HOLDING A MIRROR WITH TOMMY DO

TOMMY DO is at the Fan Girl Cafe in West Hollywood where the pop aerialist PINK is lip-syncing her rock ballad “Who Knew” on a monitor behind him. “I know better, 'cause you said forever. And ever, who knew?” Yes.

DO is a shining television writer, actor (The Other Two, Hacks), producer, and figure skater with Disney on Ice, but he’s most known for his brilliant Instagram content, specifically his hilariously effective TikTok satires dissecting twerp thirst.

While the world may have more dire concerns — like the real-time manufacture of budding red state darlings GLEN POWELL and SYDNEY SWEENEY — his social media work is essential queer commentary that needs to be canonized before his other accomplishments take the lead.

MARK JACOBS: How do you describe your TikTok critiques?

TOMMY DO: I’m going to preface this by saying I’m very stupid. And all of this is just coming from a place of, I have a feeling. I don’t have the facts. But there was always an effort on my part to comment on something bigger. Whatever place or space these people are coming from to make this content is unclear to me. But what they’re contributing to as a whole is what I try my very damn hardest to talk about. 

MJ: The way you dissect twerp thirst, it’s almost mathematical. You reshare Instagay or just general body exhibitionist content and then add yourself playing a civilian who sweetly, obliviously participates along with them as if the same rules apply to everyone. (Click here for reference) That contrast you create is so good at demonstrating how the whole thing collapses without privilege propping it up.

TD: There’s an Instagay out there who is very popular, putting out content that leans heavily on the fact that he is very good looking, very white, all of these things, and he’s proceeded to gain a mass following and now is trying to create a business teaching others how to gain a social media following. It’s very odd. It’s like, well, you got there, sweetie, because you’re hot and white. There’s nothing to teach. What do you have if you’re only successful because you’re white and hot?

MJ: What do you consider your signature posts?

TD: There was the throuple I placed myself in, Nick and Pierre. (Click here for reference).

They gained a lot of popularity—and what they do might be true I have no idea—but they were exploiting a weakness in our community that we were so hungry to be seen as people who can love. And that’s great but they were using that weakness to their advantage and promoting themselves with that kind of insecurity that we have. That’s why I was just like, let’s call it what it is. It’s fine to do it, you’re not going to go to jail. I’m not going to make a citizen’s arrest. But just call it what it is.

MJ: Is it fine to do it?

TD: As long as you know what you’re doing and you’re up front about it then your choices are your choices.

MJ: I get stuck on the flagrant privilege. And how eagerly they leverage it. It’s so heteronormative. It’s so white. Even when white people aren’t directly involved, whiteness is busy. I think about Amanda Seales talking about Caucasity, the audacity of “Caucasian” people.

TD: I was thinking about this last night. It is completely fine to be “Caucasian,” it is completely fine to be hot. But for the love of god, stop being obsessed with it. That’s so weird to be obsessed with that. To have a group of friends who only look like you? That’s weird. And how can you not see that’s weird?

MJ: I got a text from my boyfriend about you that said: “I think the bigger issue his work addresses is the coalescence of whiteness, dumbness, and vanity. It is always about a sort of moronic void of masculine prettiness as it meets the lowest common denominator of some kind of idea. He’s saying, This is so dumb, beyond dumb, but it works because you’re white and attractive enough.” (Click here for reference).

TD: That is exactly how I feel as well. There is a lot of me that, because I’m Vietnamese, I can do all of the things, whatever that might mean, go to the gym, go to the club, in order to find that community. But I will never be there because I am Asian. And I think of it as a tier system, where it’s like white straight men and then white gay men who feel that their only notch is that they’re gay. And this is a generalization, but their need to appear masculine is them trying to be a part of white straight men, the power that runs the world.

MJ: You can’t turn your back on a white gay man.

TD: Again, this is a generalization, but there’s a lot of time when I feel like they won’t associate—whether it’s conscious or subconscious—with people of color because they feel it will keep them back. Or they don’t even know how to relate and they don’t want to relate.   

MJ: And they do it with adorable doe eyes that I guess are beyond reproach?

TD: I’m innocent why are you yelling at me?

MJ: What is this unspoken pressure to find their clueless white vanity charming? Why is it so beyond critique? Why am I supposed to give these people a pass or else? And pretend their performances are naively adorable and—more than anything—benign? I don’t think it’s benign.

TD: It’s perpetuating a thing that is insidious and harmful.

MJ: It’s pretty ugly.

TD: But that is where my reach ends. Because that is their decision. It’s there for you to see it. It’s a leaping off point if you want to take it further. At the same time I do think that everyone is on their own path and maybe someone needs to do this to see for themselves what are the advantages of this and what are the disadvantages? Maybe it works for them, maybe it doesn’t. Do I think as a collective we should do that? No, of course I don’t. But I’m not one to stop people from making decisions. The point I’m making is that my mistakes are your mistakes and your mistakes are my mistakes and we’re all trying as a community to figure it out. What you’re doing is hurtful and I want you to come to that conclusion yourself. I want you to experience it for yourself, experience how vapid it is, how you’re utilizing something that is hurtful, and for you to go, ok.

MJ: It’s effective.

TD: It’s just a little more haunting. Again, I preface this by saying I’m very stupid. This is just my P.O.V. I’m saying my piece, it’s there for you to see it. My official stance is that I obviously feel that it’s not ok. But you decide. I'm going to give you all of the information and if you decide you’re still into it then that’s on you. I don’t want to ever be in a position where I’m being looked at like, tell me the best way to respond to the community. What’s the best for us? I don’t have those answers. I’m very stupid. I’m just connecting dots that I see and if that stirs something up in you then maybe it’s time to ask why. If you think that’s me not taking responsibility I apologize.

MJ: Do you get responses from your subjects?

TD: They do find me. It runs the gamut of you’re bullying me, you’re absolutely the enemy in this situation, you’re incorrect for pointing this out, to you’re just making fun of me. And to that I say, hey, if you’re not having fun, I’m not having fun. And I stop it with that specific person. But if someone can come up to me, for example, Nick and Pierre, and be in on the joke, that’s iconic. That says they know what they’re doing: it is stupid, we are stupid. That is the vulnerability I am deeply searching for in all of their content. And that’s what makes me so mad. They’re trying to not be vulnerable. I did the throuple thing with another couple who were one step away from sending a cease and desist. They took it very personally.

MJ: Do you have a sense of why they took it so personally?

TD: It was very much just you’re being a bully, we love each other, this is our content. In that moment I realized how their feelings are bigger than me—I’m just poking at a sore spot that maybe you don’t want to talk about within your relationship or about how you’re perceived. 

MJ: I’m less generous. I think your observations are bigger than they are. But I continue to find this difficult to figure out. I’m pretty bright and I still can’t get my brain to turn out some kind of clear resolution on it.

TD: I think at the end of the day we’re all just trying to figure it out. And people figure it out in an incorrect way and use things to their own advantage that hurt other people. Everyone is just trying their best. I think we’re all deeply lonely and at the crux of internet culture people do those insidious things hoping to connect.

MJ: I don’t share that compassion but I appreciate yours. If they are taking care of themselves and remedying their need to connect, it’s at the expense of others, which is classic narcissism. 

TD: And what I would argue is that some people can’t see it. I feel like that’s what I’m trying to do, just make them see it. If you have all of the information and you decide that I’m still going to be this person? Then you’re in the wrong. Growing up Vietnamese, I was very aware of the limits that came with it. And it was gradual. When you’re young and you’re just hanging out with people you don’t really see it. But then you go into society and you see the ceilings. I can only go this far. Why? Because of my skin color. A lot of times with white people, if you tell a 35-year-old, well, you’re white, their brain melts.

MJ: Still.

TD: They never had to think about it. Whereas for me, I’ve been thinking about it my whole life.

MJ: Does it matter if your subjects are nice in real life? 

TD: Here’s my thing about that. It’s easy to be nice. I hate when someone goes, I don’t trust this person, and then a friend goes, yeah, well, they’ve never done anything bad to me. That’s insane. I’m telling you they did something bad and and you have to experience that for yourself for you to agree with me? It is completely easy to be, Hey! How are you? Good! How are you? That’s nice. It’s easy to be nice. Everyone can be nice. I look at how they output their energy and if that energy is more hurtful or more helpful. If I can conclude that it’s more hurtful? I don’t care how many thank you notes you send.

MJ: Would you ever want to be named Cody?

TD: I don’t know? No? Why? If you were to erase my brain and drop me into a Cody life that is a whole set of questions I don’t think I could answer. I worked really hard to figure out Tommy and I’m not even close so to pull the rug from underneath that…

MJ: So it’s a hard pass on Cody?

TD: Yeah, a hard pass on Cody. I’m sorry. To all the Codys out there.

MJ: What’s in your algorithm right now?

TD: It’s like one step away from porn. It’s not so much Instagays, like people mining for likes, it’s people who are trying to advertise I guess for their OnlyFans. That and then trends that people do. Or like the Elevator Boys. Have you seen them? They’re these boys from Germany and their whole vibe is P.O.V. you see me walking across the street and I make eye contact with you. It’s so goofy saying it out loud. Literally it’s a romantic glamour shot of them walking across the street and they stare into the camera as they cross, presumably to make me fall in love with them or whatever that is.

MJ: Do you enjoy the content?

TD: No. I started out being like, What is this? Kind of parodying it to now being haunted by it. I don’t prefer it. It’s weirdly poetic that it’s now my grave. I’m being buried with it.