Mayzie Middlebrook is a rising actress and singer in the band Faux Faux. When fans ask her if she has any advice for them, the hair-dyed, tattooed plastic surgery patient says, “Just be yourself!”

“It may seem cliché,” Middlebrook said, “but you really just need to be comfortable in your own skin and if that means tattooing some obscure meaningless Chinese character on that skin, then so be it.”

Middlebrook used to try to look pretty according to the patriarchal model of beauty, but now she says, she dyes her hair and staples her face with rings to be true to herself.

“You are all truly beautiful,” she said. “But you may not recognize that beauty until you look like someone spray-painted hideous graffiti all over your face and arms.”

“I really believe that the whole point in life is to be real and if you’re not real enough, then you need to become real by dying your hair with a radioactive green color or something.”

Middlebrook says there is one instance that people should not be themselves.

“Of course, if you’re a CIS-gendered, white male then you should never just be yourself. If that’s the case you need to check your privilege and probably go hide out in the woods by yourself. You’ll never be beautiful.”

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