Gevinson, who—like many 28-year-olds—spends “every goddamn weekend of my life” at weddings, took particular interest in the kinds of facades that marriage begets. “In adult life—even if you don’t publicize your relationship the way that the characters in the show do—you do have some kind of public performance of a romantic relationship,” she says.
Lately, Gevinson has used her work to explore the idea of performing relationships online. Earlier this year, she released Fan Fiction, a 76-page satirical novella about her friendship with Taylor Swift. Her fascination with the dissonance between the self and online presentation comes from having a very public career from a young age. “I’m interested in the slipperiness of combining a self and your embodied experience of daily life with a persona, with your art, with your work, with your relationships,” she says. “If I were to psychoanalyze myself, this interest comes out of seeking some kind of authenticity. I’ve been making art, knowing that it will supposedly reflect on me as a person in some way.”
While Gevinson is far from her character, Susy, she does bring her own experiences to the project. “We were thinking about a show like The Other Two, satirizing all these corners of fashion and media that I know very well,” she says. “There are exchanges in the show that pretty much come from specific parties or dinners, but highly exaggerated with love.” That’s not to say she didn’t look within, though. “To this day I feel painfully humbled over and over by how much working in certain creative fields can rely on keeping up appearances and making things look like they’re going well,” she says. Anyone with an Instagram account can surely relate.