@parkerkithill

You are such a social media veteran; where did your relationship with these various platforms start?

“I was a freshman in Texas when I got Tumblr, and I was just extremely interested in everything on the internet because I was seeing the world…and it didn’t look like Texas. Then all these micro social media apps came out, and on one of them I had a huge following—literally the largest following on the app. It was like TikTok, just with moving images. Then when Vine came out, I was one of the first to download it—then it went mainstream, and I was getting hundreds of thousands of followers over the span of a week.

“When I went to ballet school in New York, everything was accelerating, and I had to pick one, and dance just wasn’t sustainable for me. It was like, What if I break my leg? or After 10 years in a company, where does that leave me? Soon after the wig came into the picture—Brazil loved the wig, they think I am that person—I stopped dancing completely. I felt like myself finally. My life had been so regimented. I was never going to a party or a friend’s house, I was always going to dance. And the only way I could express myself was with my shoes or my bag. I had to tell my parents they had to trust in my process, and I’m still in this process.”

Financially, when did the doors start opening?

“Well, I was in a crazy spot, but no one knew how to monetize it—because Vine was never monetized. When I first moved to New York, I was living off the $20 a week from my parents for several years. I knew things with social media had to change, because people weren’t going to keep doing all this content for free.”

Do you want to end up in the traditional entertainment space?

“Yes. I’m tired of being on phones, I want to be on television. I would love to be acting and creating characters that are bigger than me. I don’t want to be niche anymore, I want to transition to be more open. And I’ve learned how big the industry is and how many layers there are. And acting isn’t easy, I’ve known that from the jump—you need to study and devote time—but I want to do it my way. I’m trying to analyze film and all forms of media, what works and doesn’t. I want to have a real foundation.

“But my ideal project, if I could do it tomorrow, I would love to do something based around fashion and breaking down taste. I don’t think people realize there are so many things out there. And if you like it, you like it. It doesn’t matter. Fashion has changed because people are getting dressed for Instagram. People buy what looks good on everybody else, and I’m very anti- that.”

You have so much fashion credibility, and that’s rare for a social media star. How did you sidestep into that scene?

“I’m big on aesthetics, and when I started shooting editorials, I would talk to stylists to learn, and I would be building micro-relationships with brands. Fashion is so important to me because it’s the only way you can speak without saying anything—it’s body language. I can express how I feel from what I’m [wearing] today.”