The Michelle Interview: ‘Becoming the Material Girl’
by Michelle Rasmussen
Michelle has had a very busy year, she began by kickstarting reforms in the world of podcasts,
with her successful series ‘Feigning Lux’ and in August her jewelry collection ‘Feign’ will be
presented at Copenhagen Fashion Week. I was lucky enough to get an interview with this
exclusive influencer and designer. I’ll be meeting with Michelle at a café in downtown Trondheim and for what was initially, a scheduled interview, that interview has started to feel a lot more like a typical blind date. I'm nervous, I don’t know what she looks like and she requested I bring a red rose…..she is running late.
Michelle has been the guiding voice in the podcast series ‘Feigning Lux’ with intros such as:
“Hi and welcome to another episode of feigning lux. I am, of course,
your beautiful host, Michelle. Today's episode will be a guide on
how to live your life as a richer, more popular and more powerful
version of yourself. I'm sort of an expert in these topics since I'm quite
rich and definitely popular and, uh, extremely powerful.”
Apart from the podcast’s website, it’s been impossible to locate Michelle online. I later found out that the name and character Michelle, is a character she created specifically for the podcast. She’s been credited as the ‘Banksy of podcasts’, an enigma in a world of social media, and the genius with no face. I, of course, had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the talk of an interview was even on the table. Michelle was eventually able to find me, using the red rose…..she apparently didn’t feel the need to look me up online. Her refraining from any online investigations into my person, made us equals.
Hi Michelle, thank you so much for agreeing to this exclusive interview, I know you are very busy:
Sorry for being late, I got lost. but thank you so much for inviting me, I’m very excited about this interview, this is actually my first one, so I’m also a bit nervous Ha-Ha. I practiced in front of the mirror this morning and all my answers were spot on, so I feel very prepared, hopefully, you won’t ask me anything too personal. Thank you for the rose by the way, you shouldn’t have Ha-Ha. I’m very busy at the moment, yes. But all the projects I’m working on, are very important to me, so it almost doesn’t seem like work. Well, that’s not true, it very much feels like work, but I love the process of it. I’m just gonna quickly order a coffee, then I’m ready!
(Michelle returns and is ready to begin the interview)
Let’s begin then. Becoming a material girl? Are you a material girl?
I just really love Madonna, from her early works to the Eurovision Song Contest and Met Gala performances last year. I’m also just a huge fan of the ‘material girl’ track. Besides my fangirl obsession with Madonna, I pretend to be a material girl on ‘Feigning Lux’. With every episode, I try to comically comment on our materialistic society, of which my character Michelle, is very much a part of (a fan of and an expert on). Whilst I’m acting as a material girl, I’m ridiculing that character and the social norms of that specific area of society. I’m also playing out all the typical stereotypes of the rich and famous, known through pop cultural phenomena (like in the American reality television series ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ which attempts to showcase how insane some of these stereotypes are) and I sometimes exaggerate, but it’s rarely a pre-requisite! Ha-Ha.
For the podcast whilst emulating the material girl, I found a lot of inspiration in Nicole Richie’s 2014 scripted comedy faux-reality television series ‘Candidly Nicole’, based on her hilarious and often inappropriate Twitter feed. The series details her daily adventures whilst providing insight into her views on everything from style to relationships to parallel parking. American artist and documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield have been another great source of inspiration. I became a fan of her work, after the release of the 2012 documentary ‘The Queen of Versailles’ which is about a billionaire couple and their family as they build their private residence; Versailles (one of the largest and most expensive houses in the United States). The value and wealth theme is continued in Greenfield’s documentary from 2018 ‘Generation Wealth’, which is an almost three decade long investigation into the richest society the world has ever seen. Both women depict richness and materialism in different ways and have contributed to what is now the material girl character.
Now as a jewelry designer, I find myself to be extremely materialistic, which was a bit surprising in the beginning, but I’ve since learned to live with it! The jewelry collection, like the podcast is all about faking it, hence the name of the brand: ‘Feign’. The Jewelry is made of cheap materials processed to appear expensive, in this case, gold. For the design of the jewelry collection, I wanted a pretentious and extravagant design (in the style of celebrity jeweler Johnny Dang aka the ‘King of Bling’) one that could potentially be worn by television personality and retired professional wrestler Mr. T. Whilst I was watching different music videos by Beyoncé, Nicky Minaj, and Cardi B. I realized that the jewelry collection also had to have a commanding presence. Similar to the costume jewelry worn in the videos, It had to be a design that could transform the person wearing it. In the case of my jewelry collection, I wanted the person wearing it to be transformed into a one-woman army, or if worn by a group of women, they’d take on the guise of a clan of females to be reckoned with. The concept of female clan or army led me to model the collection off gold plated replicas of real guns strapped to the body, by gold plated chains.
Wow that sounds amazing, I’m looking forwards to seeing the collection when it’s presented in August. In the latest episode, Becoming a Rich Person, you mention:
“When you're pretending to be rich and popular, you have to think
about your personality and your true personality, the personality
you were born with. Is personality something that can become popular
at some point in everyone’s life? Or do you have to delete your true
personality and create a new one, that can become your true
personality?”
Did you have to delete your own personality, in order to become the material girl character?
Yeah, hopefully, the collection will be a big success. For character play to work, you must be convincing in your portrayal, you must believe the tale you’re telling, otherwise, it won’t be believable. There are some similarities between the character Michelle (the material girl) and myself, but we are also very different. So yes, in order to portray the character convincingly I had to forget or delete myself during those recordings, by creating a character and appearing as that character. This gives you the opportunity to act differently, perform an alter-ego, acting in a way you perhaps otherwise wouldn’t dare to, as yourself. It also makes your view on the world different since you’re viewing it from another perspective. By appearing as a made up character you can also provoke change in a way that is much more believable, considering that you’re now appearing as part of the society your perhaps criticizing. Let’s take the American artist Cindy Sherman's 2008 ‘Untitled Society Portraits’ as an example of character play, by dressing up as different female characters. Cindy Sherman comments on society's standards of beauty that prevail in youth and status obsessed cultures. There’s also the French artist ORLAN that took on societal critique to an entirely new level, with her project ‘The Reincarnation of Sainte-ORLAN' which began in 1990. The project included having several plastic surgery operations performed to transform herself, mirroring elements from famous paintings and sculptural representations of ‘women’. She did this in order to critique the ideal look of female beauty as depicted by male artists.
The reason the podcast has become so popular, I think has a lot to do with this need for character or role playing, the need to speak as someone else, to become the alter-ego. I create guides for people to achieve their character's career dreams.”
Do you see yourself as an expert on achieving your career dreams?
You could say that, yes, I claim to be an expert at least once during every episode of ‘Feigning Lux’. Till now I’m an expert on ‘Becoming a Princess’, ‘Becoming a Fashion Designer’, ‘Becoming a President’, ‘Becoming an Artist’, ‘Becoming a Rich Person’ and next week’s episode ‘Becoming a Lawyer’. It depends on whether one of these themes of Becoming is the career choice of your dreams, then yes I’m an expert. If your dream is to become an athlete, for example, I can’t say that I am one, but I’m also not so far from one (I would of course have to do a lot of research on the topic, and the people involved) but considering athletes are no longer only idolized by people interested in sports, it isn’t so far away from my areas of expertise. I see sports as being a major part of pop culture, It could be a really interesting episode and I’m keen to acquire the necessary skills to create a guide for that dream occupation. It seems very easy to become an expert these days, look at YouTube tutorials, there’s almost a program about becoming an expert on any given subject and if one’s missing, there’s always the opportunity to make one yourself. The term expert has sort of lost its meaning, which is also one of the reasons why I see no reason not to call myself an expert. There are even guides on how to become an expert, I haven’t tried one of those yet…..I will though.
How did you get started as an influencer? was it a childhood dream of yours?
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t motivated by the Kardashians and how in 2012 Kim Kardashian started using Instagram as a platform to connect with a still growing fanbase. By creating trust between herself and the consumer, Kim Kardashian was and is still able to influence the consumer's wants and needs. In the beginning, Kardashian was advertising for brands she herself used and after a while, advertising for her own brands like; Skims and KKW Beauty, etc.
To this day it still amazes me how much influence Instagram has had on the real world, not only in product sales but also politically. I remember when Taylor Swift encouraged her fans via Instagram to vote for the 2018 election, writing that she herself would be voting for a democratic candidate, after which there was a huge spike in newly registered voters. Interestingly, Donald Trump liked Taylor swift 25% less in the polls after this event, Ha-Ha! It’s a bit scary, how much power you have as a celebrity. I guess that’s also one of the things that attracted me to this line of work to begin with.
As a child I never dreamed of becoming an influencer (that wasn’t a thing back then) I guess being the firstborn girl in the family, made me the spotlight of family affairs and I was pampered like crazy by all the adults. I liked being spoiled, I enjoyed the attention and I definitely knew I wanted to be famous in some way, It didn’t matter how, as long as the spotlight was on me. I believe my career dreams growing up were very much affected by my mother dressing me from head to toe in all the nuances of pink, starting the day I was born. I used to dream of becoming Britney Spears, a Disney princess or even a real-life princess, I knew very early on that I wanted to possess a kind of power and influence, since I loved the spotlight. As a child I knew how to curtsey and even owned a tiara, so the dream of becoming a princess seemed at the time very plausible, the only thing I needed was to find myself a prince. After a few childhood years went by and no prince had offered to marry me, I figured ‘screw him’ and decided to become an influencer instead Ha-Ha. It was at that point, I just needed to determine what kind of influencer I wanted to become. So then for me, it was all about finding the type of niche I was passionate about and I found it when I read about Anna Sorokin “The Fake Heiress” in 2018. Anna Sorokin created the character Anne Delvey, she was known for her tipping with $100 bills at restaurants, she lived out of hotels and traveled the world, attending art and fashion festivals. Sorokin, whilst playing Anne Delvey rubbed shoulders with highflyers, who accepted her sketchy backstories, which included; her father being a diplomat to a Russian oil tycoon or antique dealer. Sorokin's alter-ego success story was widely reported on, mainly for her ability to blend into social circles seamlessly. I found her story and how she managed to trick all these people to be so amazing and I immediately knew I wanted to do something similar, but where everyone involved knew that we were pretending.
You decided your niche would be role playing as a form of pretense after reading about the character traits Anna Sorokin made up?
Yes, her story helped me create the initial idea for the podcast. I thought about how desperate Anna Sorokin must have been to create this character Anna Delvey back in 2011 and having to live this lie for 6 years, before she was eventually arrested in 2017 and accused of grand larceny and theft of services for up to $275,000. I believe the world can be a very rough place if you can’t conform to social norms and this Anna Sorokin apparently wanted a different life from that which she was given, which led her to create the second life she always wanted, which in the end she was punished for. I think that’s why social media has become so popular, It gives people the opportunity to create the kind of online persona they aspire to become. There is this need for character play in society, It doesn’t matter if it’s through perfectly photo-shopped profile pictures, cosplay, or the Sims. Speaking of the Sims, I read an article in Vice News recently about escaping reality during the Coronavirus pandemic. The author of the article, being forced to stay at home decided to recreate her ‘real life’ and actually live it and by creating a sim and by using a few cheat codes, the author managed to become rich, got married and became a mother of twins in the span of a few days (as opposed to the many uninspired hours she had apparently spent on Tinder). Perhaps we should all start dating by proxy Ha-Ha.
Ha-Ha, I think I’ll join you! Why did you decide to be anonymous and use the character Michelle, as your public persona?
I enjoy all the attention my different projects have received lately, but I noticed very early on, that some people can’t cope with excessive amounts of success and attention without them turning into complete assholes, so in order for me to stay sane and less assholy, I decided it was probably best for me to be anonymous, to have a clear separation between my public and personal life, this is the reason why Michelle became my public persona. In today’s society, it’s not enough to just change your name though, there’s facial recognition etc. which is why Michelle can only be a voice, and why the format of podcasting was the obvious choice and also why you had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the interview. All of this then resulted in me becoming known as the ‘Banksy of podcasts’, an enigma in a world of social media, and the genius with no face. No regrets from me, I couldn’t have imagined a better description or reason to continue working in this field of expertise. I’m not sure Banksy appreciates the comparison though, but who cares? Ha-Ha.
I heard some rumors about a possible second season of ‘Feigning Lux’. Can you confirm this? if so, when can we expect it’ll drop?
There’s definitely talk of a second season, but right now, it’s only speculation and they’re a lot of details that need to be worked out before a second season can happen. My priorities right now are finalizing the last episode of ‘Feigning Lux’ which is ‘Becoming a Lawyer’. I’m also focusing on releasing a line of merchandising designed around each character's area of expertise, it’ll be for sale online after the last episode has aired. Following on will be the launch of the Jewelry collection ‘Feign’ in August at Copenhagen Fashion Week and then everything follows on from that.
When the Becoming Michelle project and podcast series started, I knew I wanted to create 6 guides for career dreams, where each guide would be a different episode, this has now been accomplished, and with a great success to add. I really appreciate the encouragement from the fans and the demand for more guides, I’m blown away by their reaction and how they just embraced ‘Feigning Lux’ right from the beginning. A lot of people have also written in with requests for specific careers they’d like guides on, including ‘Becoming an Athlete’, which I hope to pursue in the near future. It’s so exciting that the fans have taken a liking to this format and the guides, it’s also the reason why there is even talk of a second season to begin with. I'm very interested in continuing with ‘Feigning lux’ and hopefully I’ll be able to create a guide titled ‘Becoming Banksy’, no I'm kidding, but it could be fun! I’m trying to keep all my options open at the moment without making any final decisions before I absolutely have to. I do see myself spending a lot more time designing in the future, I loved the process of designing a Jewelry collection and the merchandise has been such an amazing experience and I’ve meet a ton of great people that I’d love to continue working with on any future projects.