your voting link for votes ❤” they’d comment in broken English. They become the only commenters on my posts, possibly scaring away the support of friends and passerbys. Papá Chihuahua logged to support his Twin Sister- “VOTE DESMINA” he cheered, “Werk qween”!! And then Papá started trolling the trolls. “Are toy participating in MAXIMCOVERGIRL.COM ? Sand vote link in dm.”

I realized that on social media any attention is helpful, and all interactions were good interactions. I started responding to each of the messages, “link in bio.” Eventually I started responding to their dm’s, curious about their offers. Some promotional packages included shoutouts on their “network of thousands” or even purchasing “real votes” from a team that would vote daily. I rejected the offers but the trollers were persistent. In one interaction, the account kept lowering and lowering the cost until the service was near free. “Please, I have no money,” they confessed.

I felt a ping in my heart at that moment. I knew that the people behind the screens were real people trying to make a living. Most likely, they were very poor and from developing countries who became part of the lucrative social media promotional and scamming industry to make enough money to live. So they were trying to take advantage of some girls who have enough money to spare, and were desperate to win. I can’t blame them, just like me they are doing their best. But in my interest of winning, I turned down the offer. The generosity in my heart wanted to give to a person in need. But I justified my action by telling myself that I would donate the winnings to people in need, many from developing countries, through the cryptocurrency mutual aid, SEEDS.

The ruthless competitor in me did wish that some girls would take the bait though, so that they would be disqualified and lead to my advancement in the competition. In the opening day of the competition, I stalked my competitors and took note of who I suspected was cheating- people that didn’t post on social media about the competition or even have social media, and who generally didn’t try at all on their competition page. But these competitors were not eliminated, as I hoped they would be. They kept advancing. I emailed the Maxim Support team to inform them about the scams and that I suspected cheating was occurring and received some fairly disappointing responses claiming that their team closely monitors votes and that fake votes were easily detected and removed. And yet screenshots from the scammers proved that cheaters had been allowed to move forward in the competition.

But despite the cheating, I trudged forward in the competition, feeling empowered to continue telling my story. I discovered that social media was a game, and that if I played my cards right, I could win. Unfortunately, it was a game that I had never really played. But I learned to use hashtags to attract an audience, finding a new community of queer and drag followers. I got excited about becoming a “brand ambassador”, getting free jewelry and clothes, and monetizing my performance. I often go on LinkedIn and Facebook and friend as many people as I possibly can to expand my community, reach, and audience. But I learned that the best way to gain followers is by making friends, in good old fashioned real life. I found myself at Dolores Park on the day of my supposed to be birthday party, randomly joining a Queer Clothing Swap. I go to Drag show after Drag show at Oasis nightclub. I got a lucky invite to a fancy Pride Gala on the last night of June. Everywhere I went, I made friends, re-building the community I had lost.

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The first time I took a mental note of my Instagram followers in April, I had 666 followers. Today, I have over 1066 followers- 400 more. Of course, I know that many of those new followers are spam and promoter accounts. And I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel wildly insecure about my presence on social media. I turned my account into a business account and began to track my following. In the past month I’ve gained 277 followers and lost 70. I sometimes find myself fixated on those I’ve lost. They could be fake accounts, or they could be friends. Maybe people who think I’m crazy, who were tired of me asking for them to vote for me, who judged my characters, costumes, and pictures, who think I’m egotistical. I’m sometimes scared to look at my Maxim Cover Girl votes, afraid that even my best friends aren’t voting for me, don’t believe in me. I feel shitty when the majority of people liking my content is spam accounts, when I’m the only person commenting on my posts from my Gemini account.

But I’ve had to breathe through the insecurities. I’ve had to acknowledge that not everyone will like me, understand me, or see me in my Truth. And this extends past social media, I’ve learned this hard lesson in real life. In the past few months, I’ve had to cut out family, friends, and community who could not appreciate and love me in all my shades, and who would prefer that I fit into some box of what makes them comfortable. I remind myself that the people I lose are not people I need, they the hold me back from being my authentic and crazy self. I remind myself that for every person I lose I gain 5 more- people who appreciate my art and my heart, people who see the vulnerability, kindness, and authenticity behind the performance. And I’ve found that my biggest supporters are sometimes the people I least expect- people I just met or people I haven’t spoken to in years. And I’ve felt incredibly grateful for the friends that have chosen to stick by me through my madness, randomness, and experimentations.

Today, I’ve made it past 4 rounds of the Maxim Cover Girl Competition- to the Top 5 in my group. Everyday I ask people to vote for me in vulnerability, desperation, and hope. The competition encouraged me to sign up for a modelling course — pursuing a profession I thought I’d never have a chance in. It pushed me to get creative, to perform in Drag- join a Todrick Hall lipsync challenge with incredibly talented kids like me and march in San Francisco Pride. In a flurry of joining competitions, I made a Vocal Plus Account and submitted my poetry to a contest and wrote a fiction piece about Desmina Nina Chihua and Papá Chihuahua’s escape. I continuously celebrate my Queer and Trans, Filipinx and Mexican identities with love and pride. Social Media has given me a platform to challenge beauty standards in the fashion and modelling industry, and the expectations of how a birthing bodied person should think, speak, look, and act.

I still struggle with the world of social media, between over and under exposing myself. I often find myself numbing my pain on TikTok, or searching for answers and company in trends, filters, and tarot card pulls. I post and post, thinking some attention and appreciation may ward the bouts of loneliness and isolation I feel. I wait for the viral post that might launch me to fame. I wonder if I am doing the “right” thing, or if I’m digging myself deeper into the hole of madness. I sometimes get sick of the whole game and wish I could throw my phone away, go back into hiding. I honor the moments when I find myself in silence and solitude, wondering at the material and spiritual world beyond the internet.

But for now, I’ve found myself in the belly of the beast. And while my future oftentimes feels uncertain and terrifying, I know that there’s value and purpose in me bearing and sharing my story. I’m processing my grief and unearthing my creativity and oddness in front of an audience, in front of a community. I’m giving myself and my shadows permission to be unapologetically us, in face of fear that we will scare and annoy people away. By being intentional about performing as Desmina and Papá Chihuahua in Drag and writing their stories, we have a stronger sense of control and regulation. The Darkness comes forth from the shadows and turns into Light- the inner children heal through play and become Angels once again. And as we work through the confusion of who and what we are in front of a stage, we can say that we are proud. We are proud that we have spoken our Truth. And we will keep speaking it, acting it, dressing it, dancing it, and writing it until the whole world knows who we are and the liberation we demand.

<3 Nina