It was early February, with Dylan Mulbany floating on the high seas somewhere in the Caribbean, probably near St. Martin, on a cruise ship filled with nearly 5,000 gay men. Mulbany, a 28-year-old performer, trans video deerist and cultural lightning stick at the heart of the infamous Budlight boycott of 2023, is cheerful that she is one of the “three women totals” He reported on the boat with a voice and a wide range of smiles.
She was there to play musical comedy for the cruiser. He served as a backup dancer for the four cast members who produced “Mamma Mia!” onboard. In a video interview from her cabin, Mulbany recently identified her North Star, “one central question.” “Does this decision help me become a Broadway diva?”
Mulbany played the Chipper missionary on a nationwide tour of The Book of Mormon in early 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic put all theatres torch. She redirected endless energy to make videos in Tiktok, often adding melody to her intimate camera address.
Her subjects initially vary: “Bridgeton” Rifs, Theatre World Forder, and a series of interviewing animals at the San Diego Zoo. However, in isolation, she began to acknowledge some personal truths she had known since she was four years old. In March 2022, she recorded her first video on “100 Days of Girlhood.” . Murbany writes about the shock of jumping to one million followers within a month. By 2023, she will have more than 10 million people.
Her online persona as a friend was Mulvaney's upcoming memoir, Paper Doll: Notes from A Laite Bloomer, “Very Tasty” Trans Ellen DeGeneres. “Ellen was one of my biggest role models. She not only made gays normal, but she also made them look fun and approachable,” Mulbany wrote. But for her book, Murbany showed the Beaudier side. (The hookups are detailed, sometimes detailed.) Some of her fans will probably find the book “a little more nunch than expected,” she said.
After noon on the second day of the cruise, she hadn't eaten yet, so she ordered diet cola and fries. She wore white oval sunglasses, as if they were headbands. Prim cardigan with gold buttons, juicy pink sweatpants, and she said Baccarat Trouge spritz. “This is my 'fit duality,” she said. “You'll get the Y2K Paris Hilton or Audrey Hepburn.”
After being a blonde for two years, Murbany dyed her hair brown before she even adjusted her sails. She made some appointments for what she described as a “big pivot.”
“I'm now trying to promote this book as a brunette, but at first I thought it was a big problem,” she said. Being aware of her image three years later as an influencer made Murbany hesitate to revise her brand, which is closer to the release of the book. Ultimately, she decided that the change was the perfect bookend for a clear period of her life that her memoirs cover.
“It feels like a character in this romance novel. It's part of me, but not everything I do,” she said.
Around 2022, along with Mulbany's fame on mountain climbing, her agents asked her about a list of “dream brands” she wanted to promote. Mulvaney had prepared the answer, “Tiffany and Beer.” She didn't care what beer. Mulbany loves all beers. She particularly loves it, she writes in her memoirs. I write because “it seems very contradictory to my overall aesthetic and I love to surprise people.”
In April 2023, Mulvaney posted a sponsored video for Bud Light. There they showed off a personalized can showing the faces that Budlight sent. The video touches on what Harvard Business School researchers called “one of the biggest boycotts in American history.” Angry protesters denounce Tiktok's brand, eventually threatening bombs, country musician banning beer sales on his tour, and on Twitter video where Kidlock fires in Bud Light's case with submachine gun It's connected.
The month after Mulbany's sponsored post, Budlight sales fell to an estimated 17%. In her memoir, with a brave sense of humor that doesn't mess with fear, Murbany talks about dodging paparazzi, arming her with a foreskin knife in fear of stalkers, navigating the thoughts of death threats and suicide. .
By looking at the catastrophe as just a few chapters in the book, Murbany was able to contextualize the catastrophe as an important incident in her life, but not to define it. Reflection. She later reused the episode as a feed for cultural critique, stand-up comedy and one female musical. Mulvaney loves to play, and she loves good stories. And the Bud Light controversy is a good story.
The episode says, “If I'm writing another book, it won't be in the next one. The really exciting thing is that I still show everyone else's other side of my life. I hope that I can do that.”
Mulbany's cultural cache during this period has reached a level that she never wants to see again. She was pointing to the wallpaper on the phone: photos of Alan Cumming and Christine Chenowes. “That's my ideal level of success,” she said. “They do Broadway shows, they host, they play on cruise ships, and they have a really healthy level of personal downtime and relationships and privacy. ”
By broadcasting daily updates about her personal life, there is irony in Mulbany's privacy glory after years of courtship views and sponsorship. There is tension in some of her content. In one tictock video recorded at the 2023 Grammy Awards, Mulvaney approaches trans actress Lavern Cox.
Cox covers Mulbany with a semi-face on the camera. Make sure you're holding things for yourself. Everything cannot be done for the public. “Viewers will be able to see Mulbany's face in real time as she tries to absorb this advice.
Comedian and poet Alok Vade Menon, who lives in New York and uses their pronouns, has formed a friendship with Mulbany after watching a video post and invited her to one of the shows. I did. “This woman is an artist!” Vaid-Menon wrote in an email from Namibia, who is taking part in a comedy tour. “It quickly became clear that social media was just a way of ending. She was on the stage.”
Mulvaney's brave humor about the troublesome situation is the quality of her friend Jonathan Van Ness, especially co-host of “Queer Eye.” “She's Spanky!” Van Ness said. “She's a theatre girl and it's a lot of fun.”
Mulbany, who later moved from her West Hollywood studio to her Laurel Canyon home, says she really loves documenting the details of her life. In college, she occasionally posted dozens of Snapchats a day to around 100 friends on the app. She still loves to record herself and often considers her life decisions to debut on the platform. (Exhibition A: Her recent dyed hair.)
However, the memoir ends with a declaration of intent to protect her internality, if not necessarily her privacy. “I'm trying this new thing to hold something specific to myself,” Mulbany writes. “A little tasty woman moment just for me.”
