All About Yvie: Into the Oddity

RuPaul’s Drag Race has been called the Olympics of Drag—by RuPaul, of course. And it sort of is. But it sort of isn’t.

The Olympics are a competition where the only thing that matters is your ability in your respective sport. When Tom Daley was selected to represent the UK at the 2012 Olympics in London, the British Olympic Association likely wasn’t terribly concerned about his social media following or how the fans might respond to him during the broadcast. They cared about his ability to land a dive with perfect form.

RuPaul’s Drag Race is a reality television show that uses a drag contest as its main storyline. The mission of the show is not to give out the gold medal to the world’s best—or even America’s best—drag queen. It’s to make a television show about a contest to find America’s next drag superstar. It’s a reality television show first, and a competition second. That is an important distinction that will impact Yvie’s experience with the show.

Before we get to that, we need to talk about why Yvie wanted to be on the show and their journey to becoming a Ru girl. “I mean, not that it was the only goal for me when I started doing drag, but that kind of exposure, that kind of platform to have people see my art, is pretty enticing. I wasn’t looking for fame and fortune. It was a chance to actually be important for the things that I’ve always really valued about myself, that I didn’t feel like the world always valued about me. So that was my main push when I thought about auditioning; it was just a matter of time. When I started doing drag, I was eighteen and the show has a twenty-one age limit. So I thought I’d take those three years to learn about drag, do drag, get better at drag. And in those three years I went from Avon LaRue to Avon Eve to Yvie Oddly. They were important years in my development and set me on course for eventually getting on the show a few years later. During that buildup I got to see not only how my numbers would play out with live audiences, but to see how the culture works. You get to see what it’s like to try and book a show, or be in a show, or interact with people at the bar, because you’re always selling yourself. In the years before I got on Drag Race, I was constantly learning, growing, and trying to expand: expand my world and expand my influence as much as I could. My first audition was when I was twenty-one because it was the first year I could, but also because it was the first year that I felt I was bigger than Denver. I’m pretty sure that year, or close to it, I’d traveled out of state for the first time to do drag and I thought, ‘Oh, not only am I good here, but I’m also good in Arkansas and New Mexico.’” For a point of reference, Yvie turned twenty-one in August 2014, and then won Track’s Ultimate Queen in July 2015.

Even as Yvie was performing in bars out of their home city, they were still a long way from drag superstardom, let alone being able to make a living in drag. “You can be the best of the best in your city, and it still won’t mean a lot. In Denver there was a lot of talk too about how RuPaul secretly hated Denver for some reason. It always sounded like bullshit to me. But as a queen trying to make your name bigger, and you’re not in Chicago, and you’re not in New York, and you’re not in LA, you already feel like you’re at a disadvantage because we’re never going to have thousands of followers, which is what that world was like at that moment. But it was kind of the beginning of that transition from having Facebook friends to, ‘Oh no, bitch, you need to have Instagram followers if you want the opportunity to perform in another state, or maybe make a shitty drag queen song.’”

So, with that goal in mind, Yvie set out to get cast on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Audition Tape 1: Season 9. Winner: Sasha Velour

By this point, the show had eight seasons in the can—which is what they say in the “biz”—so people had developed an understanding of what a good audition tape looked like, but that didn’t make it any easier. It’s a challenging process to make an audition tape that sums up exactly who you are and what you could bring to the show. World of Wonder, the show’s production company, receives thousands of audition tapes every season, and the challenge for a contestant is to stand out from the crowd. “The first audition tape was really nerve wracking, and really uncomfortable. There’s this mindset that you can go into auditions, or job interviews, holding these nerves and not feeling like you deserve that position. Being like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to have to beg and show them all my best parts if I want them to hire me, if I want to work here, if I want the opportunity.’ And that really showed in my first audition. Even as I was having my friends help me edit it, I wasn’t proud of it. It felt painful to show my friends, and it felt painful to sit through twenty minutes of me being like, ‘I’m Yvie Oddly, and I’m from Denver. And of course, I’m America’s next drag superstar because I’m a weirdo.’ And then it’d go to clips of me, because they ask you for fucking everything. They ask for Snatch Game, an acting scene, and basically anytime it came to a performance where I knew the camera was on me, I got choked up, and nervous, and just inauthentic. It was painful to watch. But then there’s still the parts of me that I was really proud of. They ask you to make a dress out of paper; that dress was fucking gorgeous.”

Ultimately, Yvie wasn’t successful in their application. “Even though I believe I was ready as a drag artist, there’s another thing that is so hard to factor in when you’re thinking about going on Drag Race, and that’s being ready as, if not a television personality, then an interesting, actual, natural portrayal of who you are, of just an interesting character. And I was treating it like a job interview, and I was like, ‘I got my name Yvie Oddly because I’m even odder than everybody else. I like to perform to raunchy rap music because it’s fun.’ Just question-answer, instead of shooting the shit, letting myself ramble, telling outrageous stories. I wasn’t ready for the reality TV aspect of Drag Race in the slightest. I just had a friend videotape some of my performances one night. And I figured, ‘Yup, that was good, that was me. They can see all of my flips, they can see all of my passion, they can see my ingenuity.’ But for the rest of it? I wasn’t me. Not that I wasn’t Yvie, it’s just that it didn’t connect in the video, it didn’t connect to who I was. I was terrified to go all the way. I was just another nervous twink wanting to get on Drag Race.”

Audition Tape 2: Season 10. Winner: Aquaria

Another year passed, and Yvie took another kick at the can. But what changed from the previous year? “The second tape was better because at least I was used to the challenges that they were asking of me. The first year, I literally did the Snatch Game last-minute, like, in the last second of filming I threw on two different wigs. In the second year I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to go in with characters and ideas beforehand, and actually tackle all of the challenges that they give me instead of being like, yeah, here it is. This is the one I actually like.’ So, in that aspect, it was better. And my interviews were a little more authentic. But I think I also have this habit of being too wordy, too deep and too lengthy for reality TV. I speak in a train of thought. You can hear my sentences forming as I’m speaking. My brain can move fast, but my body and my words are not at that same speed. So, the second year I was better in some ways. But I think my downfall was that I was still so passionate about getting on, that too much of the ‘twink who wants to be on Drag Race’ shone through in my interviews, by me being like, ‘I’m so passionate about being a weirdo because I’m not represented in the culture here. And I never get to see myself on TV.’”

What no one tells you, when you’re submitting an audition tape for a show like Drag Race, is the pain of the waiting game you have to endure. You don’t submit your tape and receive a message back with a thumbs-up or -down emoji. You click send and then wait months before you hear anything, if you hear anything at all. “I think the first year I might not have even gotten a generic email telling me I didn’t get in. I just had to assume I didn’t get on. But the second year, after waiting for months thinking, ‘Maybe today is the day that I’ll hear something about that thing I did that has been in the back of my mind,’ I finally got that email that said something like, ‘Hey, kitty girl, it’s not your year but we appreciate your submission. Try again in the future. Stay fierce, diva.’”

With the first audition tape, not hearing anything may have been more of a blessing. With the second audition tape, getting what may have come across as a generic ‘thank you for applying’ letter was more of a gut punch. “It deflates your bubble. You see it every year in the wave of girls. Especially now that people are so much more vocal about not getting on and shit. It deflates your bubble because we, as drag artists, know that we have so much to give. And I think even before the world of the money and fame that comes with Drag Race, it was just a chance to be seen and to have people be like, ‘Yes, Miss Sasha Winzington Delicatrosse the third, from Ohio, you are that bitch. Those girls in your local scene who talked shit about you, and didn’t book you in that show, they don’t know what’s up. You’re going to get on Drag Race and show them.’

“I was frustrated year after year, seeing them cast everybody and seeing closeness to my representation but never seeing myself there. And being like, ‘I believe you guys won’t put me on, but you’ll put on a skinny White hoe who can’t do anything but walk the runway in the expensive clothes that her friends made her.’ I know that sounds like I’m digging at a specific queen. But trust me, I’ve worked with all of them, and I love them, and I respect them, and it’s so much deeper than that. It’s just, as a young hungry viewer, as somebody who feels like the world is always pushing you to the side or ignoring you, or looking right through you, it was frustrating to never feel like I was going to have a shot.”

Audition Tape 3: Season 11. Winner: Well, you know

Something changed with Yvie and their approach between the tape for season 10 and the tape they submitted for what would be their season. Yvie took an entirely different approach to creating their audition tape. Rather than following the same format they had previously followed, they approached the audition like it was a short film. And they did it all by themself.

 “For the first time, I decided not to put this in anyone else’s hands. I taught myself how to edit videos specifically to make this vision that I had. It was the full package, and I mean bigger than even RuPaul’s Drag Race. If I had never said RuPaul once in that video, it was still the full package of everything I was—what I wanted to mean and did mean to the world in that moment. I honestly feel like my audition video is the reason I won, because it was the artist statement that really stuck with them. And it stuck with the fans, who ultimately decide the winner. That audition tape had a clear statement: ‘Yes, I’m not the best. I’m not the cleanest. I’m not the prettiest. Not always going to do the most predictable shit, but I’m so passionate about following these weird artistic dreams, and just doing it honestly.’”

What Yvie’s talking about is authenticity. It’s what RuPaul and Michelle (Visage, obviously) talk about on the show all the time. It’s about showing the world who you are, not who you think the world wants to see. It may seem trite—we hear Ru say it every season—but there’s truth in those words. The most successful artists are the ones who are willing to be vulnerable and let the world see exactly who they are, warts and all. It’s through that vulnerability that fans of the show fall in love with the queen and want to see them succeed. Not every fan is going to love every queen, but the ones who let down their guard the most, and let people see their truth, are the ones who are going to reach the biggest audience. Yet, that is easier said than done. “That’s really the key to doing anything on the show. But that’s the hardest thing to develop as a skill, truly. Especially when something’s so scary and it’s your first time. Your survival instinct of panic takes over instead of being like, ‘I am capable. And if I was going to do this challenge, this is how I would do it. If I was going to walk this runway, this is how I would walk it.’”

Yet, some people didn’t think Yvie had it in her to make it to Drag Race. “In Colorado, Jessica L’Whor—who is the same drag age as me and came up and got big in the scene at the same time as me—was this perfect package for Drag Race. She had already made YouTube videos, and she ran basically every single show here. She read to children and was good at talking on camera. And she was White, so while I really did come up in this gritty way in the scene, begging people to give me a chance, doing all these competitions, I had this peer who was a shining example of how, even in a queer community, being White and (at least at the time) identifying as a cis male was really helpful for getting you in places. I won’t forget the year that I finally got on, I had had some stupid conversation with some twink at a bar, drunk, late at night. And he was like, ‘Yeah, this is going to be the year that Jessica gets on. She’s already done two tapes before. And I love you, girl, but this is her year and I think you just need more time.’ That was one of the fires that made me make such a fierce audition tape that year.”

It’s important to know who Yvie submitted for their Snatch Game. Yes, Snatch Game. In their audition tape, Yvie had to submit three characters, which included Whoopi Goldberg, Tiffany Haddish, and their best friend Teena. “I did a made-up interpretation of my best friend, because I think she’s one of the craziest fucking characters I have met in my life.”

A week after submitting their video, Yvie got an email from World of Wonder: “Hey, do you have any other Snatch Game characters? Teena was hilarious but that wouldn’t work.” That’s when Yvie knew they had a chance of getting cast. “I scream, I panic, I freak out, I tell my roommate, I tell my videographer friend, I pee myself a little bit, I pee myself a lot. I submit one more character, it might have been Cardi B or something. Or maybe Tim Gunn. I don’t know.”

So, Yvie submitted their second Snatch Game tape of Cardi B or Tim Gunn—who are very easy to confuse—and then went back to living their life. They continued doing shows and working on their craft, but this time they had a different feeling because they had a strong suspicion that they had made it on.

“I was still doing bigger and bigger things with my drag career in Denver. I’d performed at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, I had my own show up and running. I was judging Ultimate Queen. All of these things to distract myself from the fact that I felt like this could be my time for Drag Race. And then I got a call. It wasn’t the ‘You got on’ call. But this is the first time I’d spoken to anyone from World of Wonder [WOW], and I still don’t remember who the fuck I talked to because I was so excited.”

While it wasn’t a confirmation of being cast, it was the next step, and this was the first time Yvie started to believe it was really going to happen. It was the first tangible contact Yvie had with the show. The WOW producer swore Yvie to secrecy but scheduled them for a psychological evaluation, which every queen has to go through before getting on.

A few weeks later Yvie had another call with the WOW producer to start to get a better sense of who Yvie is, in real (unedited) time. “I think they just wanted to see how much of my story I would be willing to give them. Because we had an hour-long conversation, and in that hour I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m a weirdo . . . child abuse . . . and also, I like alien stuff . . . and also, I’ve always felt ostracized sexually for this, which is why I became a drag queen.’”

And that was it. A few weeks later, on a random rainy day, Yvie got the call from the WOW producer to let them know Yvie would be part of the cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 11. Yvie screamed with joy at finally achieving that goal. They had spent six years honing their craft and developing their drag with the objective of getting on the world’s biggest drag platform, and they were finally there. The most important part of that moment was that Yvie felt seen. They felt like their drag had been recognized as valid, and worthy of being shown to the world. That day was a pinnacle moment in their career—the moment that would see Yvie become a global drag superstar . . . provided they could survive what came next.