In case you missed our story earlier today, Aussie DJ Tigerlily had a nude Snapchat stolen, edited to remove the concealing emojis, and shared around on the internet.
We had a chat to the 23-year-old about the whole ~fandango~.
What’s the reaction been like since you went public?
It’s been literally 95% positive, which is great because it’s nice to know that I have so much support from my friends and family and fans. There’s obviously been some adamant fans that have negatively comment and that kind of backlashed a little but, but for the most part there’s been a whole lot of support. I wanted to come public with it and make a statement that was quite powerful about how I felt about the situation and the issue at hand. You know, shed a bit of light on how this stuff happens quite regularly and I want young women to understand that they can talk about this stuff in public and not feel ashamed of situations like this if they get stuck in the middle of something like this.
Do you have to deal with sexism a lot in your line of work?
Yeah, every single day. It’s quite intense – that’s the main thing I was worried about when I found out this photo had been edited and distributed online. I was worried because as a female in a male dominated industry I already cop quite a lot of backlash for embracing my sexuality and I knew that it could potentially lead to even more backlash. And I guess potentially there would be negative publicity. I would say it is quite difficult working as a woman in the music industry. It hasn’t been an easy run, that’s for sure.
How did you find out?
I actually found out yesterday. I landed in Sydney from L.A. and I got two messages on my phone, one from my agent and one from my manager calmly explaining the situation to me and being like ‘Call me as soon as you get this’.
That’s a horrible way to arrive home.
Yeah it wasn’t ideal [laughs] but luckily I slept the whole flight home and arrived feeling fresh and ready to rock. It’s one of those things where it’s an unfortunate situation but it all comes down to how you deal with it and how you let it affect you. Personally, emotionally, career-wise, and I think that I’ve just really been trying to manage that in the most calm and collected way possible.
So you’re trying to raise $10k?
Yeah! I’m really excited. I’ve given myself two weeks to raise $10k for Headspace, which is a charity that supports the mental health of young people all over Australia. I’ve donated $5k myself and I’m hoping everyone else can get in there and donate the remaining $5k. I went for a long run yesterday afternoon trying to think about the situation and I came to the realisation that I really wanted to create a positive from all this negative that’s going on at the moment, and I thought that donating to a charity like Headspace would be really ideal and practical, because online bullying and slutshaming, victim-blaming… it happens so often to so many young people, and a lot of them don’t have the support with them, or the ability or the confidence to speak out about this stuff. I think Headspace do a really good job and I’m excited to raise money from them.
[Hit up the donation page here.]
And finally, what would you say you’ve learnt from this whole situation?
Oh gosh, so many things! [Laughs] Don’t trust nerds, because if they want to get something they can get something. I think it’s funny because my mum would always say to me ‘Beware, beware, beware of what you put online’, and she follows me on all my social platforms and keeps tab on what i’m doing.
I take 100% responsibility for the stuff I post online, and I’m aware that some people might not necessarily like that. But in this case… I still take 100% responsibility even though it was posted to a manger’s snapchat, but unfortunately I was just uneducated and didn’t understand the limits of technology and the ability that these people have to edit what I put out there. So I think it’s a matter of continually evolving and being aware of what you’re getting yourself into on each social media platform. I did a media and communication degree, I thought I was pretty social media savvy, and I got caught up in this.
I’ve seen a lot of comments from a lot of people who said they had no idea this was possible.
Totally! It’s insane. How are you supposed to download it and remove the layers and keep the quality?
It’s just been a learning curve, but I’ve also learnt that I have a super strong support network around me which is great, and I hope that I can help support and inspire other young women to speak out if something like this happens again.
And with that, mates, we’ll leave you with her A++ Instagram post from this morning and a general vibe of up-fkn-yours to victim-blaming dickbrains who reckon woman just shouldn’t take photos and everything will be dandy. CYAAAAA.
Photo: Instagram.
