As of this morning, Tila Tequila was trending on Twitter, just below the Mandela Memorial. If this jarring cultural juxtaposition reminded you of Tequila’s existence, you’re not alone. However, the former reality show star has had a lot of opinions about her own existence lately.
Like, maybe she’s assumed her ultimate form, and us mere mortals are doomed:
She’s been giving this, and other topics, a lot of thought on Facebook. Tequila (real name Tila Nguyen) recently posted photos of herself dressed in a “sexy” Nazi uniform, holding a gun, to her Facebook page. On Dec. 7, on her personal blog, she explained further why Hitler was misunderstood, in a post titled “Why I Sympathize With Hitler Part 1: True History Unveiled:
“There is much, much, much more to Hitler’s side of the story that has been buried so I will continue the PART 2 of it next time. For now here are a FEW of MANY inspiring speeches Hitler did that shows his TRUE COLORS as a man of compassion and not some evil monster he was painted out to be. All he wanted to bring his people and country back up. Just like how AMERICA IS FALLING AT THE MOMENT YET I DO NOT SEE ANYONE IN OFFICE *AHEM* THAT IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO SAVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LIKE HITLER WAS WILLING TO SAVE THE GERMAN PEOPLE! You know why? Because all of the American Politicians have been INFILTRATED by the enemies. The same ones who have painted Adolf Hitler out to be a so called “MONSTER.”
And then there’s the matter of recently deceased actor Paul Walker, whom she claims was murdered. She claims she also knows who killed Elisa Lam, the woman allegedly caught on a security cam in a hotel elevator in February of this year, who later ended up dead in the hotel’s water tower. Also from Dec. 7:
“[I]t was indeed a ritualistic murder. Just like Paul Walker’s. However, for Lam’s case I have so much detail that it may blow your mind. I know it blew my mind and that’s why I was debating on weather or not I should blog about it as I did not want to have anything to do with it… except for the fact that this ritual murder was directly linked to my ritual murder last year…..”
But there’s also the matter of social media, and just how much of a role it played in Tequila’s rise to fame, and her disappearance from the Internet in 2012 after checking into rehab. Her only presence is now her Facebook page and personal blog, after being banned from Twitter. In 2006, she had the most popular MySpace profile ever. In 2011, she admitted on The Howard Stern Show that she’s bipolar and has multiple personalities.
This Digital Trends piece from earlier this year gets at the heart of Tequila’s current persona:
“Tila had a skittish side to her even when the wackiest thing she did was post racy pictures on MySpace, but her devolution certainly looks to an outsider like a sad record of someone suffering from a serious mental illness. And right now, just like she started, Nguyen is cast to the fringes of mainstream media, once again only allowed on certain social networks. In fact, her current level of fame is most similar to the amount of attention she got back when MySpace was just starting out. The only difference is, Nguyen’s fanbase shifted from horny teens and MTV devotees to hardcore wackadoos. It’s hard to look at Tila’s story from any angle and think the amount of fame she achieved did her any good, or whether the attention she received on social media fanned the flames of her worst attributes and validated the wrong parts of her personality.”
Yes, there’s a lot of snickering at her conspiracy theories and Illuminati references and videos in which she attempts to create wormholes, but traditionally, social media treats female celebrities who might be mentally unstable much differently than men. Think about what people said to Amanda Bynes when she was going through manic phases on Twitter. It was viewed as entertainment.
Tequila’s strong point was that she always made time to interact with her fans. Social media has given us unfiltered access, which allows us to interact with celebrities even when they’re in a paranoid freefall. And that’s not always good. Sometimes we like to push people until they disappear.
Screengrab via FunnyFollowMe/YouTube
