Lorelei Ramirez (@PileOfTears) on the Absurdity of Twitter and Spilling Her Truth

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Lorelei Ramirez is an artist, comedian, performer, filmmaker, and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. She hosts a monthly variety show called NOT DEAD YET at C’mon Everybody every third Sunday of the month, and an experimental sketch comedy show called SLOOP JUMBLY. You can see her in The Cry of Mann on Adult Swim and Viceland, and live in places like Caroline’s, UCB, and Ars Nova. She’s a regular writer for VICE’s “The Creators Project,” and humor writer for Cracked and has written for Art In America. For more info, you can check out her website.

This week, Ramirez talked to me about some of her favorite tweets:

Here I was thinking about the freak. He is learning fast and I did not expect that.

How similar are your tweets to your voice as a live performer or you in real life?

Pretty much the same. This is the story of my life and I’m not afraid to tell it exactly how it is. 

It seems like Mike Pence is having a bad time in office. I feel bad for him so I made this for him very late one night. I spent all of my time on it and I wanted to share it with the world and I wanted him to know that it is okay to love yourself sometimes and give yourself an animatic blowjob.

Do you ever take a tweet and develop it into something longer?

I do that often, usually for the stage. It’s a safe place where someone like me can talk about the cages in my room, my love for my mother, and all of these other thoughts that people would feel very uncomfortable around in real life scenarios. 

This is a speech. I wrote it. I will probably use it for any of my future award nominations or wins. It’s all based in reality, and I hope that one day my very own, very public success can be used to inform the world about cupboard people and their problems.

What’s the longest amount of time or most thought you’ve ever put into a tweet?

I don’t really think all that much. It’s a very impulsive way of getting things out for me. It’s like vomiting – it feels bad and nice all at once and then when you look over there’s a crowd of people with their thumbs out cheering you on. 

I saw this dog and fell in love with it. I realized it was because it was so secure in its mental illness, much like myself. This is more like a self portrait. At the height of mental illness, self-care is necessary and so is a wig.

What are some accounts you enjoy following?

I love @thedahammel – she makes me laugh so hard and is an amazing musician and sometimes posts the most disturbing things trying to get her followers to unfollow her. @retsoor, who I was shown not that long ago and I respect with all my heart, and Cupcakke the Rapper who doesn’t even need to tweet but is just amazing at it. Also @ianabrahamson and @weedseinfield.

What are your favorite & least favorite things about Twitter?

I love the absurdity about Twitter, that you can see all these perspectives and not know what is real or not real or stolen or not stolen, it’s like our own civilian war zone. It also functions as an aid to movements, by getting the word out there about things, like one giant flyer. I mostly use it to promote shows, and tell people about my day. 

It’s great that it’s used as a tool for activism and getting the word out. But at the same time it cheapens everything by making it into a hashtag or a “movement” that no one can really place. So it’s this lazy utopia really, which is the part I would say I don’t like about it. A lot of people can be complacent JUST tweeting and getting that recognition than doing actual work. But then again it empowers marginalized and oppressed people to share their perspectives, which you would otherwise never hear or see. Kind of like me, I am sexually attracted to dolphins and I sleep in a cage, and Twitter is the only place I can go to spill my truth.

Photo by Sandy Honig.

Karen Chee is a is a writer/performer who contributes regularly to The New Yorker and McSweeney’s.

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