My Drunk Kitchen’s Hannah Hart: The Autostraddle Interview

On Glee and Hartosexuality:

T: You’re originally from this area. What was it like growing up here? Being from the South, I can’t imagine. It seems like a wonderland.

H: Well, I actually have a sob story, so it wasn’t so much a wonderland. But I think that the Bay Area’s been my saving grace in a lot of ways. Just growing up with access to educated people and being able to find opportunities to edify yourself. The weather’s lovely. I moved to the East Coast, and I was like…holy fucking shit. Turns out, I do not want seasons. I’m actually planning on moving to LA. As a native Northern California-er, LA seems like a bit of a vacuous wasteland to me…but one that produces a looooot of TV.

T: What are your favorite shows?

H: I love Glee. It’s terrribly written; it’s a shit show, but goddamn it makes me happy. Even frustrated happy. It’s just like trashy TV.

T: I like to watch the parts where the girls are doing the kissing. And then they talk about the kissing, and I watch those parts. I love the show, I mean.

H: It’s just like, singing, dancing homo-friendly. How can I not like it? Middle America’s like…well I guess being gay is kind of adorable! It’s shiny and happy!

I really like Mad Men, Game of Thrones. I run the gambit. I skip everything in the middle. I watch like the AMC shows that are ‘good quality content’ cinematic shows, and then I watch 30 Rock and Glee and Community I love. But I don’t watch anything in between that. People are like ‘Oh have you watched The Good Wife?’ I’m sure it’s a good show, but no.

T: I’ve watched the gay parts of that too. Exclusively.

H: There’s gay parts in that?! This is why I’m a bad homo.

T: You’re not a bad homo! Actually, the first time I saw your videos and went on the About section of your site, it literally says ‘Also, she’s a big ol’ homo,’ which is awesome. Was including your sexuality off the bat like that a question in your mind?

H: I think, as a girl, putting videos of myself on the internet, I wanted it to just not be a question I had to answer. I had just come out, and I didn’t want to continue to come out all the time. I was like ‘I’ll just make it public, and if people don’t like it, that’s totally chill.’ At least I’ll never have to be doing an interview with some guy and in my head I’m like…are we only doing this interview because he thinks I’m cute? Uhoh, now i should probably slip in the fact that I’m a big, big gaaaay. So I did it for myself. Again, I had no intention of any of this going anywhere.

I just wanted it to be a fact that was out there. And I really prefer the term ‘homo’ to lesbian. ‘Homo’ just rolls off the tongue. My favorite shirt is the ‘Homo, Hetero, Harto’ shirt on my website. That’s just hilarious and wonderful, because sometimes groups of fans call themselves ‘Hartosexuals,’ and I’m like ‘that’s so great guys…aww!’

On Why Everyone Is Obsessed With Her:

T: Obviously the queers will follow you to the ends of the earth, but straight dudes in the middle of the country are just head over heels for you too. What’s the deal? Why the universal appeal?

H: I think one of the things that I like most about this whole experience is the sincerity and the fan response that I get, the authentic kind of connection that I’m trying to build and maintain. It’s difficult, because the greater and the greater the scale becomes — which is good because it means i could entertain for a living — It’s hard to maintain those connections. Anyway, I got this one fan email, and I think I might have mentioned this before, but it was from this guy. He was like ‘I’m a straight conservative Dad from Montana and I had no idea that you were gay. And it doesn’t make me rethink my opinion of you, I’ve been a fan since episode one. But it makes me rethink my opinion of myself.’

Our similarities vastly outweigh our differences, you know what I mean? The innate human experience is much more potent than the issues we get caught up in. I’ve also had people be like ‘I didn’t commit suicide today.’ ‘I just got out of rehab and thank you for making me laugh.’ Or ‘I’m coming out in the middle of America…what do i do?’ It’s heavy. It’s heavy and it’s real.

I love the intimacy. That’s like, my favorite part of this whole thing. I genuinely care what my fans think. I genuinely care about producing new content for them. I genuinely try and remain active with the emails, and Twitter messages, and the Facebook wall and it’s frustrating because the more and more busy I get — being like entirely a one woman production, you know, like every aspect of the “business” is me — all I want to do is perform and respond to fans.

T: Do you really try to respond to everyone?

H: I’m on June 22 right now. I don’t get mean emails, but I have this one dude on Twitter who’s super aggressive and hates me. I don’t want to block him, because that’s like paying attention to a bully. I’m just ignoring his existence completely. Except in real life, when I talk about it. I try and avoid the flames…I’m so sensitive. Well, not so sensitive, but I am a real person and it will hurt my feelings to read that stuff.

T: Especially because you went from 0 to 60 with My Drunk Kitchen. You didn’t get the chance to build thick skin.

H: Absolutely not. But I don’t think there’s any point in life where hatespeech is gonna feel good or not feel like anything. It’s always going to feel like something. You just have to have more good in you that can cover yourself…like a balm. A soothing balm.

On Not Wanting to Be Tina Fey:

T: You’ve had a bunch of major interviews with CBS, Time, etc. Have you had any interviewers be weird about the gay thing or talk around it?

H: For the most part, interviewers totally ignore the gay thing. And i don’t know if it’s just because they don’t know, or if it’s just not relevant to them. I get more ‘woman’ stuff than gay stuff. They’re like ‘Who do you want to be, Hannah? Tina Fey, right?’ And I’m like no, I want to be Joel McHale. I want to be Jon Stewart, that’s who I want to be. The comparison is just because Tina Fey’s a woman. But she’s a sitcom writer, she’s an SNL writer. I don’t want to be a sitcom writer. I want to be an active host, participant and performer.

T: What’s your dream, 5 years from now?

H: I have a show that I can host, like Joel McHale or Jon Stewart, but I can run around and act in other things. That would be super ideal.

T: Would you stick with the web series?

H: I’d like to take it off the web. I’m not opposed to the web at all. Our generation focuses all of our content on the web. The only reason I’d go off the web is just to have a broader scope. But I’m perfectly content to run my show online, you know? That would be my ideal scenario. Do I think it’s gonna happen? I hope so. But if everything were to stop right now, I’d be pretty content. I’d be like ‘That was fun. what a great experience.’

My life is very much normal. I just happen to make some YouTube videos that people watch. Will this lead to a career in entertainment? Hopefully. Is this a great interactive resume for comedy? Hopefully. Will this affect my likelihood of ever getting another job offer on a standard career path? Definitely. I mean…have you seen the vids? Who is going to trust their documents with that?!

It’s kind of hard too, because I’m experimenting in comedy and entertainment, and part of the reason I moved to New York is to have anonymity in that. And now that the internet thing kind of took off, it’s like I lost that freedom to fail without people knowing. I feel a lot of pressure that the next thing I do better be good or they’ll be like ‘Oh it was just that one joke. She’s not actually worth anything. Only that one joke was funny.’

T: But I feel like in your particular flavor of what you have going on is very much based on you as a person. People buy into you, who you are on a personal level…

H: I appreciate that. I feel like that’s something that I’ve really been blessed with in this experience. People aren’t trying to break me or anything like that. They’re like ‘Oh wow, thank you for doing some honest, sincere, non-snarky, non-negative form of comedy.’

T: Yeah, there’s no target. Or you’re the target.

H: I’m the target. Yeah I can be the target, we make jokes all the time about ourselves. That’s how you keep yourself in check. I really like that I can be a “lady” and be messy and be a little crass, you know? I feel a lot of freedom in that. Females in comedy have a choice….and it’s not like my comedy is super clean, but it’s not super filthy.

NEXT: The #1 question, the Lightning Round and The Big Event

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74 Comments

  2. I would say “Joel McHale is so underrated” but I’m not really top at pop culture so maybe people love him and I’m just not aware. Anyway, I love Joel McHale and Hannah Hart and Taylor Hatmaker. Thanks for the interview!

  3. Great interview and article, but none of her videos have over 1 million views. So that line, “but her last vid racked up a million views in a week’s time” seems wrong to me, even though I do think she’s awesome.

      • I wasn’t trying to be annoying, I am a subscriber/MDK watcher and I just didn’t recall any videos getting up to 1 million. I’m sure by next week she’ll be there! I thought it was well written and a great interview. Thanks for posting!

  4. This is a fantastic interview, love it.

    I’ve only watched one My Drunk Kitchen but this has inspired me to watch more!

  5. I love Harto so much, and it makes me happy that she’s taking the leap and pursuing her dream. Just a side note: you asked her how many plaid SHITS she has. I hope the answer is none, cause that ain’t right.

  6. I heart Harto! Hannah, if you’re reading this. I’m also single and always the designated driver. Also I can sort of cook. This could work out well, just sayin’.

  7. She IS so damn likable!!! Everyone who sees an ep immediately wants to drunk cook with her! Shes the girl next door….that we all wanna have over for a beer….etc. ;)

  8. I never knew Harto was gay until I went to her website, where I think it was mentioned in one sentence on the front page. I watched the MDK videos, and the last thing I think of when she’s ‘doin her thang’ is her sexuality. I just didn’t see it as a big deal; not one of my guy friends at work cared (in either way; i mean one of the guys was a bit bummed out for like 3 minutes.). What I mean to say is I feel like I hear more about her sexuality in than anything else. Power to the proud of the community, yes, definitely. I just didn’t ever understand how big of a deal it was that she’s gay until I’ve read like EVERY ARTICLE ABOUT HER EVER (maybe my sample set is small; I’m okay with admitting that). Bash me if you want *shrug* She’s cool for being this crazy, funny person on my youtube that makes me angry – “I *can* cook and I *dont* have a show! This woman can’t and DOES! She is a goddamned genius! (this isn’t sarcasm, i know it sounds like it, but it really isn’t.) ” She’s not a lesbian (or anything!) to me. Just talented. And mazel tov to her for being a talented human.

    –also we non-gay folk meet others the same way the gay people do :) i guess the percentage chance of it happening is higher :(

    • Well this is an comment.

      You don’t really get to choose whether she is a lesbian “to you.” That’s her identity and it seems like it’s pretty important to her.

    • I think this article and AfterEllen are the “big gay articles” since they are on LGBT themed sites. :)

      I don’t know if it’s mentioned much in her other features, like on Time and HuffPo and such. I know Hannah (personally) and she doesn’t ever talk about being gay, but interviews seem to talk about it for her.

  10. (Autostraddle + Taylor) + myharto x all my love for these things = !!!!!!!

    True math right there.

  16. I’ve just been influenced to watch more of her videos.

    Also, I completely relate to her comment on queer social life. Almost all my friends have known me since I was a teen (several years before I came out). Throw in a longish stint in the military, and I’ve only recently begun branching out into the big queer community.

    In other words, she’s the kind of girl that would be awesome/fun/hilarious to be friends with.

  19. “…and give lots of fucks about everything!”

    Yeah here at Autostraddle we know just the right amount of fucks to give…

  20. I read this while eating oreos in bed wearing plaid pajamas. Everything about the last five minutes has been pure happiness made perfect by Harto and this interview.

  23. i have the biggest crush on her, not gonna lie. i saw this article on the headlines and screamed a little bit, and now my roommate thinks there’s something wrong with me. no regrets

  24. H: Yeah, fuck Bette, marry Tina, kill Dana.
    T: Kill Dana? She’s already dead.

    HOLY SHRIEKS OF LAUGHTER INDUCED
    this is the best thing ever, thank you so much autostraddle <3

    • Reminds me of the first conversation I’ve ever had with my best-friend-since-high-school-that-turned-out-to-be-as-gay-as-me:

      Girl-I-was-friends-with-’cause-we-were-both-Polish-and-the-tutor-therefore-thought-we-should-sit-together: I love Kurt Cobain. I WANT TO HAVE HIS BABIES.
      [a moment of silence]
      Future-best-friend-that-I-inevitabely-ended-up-having-a-crush-on: …But he’s dead.

  25. It honestly took me like a minute to calm down before I could read this article because Autostraddle + Hannah Hart = explosion of homogay fantasticalness. So, um, thank you so much for this wonderful article. She sounds even more awesome than I imagined (as if that were possible). Plus it was cool to find out that she’s also from the Bay Area. :) Sadly, I can totally relate to this part: “The weather’s lovely. I moved to the East Coast, and I was like…holy fucking shit. Turns out, I do not want seasons.”

  26. I love it, plaid should definitely count as its own color. And we totally do have the Meat-Eating Atheist/Skeptic queer geeks group for the non-vegan lesbians among us.

  28. When my wife came home today I was guzzling the last drops of cava from last night’s bottle. “I re-watched all the episodes of MDK today,” I told her, “which is why it’s okay that I’m doing this right now.” She just nodded. It totally worked!

  30. Harto also has great taste in music. Check out her “twittah” for some of her musical taste. I always want to tweet back “I love this song too!”, but don’t want to be that creeper, ya know? But, yeah…funny, awesome taste in music, down to earth… makes ya just want to hang out with her and have some fun. She should do a cross country kitchen tour doing MDK crashes. Kind of like musicians crashing on couches and playing house shows for trade.

    • …”have some fun”. Teehee. You mean, get her drunk and into your kitchen right? I bet she’s really awesome with buns.

      • lol, actually by “have some fun”, in my dorky mind I pictured playing board games! She seems like the type of person that makes all situations fun and nothing can get crazier than hilariously intense board games…though, would I object if there was some “fun” in the kitchen? Nah, nada, nope!

        • I’ll say! I mean, I pretty much missed out on Monopoly – which mean I pretty much missed out on childhood. I love me some Monopoly.

  31. I actually freaked out when I saw this on the Autostraddle front page. My two favorite things, brought together.

    Great interview, it exceeded my extremely high expectations!

  33. I was so excited when I saw this interview in the headline! I just skipped every other article to find it. She is so cute, I don’t even have words. Taylor, you are THE BEST.

  34. I didn’t think I could luv someone who didn’t share my fondness for sliced deli meat, but I was wrong. “Flower Heart,” you are a delight.

    I get the “fuck Rachel.” But to marry Tina? She’s a second string mistress at best.

  36. I’ve said this roughly a thousand times, but I would violate all of my personal principles for Harto.

    I’m serious. If I ever meet a girl like that, I’m wifing her immediately.

    • right? book the uhaul! i totally identify with her not identifying with All The Queers…not so easy to establish yourself as a homogay in the post-grad world!

  37. harto is my fave!
    this interview is exactly what i needed to read after a dull chapter on statistics

  38. It’s really hard for me right now, trying to take in her cuteness AND yours, Taylor. I just can’t even.

    Sheesh.

  39. Harto just seems like the most down-to-earth person who is also damn funny. I wish she lived in Sydney so we could be friends.

    • I think that wanting to be her friend is one of the main feelings to be had while reading this.

      Whenever I watch MDK, it’s like ‘shit, that could be me’ (minus her being able to speak japanese. I definitely cannot do that).

  40. I feel like playing the Community drinking game with Harto would be such a worthwhile enterprise.

    REALLY hope her hosting career gets kicked off a treat.

  41. i have long brown hair. i cannot sing. but if Hannah got wasted and i said my name was ‘rachel’- here’s to hoping she’d tap that. ;)

  43. I caved and joined twitter just so I could keep up with MDK and Hannah. Her stuff and Autostraddle are the most legit things on the Web <3

  44. :D

    Late reply a year later. :P

    Buut…umpteeth Harto fangirl comment worshipping her easygoingness and her relatability. Then again I’m friends with many Hannahs, so having the actual Hannah would be heavenly. <3

    Cheers and we love you, Harto-san!

  46. Pingback: DiscoverNet | The Untold Truth Of My Drunk Kitchen’s Hannah Hart

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