Transvox - Joseph Harwood drops in

[00:00:07] Hey and welcome back to Transvox. And with me, Joseph Harwood is back. And JoJo, if you remember earlier in the year, did an episode with us introducing their work and their life and such like as part of becoming a patron of the charity Beyond Reflections that we support. And it's a joy to have him back today. I know he's in the middle of some torrid times, but showing amazing resilience despite the voodoo doll. So first of all, welcome back, Joseph. How are you?

[00:00:37] Hello. I'm really good, thank you. Yes, that's so funny. We were gossiping a little bit before the episode started just because I've had a calamity week where my phone was stolen and I have to have all these tech issues, power cuts. Oh my God, it's just been disastrous. But today we are fine and excited to chat.

[00:00:56] So when you've had all these things happen to you, what's your strategy for keeping going for, you know, for actually facing the world? What is it you do? Vodka. No, no, I, to be honest, like there's so much stuff that's happened to me, like in the past that have been so like bizarre that I just, I think you get to that sort of resilient stage of your life. You're just like, okay, I can deal with this.

[00:01:24] It's, it's really demotivating. I think like, cause I broke my foot in March earlier in the year and I've never broken a bone in my body ever. I've had like a little crack in my rib and things. But no, I just, I can't bear giving up. And I think when I have like a challenge, it makes me even more determined to get things done. But sometimes I think cause we're so reliant on tech and all my stuff was got like, everything was stored on my phone.

[00:01:47] And I had a backup, but I didn't have like a proper access to the backup. So I was freaking out for a minute, but then I was like, okay, what we can do is next time we'll put everything on a hard drive. So there's a backup with the backup and then just ensure things it just, you just learn from these things, don't you? To be more, more on the ball. So that's really good advice. Actually, I'm just writing this down now. I've never actually checked whether my phone's backed up and especially these days when you've got credit cards and all sorts of other gubbins on things.

[00:02:16] It's really, it's really scary. I don't know actually what to do if I lost my phone, it was stolen. I mean, I know you can do, you know, find your phone and you can do, you can delete all your content. But there's so many issues because the, the second activation thing with the passwords, you know, when you log into something, you have to have your phone available to get into it.

[00:02:39] Like especially for banks or for, I've got the double locks in all my social media accounts. I had like my ex relationship, we had our business together and one of the emails he changed without thinking and it completely locked me out of accessing our podcast info. So I couldn't do some updates to my podcast. So it's like all of these things are so hyper locked that if you lose your number, it is a disaster.

[00:03:02] I remember before I had my phone number change when I upgraded my phone and I couldn't get into my old emails because my old email were affiliated with the pass number. So it took me forever to keep on trying to guess the password, trying to reset things. It was like, oh my God, these are like, there needs to be some way of sorting this all out because it's got such like embedded, it's like a huge ball of wool and you like one strings connects to this bit.

[00:03:24] It's like, oh my God. But yes, we're way too reliant on these things. We've got to balance it off with a bit of like non-reliance on these things. And it's funny, you know, when I go on holiday, I do things like that. You know, I have everything written down in a piece of paper and I remember someone saying to me, what happens if that piece of paper gets stolen? I said, I'm not worried about that. What I'm more worried about is losing my phone because actually everything on the piece of paper is what I need to cope with the, what might happen if the phone was gone.

[00:03:53] But I'm just thinking I've not, I've not updated that for ages, you know? And so thank you. Cautionary tale. Planning is the secret to resilience, isn't it? As well as everything else. It's so funny you mentioned writing things down because I haven't written things down with a pen for ages. And like, I tried to sign for something in my chemist when you have to sign for your prescription. And I was like, my God, my handwriting's gone terrible because I don't write so much by hand anymore. But my God.

[00:04:20] You see, I'm a real fan of writing, writing on paper with pens and things. I like pens. And there's all this research now about how people find it really, actually they find that learning doesn't stick when you consume it from the internet. So actually the way to learn is to read, you know, physical books, especially nonfiction and write things down on pen and paper because it's about using all five senses, isn't it? It's fascinating.

[00:04:43] Yes. Yes. It's so, so true. Like when you write something down, like with a pen, it just burns it into your memory in a way that typing it does not. And it's so funny when you read books because I try and do books. I'm always trying to read books because it's like something that I used to love to do. Now it's like not the same because I think everything's digital. But like reading or something on like on a Kindle or on your iPad, it's just like, what the hell? I consume them so quickly. And I'm like, did I even enjoy this? I didn't even think I enjoyed it.

[00:05:11] I used to love, like I was a bookworm. I loved reading books, but yes. It's funny on Kindles, isn't it? Especially because I love fiction and I do it very rarely. I know I'm on holiday because I'm reading fiction. And when I'm on holiday is when I read my fiction. And I sat down and I was reading this book and I was three quarters, it must have been nearly three quarters of the way through. And I suddenly thought, I have a feeling I know what this is going to turn out like. And I got to the end and I thought, I've actually read this before, but I sort of had really limited recollection of it. So it's quite bizarre.

[00:05:42] So, you know, paperback books are going to come back into my life, I think. Absolutely. Well, this is a weird topic, but I'll ask your opinion about it because it's kind of connected to what I was doing this week. But I'm working on this mini project because my management want me to do a book. And I've been asked to do a book before many, many times because when I was younger, I was approached to do a book deal that was about my life. And when I don't know if you know or if we spoke about this last time, but there's a West End show called Everyone's Talking About Jamie.

[00:06:10] It's a film and it was by Jenny Popper. Well, there was a documentary on the BBC originally, but she wanted to do that on me. And it was I was contented about doing it as a series because at the time I wasn't really engaging in doing anything TV work around me. I thought it was a bit sort of vacuous at the time because I didn't think I didn't think. And like that what they wanted to do was do like this book that was going to be converted into a story like everyone's talking about Jamie, but about me. And I just thought this is so ridiculous. I can't write an autobiography about it.

[00:06:39] Like I haven't lived life yet. This is just stupid. And I was thinking like maybe I could write something that's like a fiction book. And like I was thinking about how people go about writing books because I've never done that. And my writing really is terrible. I'm no grammarian. But I was working with like the idea of character designs. And I started to draw because I draw on my iPad now. I've got, funny enough, one of those pens, but it's on the screen. And I was then using AI to sort of blend it into a real sort of final image.

[00:07:07] And I was thinking like, oh my God, because I started to design all these characters. And I love coming up with character design. That's pretty much what I do with my makeup work. And then I was starting to use these AI functions where that you input like a prompt. And then they come back with all of this pre-designed thing. And you look at it and you're like, what the hell? This has done like a full proper illustration for me. And then you look up close. You're like, all these lines don't actually fit together.

[00:07:33] And it's like this weird sort of like, it appears on the surface like it's an actual image. But then you go back in and you're like, this has just been created by something else. It's actually inaccurate when you look up close. The lines don't quite work. The characters don't quite look the same. And in a funny way to go about this, what do you think about this AI prompt thing? Because as an artist, it's like it's taken away all of those mistakes that make the magic.

[00:08:00] But it's also kind of like scary because it's making things like art so accessible. Like, what do you think about that? I think that's fascinating. I know Jen and I talked about AI on a different podcast. And I think there's two or three different things here. One which is, you know, I used to be a musician. And we used to have technology that came into music. And, you know, we had digital technology, auto-tuners, generation of tunes and such like. And people said, ooh, do you think that's the end of music?

[00:08:30] And what happened, it was the rise of a new stream of music. And I wonder what will happen with AI is you'll have traditional art and design and such like, you know, almost by humans. And all AI is doing is taking an aggregate of what else is out there. So I think there will be a whole branch of expertise around AI art. I think that's already happening in film, isn't it? You see these and graphic design around games and things.

[00:08:56] You see specific people with really high skill levels in AI, but they don't do other things. So I wonder if actually, whilst it's a threat, it's also one of those massive opportunities at the same time. And I've always thought there's always space in the world for hand-generated, authentic, human-created content and images. Because whilst you can't tell a lot of AI from the real thing, you sort of can at the same time.

[00:09:24] It's a bit like when you can sort of recognize a chat GPT article now because there's been a lot out there. You can sort of listen to a piece of music that's been constructed by AI and you just think there's... It's good. It's technically really interesting, but it doesn't sort of grab you. That's exactly right. I've been trying to struggle with this because they've, especially on TikTok at the moment,

[00:09:50] all the creative kids have been using that AI voice recreation of like celebrities that have died and they're making them sing songs that are like current songs. The idea to me of hearing Michael Jackson sing songs is amazing because I'm a Michael Jackson super fan. But the idea that he's dead and it's happening without him being alive is... It was something that I was like, this is so weird. And I was watching Cher talk about it this week because someone had made... And she's got this thing with Madonna.

[00:10:16] So I made her voice and face animate to match the words of her singing a Madonna song. And she was like horrified by it. And I was like, it's really... It's really... There's a big issue around this in consent. And I don't know if this intelligence is actually aware of the fact that they're being used without payment. And I know there's been so much like ethical questions around this. And I don't know what to think about it.

[00:10:41] It just, it reminded me about when we were talking at the beginning of this podcast about like tech and relying on tech. It's like, do we become like at such a point in life where all we think about is the sort of superficial stuff? Because everything that actually takes a little bit of work is going to be done automatically by this artificial intelligence. It's like, I just don't know if that's a good thing. I don't think it's good. It really is fascinating. I think if you've read Yuval Harari and he talks about Homo... What's it called?

[00:11:10] Homo Deus or something, which is actually how we integrate with AI to become godlike creatures because we've... Because the AI will take over. And it's interesting how much science fiction is about that, isn't it? The machines become more intelligent enough and take us over. But all this, you know, goes back to a real interesting novel right back in the 1920s. I forget the name. It's something, I think it was German. It was something called something like the hood. And it was this idea that you'd be able to put a hood on and you'd never have to get out of bed because the whole of your world would be generated by this hood. And it's like, it's prescient.

[00:11:39] It's about virtual reality in a funny sort of way. And it talked about actually that it was all these human beings who were being basically completely disempowered because they were born, they wore the hood and the rest of their lives. They just, they never moved. And so they actually just became a brain wearing hood. Yeah. And it's because, of course, now you see how the Matrix idea came about because that's sort of similar idea in a way, isn't it? It is. And Skynet and Terminator 4 and all of them.

[00:12:07] And like, it's like, I'm fascinated with sci-fi because there's so much like that goes on in my brain that I can imagine. I'm just fascinated how other people imagine things. But there is always this sort of like line that connects everyone's sort of imagination. And it weirdly comes to be. So many, like fiction becomes reality or reality becomes fiction. It's strange. But I've noticed that like using TikTok because I wasn't really into using TikTok in the last four years because being in my industry,

[00:12:35] because people just judge you on face value a lot of the times and they don't look into your past work. They see someone that's colourful and they just think, oh, that's an influencer. And the reality is I'm not an influencer and I've never really been an influencer online. I'm a beauty expert. And being a beauty expert on social media is very tricky today because you enter into conversations with some people in the beauty industry and they're not smart cookies without being shady and they just immediately infantilise you.

[00:13:02] And when I was doing my consultation work and I was working with lots of these brands and trying to make the industry more inclusive, I'd have to go through these gatekeepers that work in marketing that just saw me as an influencer. And I deliberately stopped using all my social media to post content because I thought if I reduce the content I put out there and I just do things that are specifically about this work, then people will see me a little bit more clearer. And that was a struggle in itself. But I didn't use TikTok. I wasn't using these new modern social medias and short form content.

[00:13:32] And I have become absolutely fascinated with how the sort of demographic that uses TikTok now the lockdown's gone because I think everyone was on it in the lockdown because we were all at home. Now people have gone back to work. The people that are left on TikTok are absolutely a social experiment. I don't know if you've seen the whole nature of TikTok now, but people go live. And part of the process of going live is you can gift someone. And that is like a digital currency.

[00:14:00] And they earn essentially about 30% of the value of the currency. You can buy things that are like 300 quid and they get 100 quid out of it. And it's completely and utterly amazing what's been going on because these people, most of the people that are still on TikTok now are people that are still stuck at home or are unemployed. And I've been fascinated because TikTok is their hood. It is their hood. And they're very negative. It's become very, very interesting.

[00:14:29] A lot of my friends just are like, we don't even want to go on TikTok anymore because it's become such this crazed environment. But it's, I'm interested to think like, I think for so many people, social media has become their reality. There's so many people that are doing these live streams every single day that don't go to work, that don't appear to have a very social life. And it's like, has TikTok started to become like that? It's just shocked me because I didn't really know about it.

[00:14:57] Now I'm like, oh my God, this has gone crazy. It is fascinating when you think about it because the roots of all this are quite fascinating because we're very influenced by visual imagery. We're very interested by the internet because it sort of replicates our brain structure of all these nodes coming together and firing backwards and forwards and linking all these discontinuous but also related things. So it's that, you like this, so you're bound to like that sort of thing, which is how our brains sort of work as well. And also what they do is they steer clear of things we like.

[00:15:26] And they're wired for extremes, the things we really like and the things we really hate. And it's actually quite hard to be inspired by the average and the dull and the bland. So you can see how this comes together. And I think you're right. I think it's almost a generational thing. There's a generation of people who are coming out, who are going into that for the first time. And actually they're living their entire lives almost online and in the virtual world and making a living out of it in some cases.

[00:15:55] But you also have people that are sort of unhooked from it as well. Yeah. And I mean, they call it slow living, don't they? But all I actually mean is that they're not on social media. And they do things like this radical idea. They go into the country and have a walk and they'll go swimming. It's like this tale. Have you heard of this new experience? It's cold water swimming. Could you imagine that? I mean, I like that so far. That's what I want to do with my life.

[00:16:23] But I'm stuck in this job where I've got to do a mix of both. It's like, I'd love to just completely run away with it. Because when I started on social media, it was so different. I remember when YouTube was this sort of like, it wasn't commonplace. And even if you were working in like the fashion industry, which I started out in, they would say to you, don't put your stuff on social media. It makes you look unprofessional. It makes you look like you're trying and not successful at it. And I was like, no, there's something in this. If you can create an image or you can create a MySpace profile that's customized to you

[00:16:53] and shows your personality, that's a good thing. If they don't get it, they're going to get it because it's going to happen. And it did. But YouTube wasn't arranged like this. Like they started to arrange it to provoke interaction around 2015. And in 2015, everything swapped. Before, it was like you could bounce off videos like in an organic way. So if you did something colorful or with good quality, people could discover you kind of organically.

[00:17:17] And when Google bought YouTube and they started to really focus in on getting you to interact. And that's when Facebook did it. And that's when Instagram did it. And they all followed the tweet. And I think Twitter has become eventually the worst for it. They will show you things to provoke you into interacting. So you will see the most shocking headlines. I mean, every time I logged into Twitter, and I don't use it anymore. Now it's called X. It would show me the most provocative Posey Parker titles. It would show me.

[00:17:45] And I would just think, this is really upsetting me. Every single time I log in, I want to connect with my friends. I want to see things that I subscribe to. And on the basis that I like certain charity posts or I like certain things my friends have posted in protest to the government, I'm being shown provocative things about the trans community. And I don't post anything about the trans community deliberately to avoid it because it upsets me so much. So it's like this, they all, they've made it so that you are constantly in this fight or flight mindset.

[00:18:14] And I think it's terrible. And I really wish that we had more control over that. And there was some more autonomy about the adverts. I wish you could completely opt out of the data collection and adverts across all social media and just experience it chronologically. And seeing what your friends are doing because you've chosen to see them or you're subscribed to that favorite fan site of that book because you love that book. Because it just is, it's so, it's so formulaic. It's so like, we're going to show you this to make you buy it.

[00:18:43] And then we're going to find out all the other things you buy. And it's like, actually, no, you can't assume that. And you're never going to get that. I like crazy sci-fi stuff. But also I like to watch cute little baby animals sometimes. And like, they just don't get it. It's too silly. Anyway, I'm ranting today. I'm so sorry. But it's an interesting challenge, isn't it? Because if you think around the, for our community, it's a source of real risk, social media and being online.

[00:19:08] But it's also the source of great joy as well, because it's where you find other people and you're in our sort of, in our tribe almost. It's where you find expertise, resources, help, you know, the ability to interact with people, to meet people, to talk to people online. You know, without fear or favor. The idea of being your own self and the idea of playing with AI to generate images and thoughts and looks and plot out who you're going to be.

[00:19:34] It's that thing where I wonder, it's almost like in my day, you know, your teenagers lasted quite a long time. And now being a bit older and in that sort of process, it's like reliving your teenage years, but on steroids almost. Because you can go back and do all the things we did when we were 17. But it's all online now. So it's like a poison chalice, but it's still a chalice. It is. I'm still trying to reconcile with whether I like it or not at the moment.

[00:20:03] I've kind of been a bit jaded by it all. And I think especially because I, when like all my community and it was so funny because we did this perfect, this collaboration channel called Perfect Androgyny, which was my platform that I created after I got successful myself online. I wanted to share my platform with all different other people that were in the trans community. And we did it and it was amazing. There were other channels at this time that were similar. And it was 10 years ago yesterday that we posted these cool videos and I was reminiscing about it.

[00:20:29] And I remember like the difference between then and now so profoundly because that was a community. We were looking after each other. We were supporting each other's brands and platforms. And we weren't the username. We were people that met on the Internet and became friends. And we were in different countries and we couldn't afford to travel to each other. We couldn't afford to get surgery because we were just poor kids from regular backgrounds. And we were supporting each other. We were exchanging information about gender dysphoria.

[00:20:58] And that's what most of my early videos was about, is about making people that couldn't access surgery feel comfortable in their own body because I couldn't access it at the time. And when I started to think about it now and it's like there was a slight monetization to all the old stuff, but now there's a currency applied to it. And it's not just like a physical currency like you can get paid from the adverts, you can get paid for endorsements. There's a digital currency. And it's become like you are now the most important thing in the world

[00:21:27] because you have 100 million people following you. But every single time I've met these people and I've been to all the conventions and met all these characters in person, they are not secure. They don't think of themselves as important. And it's substituted their self-esteem. And it's been like, I don't know if the fact that young people have been born thinking that they are purely this, that they have a facade that's almost like an avatar of themselves online,

[00:21:52] and all they want to do is gain some sort of trajectory online. They understand how the formula works now because they've been doing it since they were a kid. And they are mistaking that avatar for their actual real self. I think there's been a bit of a dissonance here with young kids. And when I've been looking at things like Reddit, I was horrified because again, Reddit wasn't something that I was particularly fond of after I found a very horrible thread about me once upon a time. I never looked back into it.

[00:22:20] And I saw in the trans-like threads, they were saying, oh, can you rate me on passability from one to 10? And I was thinking, this is outrageous. I would be so furious with the platform for allowing them to do that because that is not valuable information. That is so cruel to your own self, to ask people to validate you, to think that there is something to gain them. It's so unnecessary. Everyone is completely unique, whether you pass or not.

[00:22:49] It's like, what is the content of your character? And what do you bring to the table? What's your identity? What inspires you? The fact that it's become this sort of system where it is all algorithmic, where everything's numbered. And it's like you're a 10 because you look completely like your preferred gender identity. It's like, this is just ridiculous. Who the hell cares? It's not real life. And I think that's really important, isn't it? Because in the real world, you might ask someone, hey, what do you think of this?

[00:23:19] Does this work with that? But the idea of just putting yourself out there and saying, hey, what do you think of me? Is it, A, it's a sort of gateway to narcissism if you're not careful. But it makes you extremely vulnerable. And it reinforces this need for external feedback and validation. Because what a lot of people want here is, hey, I'm a 10, I'm a 10, I'm a 10. And you can almost sense the preening going on behind it. And you just think to yourself, this is a very, very vulnerable and fragile person.

[00:23:49] Because actually, as you say, getting feedback is an ordered process. And you need to have it when you want it. Because you're very vulnerable to the person who comes back and says, you're an X, Y, Z, and a frock or whatever it might be. Because if the approbation matters, then the sort of horrible stuff matters as well. Rather than just saying it as a bunch of people who, most of the time, they're commenting on your profile. Because actually, it's something to do with what they're about for themselves.

[00:24:19] It's very rarely generous on social media, discovered. And it's so easy to understand what someone's insecure about in themselves by what they're frequently talking about as well. It's very revealing. But it's always been like that. I remember back in the day when there was Facebook groups and the trans community were doing the same thing within these Facebook groups. Because anyone that's gone through experiences where you're told you're wrong, you repeat that action against people that you find familiar. It's like when you go to gay clubs and you see these kids that were bullied for being gay.

[00:24:48] And then they get to the gay clubs and they start this hierarchical thing where they all, like, let all the people start resembling each other and they start competing. Because they've been brought up with that sort of behaviour in school. And it's like they're then reenacting it on other people without realising it. It's like, it's silly. But that's one benefit of social media is that I love learning about people. And I've got this very interesting insight into what people are about now from their social media.

[00:25:15] And I can see the cause behind what they're doing, which I think is just because I've been on it for so long. And it was my generation where we kind of, like, saw all the changes happen. And I think that's the thing that a lot of people haven't seen since 2015. And to me, it was a pivotal, pivotal change in 2015. Everything went totally wrong. It was perfect until then. Well, not perfect. It was things to improve on.

[00:25:41] But it just became so much more calculated and inauthentic. And I would describe it as, like, low energy because it was, like, the most provocative, the most sensationalistic things that you could create, the more attention you could get from it. And then it became this currency. So it grew valuable to be like that. And it's just scary to me because I think there's so much more that we need to see.

[00:26:07] Like, there's so many resources online that people can access that it's especially, like, with Beyond Reflections and things, like, when you get access to information about support through transition. And that's the stuff that should be the most seen, like, the most searched for. And it's not getting out there in the right way. Like, that's the whole reason why I built my website journal. Because initially, when I was in the lockdown, I wanted to go back to my hometown because they were actually starting to build houses where I used to go with my nan.

[00:26:35] And there was, like, a cornfield we used to go get strawberries from. And it would be, like, I'd learn all wildflower names. And I thought, my God, if I don't get a record of all this stuff before it goes, I'm never going to be able to show my nieces or my kids in the future. So I started to just document all things that made me smile. And I was using my iPhone so it was inexpensive. And eventually, I just built this whole network of images. And I thought, my God, I've got to do something with this. And I was cooking a lot at home. And I thought, let's photograph all this stuff.

[00:27:02] And it built into this website that was about sort of making me reconnected with things that were high frequency, that were things that were just different. And trying to get people to work with me on this website, they were like, oh, you can't do this. And so many management meetings said to me, if you do anything that's going to be outside of beauty, you're going to find it incredibly hard to get partnerships. Because there aren't any LGBT people in this space. Travel companies don't want to work with LGBT people because there's no budget to send you to countries that aren't LGBT favourable.

[00:27:32] And all this stuff is going on. And I was like, no, this is ridiculous. If you're saying to me that I can't take pictures of flowers because I'm a trans person, then you're ridiculous. If you're saying I can't partner with people after I've done this for 15 years, then you're ridiculous. I can do all of that. Just let me show you what to do. But it was more of a struggle than I realised. Because this is sort of like my, I guess, my superpower. I don't take no for an answer if I've got an idea in my head.

[00:27:57] But it was like doing a project like that for me was meant to show people that you could do something completely out of the zone. Something that makes you individually smile. That's more original to you. And I was shocked because I thought, oh my God, people are going to be really excited about it. And it took a long while to get going. And it was just bizarre. But I think we should do a mix of all of that stuff. Like use the internet for things that are creative. You seem to have things that are recalibrating. And just try and, I don't know, mix things up.

[00:28:26] And I love that project. It's my favourite thing. And I was so annoyed as well. Because I used to remember all the, I call them the Gleam kids. They're not kids. They're influencers that were with the agency Gleam. Like Zoella. They were allowed to do beauty tutorials. Go viral. And then do cookbooks. And I was like, why aren't I allowed to do that? Yes. Yeah, why? So there you go. So, and what's interesting was, if anyone heard the little leak of music there coming in, it was actually, I was looking at your site and looking at your journal and listening and

[00:28:55] I inevitably clicked on some music. But it's always worth looking at josephharwood.com because it shows what you can do to express yourself in a different sort of way. Because I think there's a lot of people who think that actually, that social media is where it's all at. But Jen, who's my colleague and crime on here, often talks about the fact that she used to do a lot of blogging. And I found that very expressive and very useful. And there's sites like Capsule and places like that, which are collation sites or curation sites.

[00:29:25] And it's about your life and where you've come from and where you're going. And especially for trans people, it's so important to be able to find those inspirational people. Because actually, you know, it's that sort of online mentoring idea that it's lovely to see someone's journey in front of you. And not just a thousand pictures of yourself, but, you know, what are you interested in? Where are you going? Because I think you would agree with this, that trans is often the least important thing about yourself. But it's the thing that everyone just seems obsessed with. Yes.

[00:29:55] And it's about how do you develop a life, you know, and cope with your gender identity and make it work for yourself rather than just seeing it as an end in itself. And often it is an obsession because there has to be. But it needs to fit into your overall life, doesn't it? Well, I think anyway. Yeah. Like with me, like I would never, ever do anything to do with my identity as any part of my work because it is secondary to what I bring to the table. It's a small part of me.

[00:30:22] But when this is the balance that you've got to have, you've got to be able to be found. And if you aren't able to be found, then you're not going to book work. So you've got to have some sort of element that ties you into the moment that's going on. And sometimes you've got to visibly reflect back what's happening in that moment. So with my work, like what I wanted to do with my website, because people used to say, oh, we know you as a makeup artist. And I'd be like, yeah, I love makeup.

[00:30:49] But it's a tool kit within what I do. It's like the smallest output of what I do. What I do is I character create. And when I was like a child, I used to have books and books and books of sketches. And when you used to get those glittery gel pens and smell pens, they were so cool. I used to go to Smith's and collect all the colours and things. But I used to draw like characters that were kind of like inspired by Xena, the warrior princess, or like all these like sci-fi things. And it was all about creation of character.

[00:31:18] And then when I found video games where I could finally see and play as an androgynous person, because all these Japanese games, they were androgynous characters. It like confounded to me what I wanted to do. And I always go back to the video game Final Fantasy, because you're playing as this sort of androgynous eco-warrior that's so me. It's like me in my head. That's who I am. And it's like, I love coming up with characters, but people didn't get that. They thought that my ambition was to become famous through social media makeup art.

[00:31:48] And it was like, that's absolutely the opposite of wanting to do. I don't even want to be recognised. And they used to always tell me off because I do a different hair in every video. And there was no consistency. So people couldn't attach to the image. And when I did this mermaid visual, it absolutely blew up. Like the mermaid visuals were so... I sold thousands of t-shirts with that silly mermaid image on. And I just thought it was like one of many ideas. And everyone was so angry when I started to play with a masculine look. And I just got this negative feedback.

[00:32:18] And I'd just be like, this is all components of my imagination. None of this is real. Don't think any of this is real. All of this is just my imagination and what I'm doing. And in the last year, it's been really exciting because I got to work with things like Dell. And I'm currently working with their Alienware brand. And I said, can I do something that's actually about character design? So I started to digitally do makeup for them over London Fashion Week. And instead of actually doing makeup on a person, I did makeup on a cartoon that I kind of created.

[00:32:47] And started to actually develop them in meta. So they were like a virtual makeup look. And I was like, that's more me. Like all of the other stuff I don't really care about. I don't want to just be known for doing pretty makeup. I want to be known to do an art on the human face. And there are so many projects I've been wanting to do for so long that it's been involved in things like prosthetics. Like originally when I was working with L'Oreal on something called the Brush Contest, I did this design. And we were meant to be doing this in three stages, this competition.

[00:33:16] The first stage in London and the second and third was in Paris. They basically mucked up the whole competition so it never came to fruition. But I wanted to do this prosthetic that would reveal me as if I could not access my imagination. Like what would happen if I'd grown old and I couldn't be myself? And I wanted to create this thing, this character of me that was kind of like melancholic and sad. But as a prosthetic and then see the joy of me actually being able to be myself.

[00:33:44] It's kind of like a symbol of saying like, look, we only have one opportunity to live as we are today. Let's do it to the best of our ability. And there's like lots of stuff like that. I just it's all symbolism and it's all like pain homage. A lot of the stuff that I do is you can see directly. It's like a very deliberate recreation of one of my idols. It's like things like Peyton Tato, I did for Urban Decay. And I say that it was because he was a queer artist that I absolutely adored. And I always wanted to recreate his visuals.

[00:34:14] And I did it with cutting out pieces of paper and re-photographing things and things. It wasn't just like a photo shoot. And people didn't get that until I explained it. Then I did things like the Shiseido asked me to do a campaign with them. And I said, well, if I can do Serge Luton's, which is one of their original creative directors who years and years and years before anyone was talking about it, was saying he was too spirited and defined an image of beauty. And what we see is beauty campaigns. He was really the GOAT. He was amazing.

[00:34:43] So all of the things that I do, it's all referential. And I did all like the celebrity transformations where I would transform into other people. And I started this in 2008. This is before I even had my beauty YouTube. I was doing it for my actual art foundation diploma. So it was like something I was doing like before as a project off the internet. And it was all about like trying to show people you could really change. You could really change who you want to do that day. If you wanted to be... Sorry, go ahead.

[00:35:12] I was just to leap in actually. If you go onto your website, what's fascinating is a section called art. And it talks about this paying tribute to tutorials. And what I love about your site is it has this high art, high concept. But also it shows all these wonderful, really useful sort of basic makeup tutorials. And what's fascinating about the fact that you're doing them is you're a name we can trust. So rather than just going to some rando on YouTube, there's some really, really strong advice on here.

[00:35:41] But I cannot believe that you are... I'm looking at your picture as Michael Jackson, then Kylie, then Angela Jolie. And, you know, these are people that look totally different. And you are... You're completely different in each of these things. And it's all through makeup, I'm guessing, is it? Yes, it was all through makeup. And originally when I started doing the... I started them off by doing the ones at the very bottom, the supermodels. And I had red hair.

[00:36:09] So at the time I could not afford wigs. I couldn't afford all the magical makeup you can buy now. So I used my hair as a green screen. So I filmed with my natural red hair. And then I'd change the hair in the video. And so I'd click my fingers and make it like... Change it from red to orange or red to brown. So I could fake the look as if I was doing wigs. So I used to do like funny tricks like that years ago. But no, it was amazing.

[00:36:37] And I cannot believe how big this thing had become. Because when I started, there wasn't anyone doing celebrity transformations. There were people doing inspired makeup looks. Like when they wanted to do David Bowie's Aladdin Zayn makeup or whatever. They wouldn't transform into the person. And I was like, no, I can do this. Because I think we mentioned this in my last chat with you. But I learned how to do this all from The Sims. It was The Sims video games. Because you could create... I thought because the character models, like the actual 3D figurine within The Sims.

[00:37:06] It's very simple. But the skins that they wrap around, like the texture of the face, the clothes. They are all shaded. So when you go into the files of the actual computer game. And you open them up as a JPEG. They're like a flat image with contour. And I was like, oh my god, I know how to do this now. It just clicked in my brain. I get it. I know how to transform my face. And it was always... It was like once I knew it, I wanted to share it with everyone else.

[00:37:34] But it's like when I live my life, literally, I can experience exactly the reaction I want from someone by how I change my image. And that was amazing. Once I realised I could do that, that was like, oh my god, this is going to be fun now. Because if I do a masculine look, I can get a completely different reaction to if I do a feminine look. And it's fascinating to experience life like that. But also to not have to go through something that's permanent.

[00:38:03] Everything can be washed off. So none of it's real. I just love it. That's the favourite thing about my job. Fantastic. No, it is that thing about... With practice and... And in a funny sort of way, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Because it's actually how you can become a different person in real life rather than online, which is all fantasy. Yes. These are techniques you can use to...

[00:38:28] And I like what you talk about on your site, which is that sometimes the detail of how we look is really important. Because not getting some of the details right can be a cause... You can get an extreme reaction. So I can see how you've used art to sort of practice all these different looks. So I'm guessing that actually, if you want to go out normally down to Sainsbury's or something, you're not going to be going down as Kylie. But you need to be able to have that expertise just to be able to minimally apply something that just gets you to...

[00:38:56] Gets you comfortable in such a way that you have the confidence to go out and be who you are. Absolutely. Well, today I'm going to go see my two beautiful nieces and my sister after our chat. And I wouldn't wear a scrap of makeup. And I just wear glasses and just the most boring clothes I owned. But when I was younger and I was going to college, I would go out with like absolutely absurd diamonds stuck from my eyebrows to my cheekbones. I just was just a crazy kid. I used to make all my clothes. I used to sew them all.

[00:39:26] And I'd have like feather epaulettes on my military jackets that I'd make myself and the big giant spiky shoulders. And I look back at videos and I think, my God, what an absolute lunatic I was as a kid. Because I just, I think like as well, like it was, I noticed when you did like more of an extreme image in the day, people pretend like you don't exist. Like you become, even though they're no issue, they're so awkward about you standing out that dramatically that they pretend you don't actually exist.

[00:39:52] And I used to think like this is so weird because before, if I looked androgynous, people would, it would attract both negative and positive attention. But if I looked more extreme, it would be like, maybe it's that sort of built in human thing where like we used to live in the woods and the jungles and the most colourful creatures were the most venomous. I don't know what it is, but it was. You know, that's a really interesting comment.

[00:40:14] You know, I've never thought about that before, but I remember telling someone telling me that they went out and were deliberately, they didn't do this thing where they tried to blend in and pass and disappear. And then because they were easily spotted, but they did exactly as you said, they went out and stood out. Yeah. And people, there was a, obviously you can get vitriol from anyone, but people tended to be complimentary. Yeah. Yeah. Because they stood out and you were making an effort almost, you know. Yeah.

[00:40:42] They couldn't understand what to do with your image. I think nowadays it's a bit different because we've got things like Drag Race on mainstream TV and people see that they've got more of a visual understanding of what you're about. But yeah, back in the day, it was so difficult. And I think like when it was coming to like the resources online to, because all I wanted to do was help people with their gender dysphoria. And there was a phenomena called the world that I don't know how to describe it. There was a lady that was, she would do videos of herself in one of those latex masks.

[00:41:11] And that was like the first transformation thing on YouTube when YouTube properly started because she was duly masking. And we used to see this with fascination because we were like, oh my God, if they got surgery, like Amanda LaPorte, or is it actually a mask? And I didn't know at the time because I was about 14 about the fetish side of all the latex stuff. But it was like, that was the first content we found online. And then there was a couple of drag queens. There was one called Blanche Babcock. There was one called Misty Eyes, who's now come through a transition.

[00:41:40] They did basic sort of like Southern Florida drag makeup. So it was all like garage door eyes, which is when you have like a block color above your eyes. And there was no resources. There was a couple of androgynous people. And there was a genius makeup artist called Petrolude, who was also a drag queen called Misty Maven from New York. So there were resources that you kind of delve into, but none of them took it to the extreme of physically changing their gender identity.

[00:42:09] It was always like they wanted to do it as a typical drag work. So I knew how to do it. And I was always trying to like teach my friends how to do it. And we've got funny videos of me at 16 doing my friend's makeup in Starbucks and teaching about contouring. And it was like when I put it online, I knew that there was always going to be a sensational side of anything to do with trans because there wasn't enough content to show humanity. There was just enough content that people were either searching for it as a fetish or they were searching for it as like a shock thing.

[00:42:38] Like when Omegle started and everyone would go on Omegle and it would be like someone pretending to be a girl with a high pitched voice. And they'd scare them by changing their voice tone because they think it was a girl. And then they find out it was a boy or whatever. So there was all this controversial stuff around this idea. So I said, if I just break it down in a very simplistic way, so on the outside, they think it's that.

[00:43:01] But once they get into the video, they understand that I'm talking about facial anatomy and talking about how the secondary sexual characteristics change through puberty. So there's things that are traditionally different between male and female faces. It's not the same across the board. And depending on your ethnic background, it changes. But there are some general rules. And once I started to explain that to people, they went, oh, my God. And I just did an interview last week.

[00:43:27] And this lovely, lovely, lovely girl, she was like, when you did the hair drawing eyebrows, because I used to draw my eyebrows on my hair by hair. It was like none of this stuff was online. There was no breakdowns. There was no explanation. And I've always wanted it to be like so easy to understand. Because, again, to me, it's like we have these tech tools and then we've got all these amazing resources. We can take them to our advantage.

[00:43:52] So I always just say use your webcam next to your mirror because the webcam can show you what you look like to other people. And the mirror can look like a reflection. So you can compare and contrast and get symmetry correct. Then look at the gaps in between the features, because it's not always the features. Like back in the day, they used to say, like, contour your nose down to a point because it will make you look more feminine. Well, it actually doesn't do that. It makes your nose look smaller. What makes you look feminine is the gaps between the features.

[00:44:19] So cheating those gaps slightly and making them a little bit smaller can change the overall balance of your facial proportions. Things like the fat pads of the face are different. So if you have more of a rosier effect to the shape of your face, that can be more feminine. So there's so many things that I think no one had a clue about. And there were things that you just learn while doing it, isn't it? So it's like I have all those resources out there now, which is so good. And around 2017, I worked with a brand called Jekka.

[00:44:48] And we wanted to sort of simplify all this down into a product. So we created some brands and brand identity products, one which was a beard coverage concealer. So it was a colour correction tool because just like we use purple shampoos to tone yellow hair, we can use things like orange and salmon tones to counteract the blue that shows through with a beard. Or you can use it as an under eye circle concealer. So these are things that were sort of multi-purpose things.

[00:45:17] And then we started to think about the contouring side of things and how to create shading that doesn't look orange. So I was like, let's show you what I do. I mix up grey and green. And because green is the opposite colour to red, which is the blood, you can make it look like a shadow instead of like a piece of like an orange line on your face. It makes you look less like you've got a drawing. It looks more like you're in the darkness, like you're creating a hollow.

[00:45:42] So it was using all these like different tactics and different techniques and simplifying them down. And then this year we basically created a Mac edit in my collection with Mac, which kind of took all the original techniques I did. And again, making use of the product. So, yeah. I'll tell you what, Jojo, I think what would be great is perhaps next time we chat, let's just do all of that stuff. Let's just talk about some of those things because just about everything you're telling me is brand new to me.

[00:46:12] And personally, I'm very, very interested. But secondly, I know our audience will be. So let's hook up in a couple of months and talk makeup. Yes. And I'm so sorry we were around. I was ranting so much today. I've been on one of those moves. You know when you've had like a very annoying week and you want to get it out of the system, but also chat about the world. Well, make sure you have a look at the site, Joseph Harwood. And I'll be having a look at that as well. So there's really lots of interesting stuff in the journals, fascinating as well. So thank you.

[00:46:40] Look after yourself and hopefully all the stuff with your phone gets sorted out. Yes, we're bad to normal today. I just need to get my iCloud set up so it's got all my photos. But oh God, what a fear. So everyone listening, back up your backups. You take care. Thanks for listening to this episode of Transvox. It's been a joy to have you with us.

[00:47:04] If you want to make contact with us, you can contact us at jillian.transvox.co.uk. And if you'd like to support the work we do, please go to Patreon and go to page Transvox. And all of our money goes to our nominated charity. And Jen, you've chosen the charity for the next number of episodes. Which one have you chosen? Our charity is called Beyond Reflections, which is a charity that provides support and counselling to trans people,

[00:47:33] non-binary people and their friends and their families across the UK. An amazing charity doing some amazing work. Really important. So please, if you can give. Great. And if you want to go and have a look at Beyond Reflections, it's beyond-reflections.org.uk. But as I say, if you'd like to make a contribution to what we're doing, because we love to help the people who help us. Again, if you've got ideas for the show, things you'd like to ask us, questions, comments, applause, or brick baths,

[00:48:02] feel free to send it all in to jillian at transvox.co.uk. Until the next time, goodbye. Bye-bye.