What does “queer” mean to you?
For me personally, it was the first word that encompassed everything that I identify as. I remember when I first discovered I was gay I was like, OK, this is a thing I understand. But when I realized that maybe it’s not a straight line, or that my gender identity was still a question mark to me, I put a lot of pressure on myself to define one side or the other on everything. “Queer” was the first term that expressed what I was feeling.
But it’s always been a blurry thing, and I have found that over the years, my personal identification is a question mark for me. I have kind of found comfort in not identifying as anything. A lot of people ask me what the meaning is from switching from being known as Ben J. Pierce to Miss Benny. That’s just what my friends know me as — this sort of ambiguously-gendered figure in our friend group — and so the nickname “Miss Benny” came about. It’s slightly masculine but still feminine, and a lot of the time leaves people curious about what that means. And that’s kind of how I like that, because there is a lot of ambiguity with how I identify. So I kind of like my perception to be that as well.
Do you feel like a part of that unknown, or the unknown in general, is part of this next chapter in your career?
Absolutely. With this next chapter in my personal life and career, I just want to be very authentic to what I’m feeling and what I’m discovering about myself. Right now, I have such clarity about not having any clarity, and I’m definitely trying to bring that into what I create, because I know there are other people who are also liberated by uncertainty.
Tell me about when you first started making YouTube videos.
I had various YouTube channels when I was 11 until I stumbled upon the one I landed on when I was 13. I made my channel, Kid POV, and that was the channel I lived on for five years. If I were to look back, I could see my whole teenagehood documented week by week.
