She provides her fans with weird parodies as "toxic_pommes" on social media. We talk to her about hate comments, ingrained sexisms, and humor as a way of saving herself from doom.
She was in a toxic relationship and loves french fries: After the breakup, Irina (she does not want to publish last name & age) went to TikTok to be able to laugh a bit again. And at some point she started producing videos herself. Today she has 39,100 followers and her movies are going through the roof!
"I want to Problems and grievances in our society draw attention to such things as social inequalities, everyday racist situations, double standards or deeply rooted sexisms, "explains the Viennese with Balkan roots. Irina parodies a wide variety of roles, pulling Viennese Bobos from Neubau just as much through the cocoa as her own Balkan roots. She is provocative, snotty and and with her contributions she hits the bull's eye.
WOMAN: Why are you on Instagram / TikTok?
IRINA: With my videos I try to practice social criticism in a satirical way and to address phenomena that have preoccupied me for a long time.
Your message?
IRINA: In my videos I would like to draw attention to various problems and grievances in our society, such as social inequalities, everyday racist situations, double standards or deeply rooted sexisms. It is my personal aim to do this in a humorous, easily accessible and understandable (sometimes overly simplistic) way. So I try to keep my videos short and get the main message across in 15 seconds.
Who exactly do you want to address?
IRINA:I don't think I have a clearly defined target group. My videos deal with various socio-political topics. In the beginning I primarily made videos about tragic, funny or curious situations that you experience as a person with a migration background in Austria - my family themselves fled the former Yugoslavia in the 90s. In the meantime, however, I address all sorts of absurdities that happen to someone living in Austria.
What inspires you
IRINA: Daily political events, interpersonal encounters or very ordinary everyday situations. Our society provides endless material for a wide variety of videos. Whenever I come up with a video idea, I write it down briefly on my cell phone - there are often notes like “something with a friend's economy” - and then put it into a video when I get the chance.
What would you never post?
IRINA:Things that offend people's identity. I criticize people for (socially harmful) actions and attitudes that they can influence and not for who they are.
What is not funny for you
IRINA: I take negative feedback that contains actual criticism to heart. I am aware that I am making mistakes or overlooking things and am ready to learn. In this respect, I'm also happy about it. Meanwhile, I almost completely ignore meaningless hate comments without a substrate, unless I'm in the mood to roll back for once.
For which posting or which abuse have you received the most feedback so far?
IRINA: In general, I can say that I get the most feedback for videos in which I Everyday racism or sexism thematize. That seems to trigger a lot. For example, I made a video about my experience in the police force when I tried to report a man who stalked me and sent me death threats. In my case, the police acted very unprofessionally and did not take me seriously at all - with many other victims in similar situations too. On this video I have very mixed reactions get: On the one hand, quite a few people have reported similar experiences with such executive failure, on the other hand, a great many thought I was a liar and would make up the story.
What was the last thing you had to laugh out loud about?
IRINA:I don't know, but I laugh very loudly and penetratingly. The other day a man on the tram said to me that I was "stupid" and "had no manners" because I laughed so loudly. I replied that I was sorry that he was having so little fun in life.
In which situation did your humor help you?
IRINA: I was more of the nerdy kid in school. I think my humor saved me several times from complete social ruin.
