Popular (and frequently topless) local blogger steps out from behind the keyboard to perform live burlesque tonight, as part of an ongoing strategy to push her sexed-up persona further into the public realm.
“I am bringing ‘bombshell’ back to blogging,” writes Lauren White on Raymi the Minx, which is the name of both her locally notorious blog (5,000-plus visitors a day) and her sexed-up alter ego. Whether or not the “bombshell” ever left her URL is a legitimate question: the long-running blog mostly features photos and videos—alongside almost/not-really stream-of-consciousness writing about her life—of Raymi alone, Raymi with friends, Raymi taking her clothes off, Raymi’s hair, Raymi’s tattoo, Raymi’s breasts.
Tonight, during the Grindhouse-hosted launch party for online-only clothing store Hate and Heartbreak, which bills itself as “clothing for the bruised and broken,” White will perform the same tongue-in-cheek vampy exhibitionism, this time in a real-life burlesque routine but still under her blogging name, alongside XM Radio host Paddy Jane. As White puts it, “I’m culling all of my sexual prowess and bringing it to the stage.”
“I started blogging because I wanted to be famous, I wanted to be a starlet,” she explains. “I want to be in a movie, I want to be in a feature film. Everything I’ve done, blogging-wise and in photos, is my message to the audience that I am good enough to do that, maybe, and every so often I like to do an event or something where I am out [in person]. Because I don’t think my persona is translating positively in my favour.”
Three weeks ago, White filmed a nude scene in an “arty” feature film, her first; she’s also planning to submit photos to Playboy, and do “basically anything that a vain girl would want to do… I want to be Dita von Teese right now.” When White performed previously with a burlesque troupe, she “fell by the wayside … It made me realize I have to do it on my own.” Tonight, White will perform a solo routine and a campy duet with Paddy Jane, also a blogger, to a Flock of Seagulls number. “We’re using social media to promote what we do—that’s kind of how it goes in this city.”
White says that she gets a lot of shit for her naked-er blog posts from readers; “they hate it,” she says, “but they’re still watching it. I’m confused, like, as a human being. I’m sick of it.” She considers her stage performances an extension of her blog, and her next few moves toward fame will be in the flesh. “My thing is my crazy and my writing and my body, I guess… and dancing. I’m a dancer, and I’m a provocateur, and I show my tits sometimes.”
White considers all of it an oppositional response to the social-media community in Toronto.
“I want to prove to them that this is worthwhile and this is fun, and it’s more fun to have events like this than geeky social-media parties.”
The Hate and Heartbreak launch party happens tonight, 6-9 p.m., at Grindhouse Burger Bar (365 King W.).
