Billy Eichner
speaker
1,207 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 28 Jun
Billy Eichner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
And people were actually sending me messages, even friends of mine who, you know, they're very much over me and Billy on the Street after all these years. But, you know, the last thing they want to hear about is my success and popularity. But...
all of my jealous friends but i'm just kidding but but they were texting me especially the women in my life and i'm a gay man i have a lot of girlfriends i'm very close to they were they were saying oh my god like this gave me hope this gave me allowed me to feel a little bit of joy and excitement and not just the panic that they were feeling and rightfully so to feel that panic and
So in a weird way, it gave me a false sense of hope right before the election. But I'm proud of it.
Yes, that's the reality. And I remember going out in 2016, the summer before the election, when it was Hillary versus Trump, and shooting a similar type of video or trying to shoot a similar type of video. And this is 2016. So at this point, it's completely unfathomable to any rational person that Donald Trump could actually win the election. And we're still in that headspace, which
If you were in that headspace in 2024, then you're kind of delusional, right? You had to know. The polls, it was always very close. He was up in the polls even towards the end, depending on which poll you're looking at. So I don't know. People who say they were as shocked this time, that to me is a little confusing.
But when we went out to the streets of New York City, by the way, and we shoot in Chelsea downtown, which is a very diverse area, Even in 2016, a few months before the election, there were I mean, most people were pro Hillary, but there were a surprising amount of people saying they were going to vote for Trump or that they simply couldn't vote for Hillary.
And, you know, there is just an enormous amount of misogyny in this country. Yeah. Sadly, even among women. And we're seeing that play out again and again. And I'm not saying that's the full explanation for Trump winning, because it's not. It's complicated. 70 million plus people aren't all voting for the same reason. But we have to acknowledge it. It's not just a Hillary Clinton issue.
And that's something that's just becoming more and more evident. But yeah, even in 2016 on the streets of New York, there were a couple more Trump supporters than I thought there would be, to be honest.
One thing I will say about the election, and we can also talk about other things, obviously, but this feeling now I'm hearing even among Democrats and liberals that, It's either we care about the working class or we care about civil rights for vulnerable people in our country. We cannot be convinced that it's one or the other. We can and must do both of those things. You can... I agree.
Clearly, we've lost the thread a little bit in terms of how to communicate our ideas to working class people. That is clearly true. But that doesn't mean we can throw trans people and LGBTQ people and women of color under the bus. Because both of those things can and must coexist. They are not mutually exclusive. Caring about the economic needs of people and protecting trans people. Guess what?
Trans people want eggs to be cheaper, too. OK, we're all living in this economy. So I've had it with thinking it's one or the other. And it's either has to be one or the other in order to win a national election. That hasn't been true in the past. And, you know, yes, you have to like frame everything correctly and thread that needle correctly and communicate things correctly.
But from an emotional standpoint, it is our job to protect the most vulnerable people in this country, and that cannot change.
Yes, absolutely. I was born to middle-class parents. You know, I wasn't born rich. My family wasn't, has nothing to do with entertainment. I mean, I worked my way up and I'm very lucky, but you know, I wasn't always this way. So I remember my father like constantly worried about money and paying the bills and yelling at me that I was spending too much money.
You know, all of these things are still very present in my head. And you're absolutely right. It's all linked. The thing that we need to do
is and i thought kamala ran a great campaign under nearly impossible circumstances um and i am happy to see that more or less people are agreed on that um even though she lost but you know we have to find the right communicator that's it so much of this is about being able to sound authentic and really hit people in a visceral place You know, that's what Bill Clinton was able to do in the 90s.
That's what Obama was able to do in 2008. So much of it is about it's not just about being on the right side of history. Unfortunately, it's not just about being the most intelligent, competent, qualified person. It is about knowing how to viscerally connect with people. Performance is part of the game for better or worse. It just is right. And so whoever that person is going to be next time,
They need to feel new, they need to feel fresh, and they need to be able to communicate in a way that doesn't feel like the messaging has been crafted in the halls of some lobbyist's office somewhere. It needs to feel raw and real and passionate and authentic. That's what we need. That's why Trump, as demented as he is, connects with his people.
I'm not saying anything we don't know, but it's worth reiterating having had such a crushing defeat.
I hear you and I didn't have to grow up around it. I grew up in New York City. I'm a native New Yorker and that gave me a very kind of skewed perception of the world. I had the opposite experience that most people have. A lot of artists grow up in a small town and then run off to the city
To find their people and experience the world, you know, and be and I had the opposite where I grew up in New York City with very liberal parents, you know, and it was pretty clear from the time. I mean, I didn't come out until I was 20 because this was before the days of Drag Race and Heartstopper. And we still stayed in the closet.
Showing 1121–1140 of 1,207 · page 57 of 61
← Previous
Next →