The Official (and Gay) History of 'UNHhhh'

The signs were there. The popular web-series, which defined a generation of internet humor, hadn't uploaded new episodes in two years. Both had moved onto other projects: "Trixie and Katya Live," television appearances, and soon, a new tour for their equally popular podcast The Bald and the Beautiful. But fans just couldn't accept reality. Seven years and 231 episodes of UNHhhh were not enough to satisfy cravings for the unique blend of irony and irreverence the two have pioneered together — with the help of some editors, they'll admit.

Mattel jokes, of the reaction, after Katya has run off for a commitment in the Valley and it's just the two of us again: "I wasn't surprised. I was surprised she brought it up in a way that was like breaking news. Even after 10 years she acts like she has no media training."

She's says it with a hint of exasperation and a whole lot of affection, that very dynamic being central to the brilliance of both UNHhhh and their comedic partnership. Before recap podcasts and the great drag pilgrimage to Youtube, there were only a handful of queens in the basement of World of Wonder in sunny Hollywood, filming themselves for the love of the game to an audience of mostly insider gay people. The sort that would click on "Ring My Bell," the "Extra Lap Recap," or James St. James "Transformations" series.

Later came Fashion Photo Ruview and Be$ties for Ca$h, and most importantly, Alyssa's Secret, which they both credit in the wake of UNHhhh and its success. Trixie jokes that "This is before Nicki Minaj was MAGA. You know what I mean? This was a completely different time in American history. Gays still liked Sydney Sweeney." More importantly, she says it was "a different era of drag. There was no success to be fought over. There was nothing to worry about — no flopping — because there was no picture in your mind of even climbing a ladder of any kind."

And so they sat in front of a camera and — if this humble magazine editor can editorialize — literally made history. Katya sees it all more literally. "We recorded everything in the basement of World of Wonder with no toilet." She fixates less on the nostalgia Trixie brings up throughout our conversation, and remembers the more important details of the experience. "If you go up the stairs and through this alleyway, I used to pee outside in the parking lot, and Nicole Kidman walked that same alleyway during the I Love Lucy movie."

Here at PAPER, we want to honor the collective nostalgia, and enshrine those finer details about Katya's pissing habits in the annals of pop culture history. Trixie Mattel and Katya would also like to clear up the rumors and set the record straight on what went down with the air conditioning, or that flight to Australia and even the Hocus Pocus episode. And so, PAPER presents: The complete (and gay) history of UNHhhh. The good, the bad, the bald and the beautiful.

Trixie: What did Katya say in an interview that made the entire world act like we made a public declaration that the show was over? I'm like, Oh, there has not been an episode in two years.

Katya: I just said, “Oh, I think we're done.”

Trixie: Honestly, we just didn't keep doing it, but we do more. I Like to Watch and we do Bald and the Beautiful. I honestly think the pod is better than UNHhhh, I know that's crazy and toxic.

Katya: Well, it's just two different things.

Trixie: Two different things

Katya: Fans always say they want more. They want to see the unedited footage. They want more, they want more. It's like, actually you don't, because editing is the reason.

Trixie: They're just different. I mean, we're in drag. There's one prompt, not like we're famous for sticking to one prompt, but we're in drag. There's one prompt — and honestly? No bathroom. And I say this in the least shady way. We really were there for the fun of it and for the love of it. It was not a job we counted on for a living. It was truly for the spirit and the fun of it. And I think you can feel that it's for the fun of it.

Katya: The fee… with the looks and the hair and all that…

Trixie: It was a “stay poor slow" scheme. It feels… I don't know about you, Katya. It feels so old. And so long ago. When a clip comes up on TikTok, I'm like, This is like watching the '90s Flintstones movie or something.

Katya: It's like the ‘84 Olympics. Our voices are higher. We're younger… One thing I love about the show is the trajectory of the style.

It’s a steady line graph going up.

Trixie: [To Katya] Yours is an EKG.

Katya: Sometimes like a rollercoaster.

Trixie: Yours is like, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Help. I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I’m good. I have giant breasts. No breasts. Breast, no breasts. Nails. No nails.

The doll parts in the hair or the breasts... those are the EKG warnings.

Katya: Bad hair.

How did it actually come about? It started because you guys appeared on one of the World of Wonder clip shows on YouTube, right? Was it “Besties for Cash” — am I remembering that correctly?

Katya: We did that, and then she had the idea of doing a Fashion Photo Ruview of Fashion Photo Ruview. We would review the outfits of the reviewers, which I thought was brilliant. And then she was really attracted to me at the time, and I was uncomfortable with that. But I think over the years, she kind of just cooled off, and backed off, and I think that's what led to our chemistry. It was red hot for her sexually. And I was like, so inexperienced, I don't remember.

Trixie: I mean, it was so long ago. This was before Nicki Minaj was MAGA. You know what I mean? This was a completely different time in American history. Gays still liked Sydney Sweeney. This was an entirely other world, and honestly, this was a different era of drag. There was no success to be fought over. There was nothing to worry about — no flopping — because there was no picture in your mind of even climbing a ladder of any kind.

Also, cameras and vlogging hadn't come as far as they have. The idea of making a YouTube series felt like: I need someone to film me. Now, you would probably just make it at home. COVID made all the drag queens Youtubers. You know what I mean? They're doing production. But at the time it was like, Well, World of Wonder will make this, and all we have to do is show up and get in drag and gab.

I think I sent an email to Farron, and I just said, I have an idea for Katya and I to review Fashion Photo Ruview. The audacity of us critiquing them was funny to me, because what are we going to say about Raven and Raja? “You guys don't know how to put an outfit together.” Obviously they do. But again, punching up was the idea. We can just go for it, because obviously they don't aspire to be us. And to this day, none of these drag queens ever say, I wish I looked like Trixie and Katya.

Katya: No, its: I wish I had your money!

Trixie: Girl. The shit they say to us! They literally will be like: You and Katya are just still out there doing what you do. And you know what? The kids love it and that's all that matters. This is my favorite thing. They say, You and Kata can just do anything. Such a read, such a below the belt read.

Katya: I get that all the time.

Trixie: I say: And you know what, Angeria, you can't do anything! No, I'm just kidding.

Katya: Don't forget, we kicked off our careers jointly with a milestone in extreme humiliation, by getting kicked out of Australia. From the finale of our season, we flew to Australia, were imprisoned and then flown back and it was traumatizing and it was humbling.

Trixie: It was traumatizing. I know that our fans are sick of hearing about it, but let me fucking tell you people, this was at a time where drag hadn't hit in such a way that you would apply for a work visa, because this was not a job.

Katya: Yeah, it was kind of a joke.

Trixie: It was a compliment for them to be like, So you guys are obviously incredibly well paid… but we weren't. I remember what we were making on that tour, baby. We weren't. It wasn't worth going to jail for. And the conversion rate… Australia to American money… it's nothing. Nothing for every dollar.

Katya: I literally cried at one point during our separate interrogations and said, I don't care about the money. I just want to perform for the kids.

Trixie: And I kept lying. They said, you have a whole suitcase of the same shirt with your face on it, extra small to 4XL, and you weren't going to sell those? I was like, My weight fluctuates on vacations. Water weight.

But honestly, I just had a feeling from all the phone calls we had together that we would be able to do a good job on a show. I just had a feeling, and I'd never done a YouTube video in drag where I just talked. I I told [World of Wonder], and they said, well, what is your show going to be about? I was young and cocky, and said, Well, why don't we make the first episode with us figuring out what it’s about, it'll be great. That's what the first episode is: us figuring out what the show is even called or what it is. I just had a good feeling. And also it felt low stakes. What were they going to do? Get mad and pay us?

And it wasn't like there was the industry of YouTube centric drag queens. Coco Peru was doing stuff, and there were some YouTube drag personalities. I watched Coco Ferocha and Isis Mirage's channel back in the olden days. But it wasn't like drag queens were en masse thinking: Let's join YouTube and get rich. That wasn't a job yet.

Trixie: Once a year, Sherry Vine would put up a video like, “All I Want for Christmas is Poo.” That's all we got. That's all we had.

What do you remember of the first couple episodes?

Katya: We recorded everything in the basement of World of Wonder with no toilet.

Trixie: It was a famous nightclub in Hollywood that The Go-Go's had a debut at. It was a punk club back in the day.

Katya: If you go up the stairs and through this alleyway, I used to pee outside in the parking lot, and Nicole Kidman walked that same alleyway during the I Love Lucy movie.

Trixie: I see that bar across the street from World of Wonder on TV all the time.

When you filmed those first few episodes, were you like, No one's going to watch this. Or was there any thought in your mind that it would one day become one of the defining moments in your career?

Katya: For a while I thought we were going to win a Grammy, but I guess you don't do that through Youtube.

Trixie: It was a weird double edged thing. On one hand I felt like, Girl, we're just having fun, whatever, who cares? On the other hand, I was in the room and I know when shit is funny. But that doesn't mean people were going to watch it. Still, I remember feeling like, I will be proud of this when it comes out. It's funny.

Katya: And the thing is, this show is not about us. It's about the editors. We didn't know what show was happening, to be honest.

Trixie: There was no mood board.

Katya: We would do our thing and then wait until they did their thing, which is the true magic. And I loved watching what they did, because you really see how their brains work, and how they would make fun of us in a flash. You blink and you miss it. You can watch and rewatch the episodes like three, four times and still get funny little bits. And they read us. Oh, they read us.

Trixie: Not to overly toot their horn, but only as the years have gone on have I realized: I think they permanently changed digital media editing. Again, not to credit Katya and I, but you see the editor's work copied at the time, in 2016 and 2017. You saw it directly copied. I mean, you saw green screen shows with texts, with graphics, but across all media, you see… let's not say copying in a bad way, but you see inspiration in other things. I'm sorry, they snapped, and they were straight guys at the time. The two editors were straight, Chris and Ron.

Katya: Chris Smith and Ron Hill.

Trixie: And then they acquired Geoff, the most deranged gay person who's ever lived. Crazy. The editing was so beyond, and as the show went on, fans responded to the editing, and they edited more. And then it would take two editors something like a week to do a 10 minute episode.

How soon into it did the editing become central to the idea? Was it from the get go, or did they record you guys and then, when they were working with the footage, say: What if we do these weird things with the edit.

Katya: That gradually happened. If you go back to the first few episodes, it's very light. And then by the end it's fucking crazy random. The random episodes were like David Lynch put a bunch of shit in the blender and then puked it out. It's crazy.

Trixie: And it was also before the internet called it brain rot. The way the show worked, the constant non-sequiturs and shifts, we were doing brain rot before it was called brain rot.

Katya: We were the worm that rotted the brains.

Trixie: The vocal stimming! And because the show was pre-taped, it's not topical. It's all broad. And also, the running jokes grew the longer it went. I remember every time I talked about my boyfriend, they would use the same blowup doll, or certain musical stings. I also loved the sexy music, the saxophone.

Katya: Lots of great stock footage stuff going on.

Trixie: But to give some credit: shows like Alyssa's Secret were before us, and so was Fashion Photo Ruview. So I had a picture in my mind of us in two chairs, and I knew they were using a green screen for a reason, but we never gave notes. We never saw an edit before it came out.

Katya: Nope. Nope.

Trixie: Nothing scripted.

Katya: Nothing scripted. And the big, big, big fucking badge of honor, medal, whatever award goes to Pete, who did what, six jobs at once? He was the photographer, the director, the sound guy. He did lunch.

Trixie: And he drove us to set. He did my makeup.

Katya: He did so much. He was a one man movie set. It was just so impressive.

Going back to those early run of episodes: did it impact, let's say, your real life drag characters? Or did it always feel the show was separate for you?

Katya: I mean, it was a huge thing for me because sometimes, don't you think Trixie, at least for me, people were wanting to come to my show because of this, not Drag Race.

Trixie: A hundred percent. Yes, they would.

Katya: Rather than Drag Race?

Trixie: A hundred percent. And I would say it only took a year or two for that to be the reason.

Katya: And also, straight guys loved it.

Trixie: Straight guys loved it. And you have to think of the timeline too. We were filming UNHhhh and then Katya did All Stars. It was so different and separate from Drag Race. The editing style and the way things stick in your brain. Maybe Katya doesn't feel this way, but it gave me a lot of confidence. I'd never been in something that was so good. And it made me feel like, Oh my God, if this is this good, maybe we're good.

Katya: Yeah, I loved that.

Trixie: That helped me a lot. And All Stars was on and people were watching UNHhhh at the same time, which was so helpful. As soon as she did All Stars, then I did it. So we had a few years of people coming to UNHhhh because of us being on TV.

When was the first time you really thought, Oh, this show is a big deal to people?

Katya: Björk's daughter came to DragCon and then was like, “Hi, I am Björk's daughter.” I'm like, what? She was like, “My mom loves your show.” Yeah, right, little girl, whatever the fuck are you talking about? And then she had Björk on FaceTime.

Trixie: I hate to make it about celebrities qualifying the show, but it was kind of like that.

Katya: I remember!

Trixie: That was the moment where the show to me felt like an inside small thing. An inside joke.

Katya: Brie Larson…

Trixie: Remember when Brie Larson put it on her Instagram story and it just said, “If you know.” That was a big opening. Or fans getting tattoos...

Katya: Tattoos!

Trixie: Fans got the little pink phone that says, “Keep it, Ron.” People got so many tattoos. I think Ron has a tattoo, doesn't he?

Katya: I don't know.

Trixie: I think he does. We all talked about getting a tattoo for a while now. I kind of wish we would've. I know that's corny, but…

There's still time. What would you get if you got the tattoo?

Trixie: I wanted to get the little pink phone that was the “Keep it, Ron” phone.

Katya: I'd probably get a big huge cock.

Trixie: And that was a turning point too, when we were talking to the editors through the camera. Once we got the editing in our minds, we were performing in a way where [we knew] we were on a green screen. So if I was going to tell a story, I was going to tell it in a way where they'd be able to animate it. They were so brilliant, you couldn’t really imagine what they were going to do with the editing. It was crazy. It was also very lo-fi, purposely very stock image-y.

Katya: It's like mid-fi. Ultra lo-fi.

Trixie: Around season three or four, we started to get paid. We didn't get paid for a few years, and then I'll say we started at $250.

Katya: And then, as the years went by, you have to imagine, the drag industry becomes an industry. Drag queens acquire agents, they acquire managers. It is something that's totally unprecedented. Save for three or four traveling queens like Lady Bunny, Jackie, Coco… I'm not even sure if they had managers. Once negotiations started to happen, in terms of money, it started to throw some poison into the well of joy. But it was a passion project from start to finish. It wasn't a get rich quick scheme like we said.

Trixie: For sure.

Katya: I mean, I’d have been fine with a toilet.

Trixie: When drag queens talk about working for free, I'm just like, You always will. We always will work for free. At the time, I’d worked for free in drag most of my fucking life. So it was like, who cares?

What was it like with other drag queens? Did you feel like there was competitiveness? Did you feel supported by other queens in the journey? I'm curious about how the industry around you reacted to it.

Katya: Well, we did try to have guests a couple of times. Flatlined, pretty much.

Trixie: And to this day, save for Lushious Massacr, we don't really do well with guests. We do better on our own, I think.

Katya: Our mother tongue is not drag lingo. You know what I mean? We're certainly able to speak it, but we don't necessarily default to that as the bar for humor. I think a lot of drag queens aren't really familiar with irony, so that's tough.

Trixie: I remember there were drag queens who would text us and say they would watch, but I think people thought what we were doing was peculiar and only worked for us. I mean that in a nice way. They didn’t want it for themselves, but they wanted their version of that for themselves.

Katya: I think they were all really sexually attracted to me, but they were repulsed by her. So it was a push-pull relationship with their jealousy.

Trixie: I don't think anybody was really jealous of us. I think they were perplexed and surprised. And honestly, we went to a network that had not done that, and we asked them to let us do something for free. Anybody else could also do that. Do you know what I mean? It's not like an opportunity. They weren't casting and we were lucky enough to get the spot. We invented it.

Katya: I think most drag queens, especially with me, were like: Why is she popular? Good for her? She's going to get a huge roar of applause and we don't know why. I know, in fact, many queens were perplexed.

Trixie: I don't want to blow smoke and you don't have to confirm it, but Katya was so fucking famous at the time. She was so beloved. At the time I was 24, 25. She's older than me. She seemed like the adult in the room.

Katya: Holy shit.

Trixie: Imagine your partner is someone everyone loves the best. Everyone loves her, and you're younger, less confident, and you just get to sit there and benefit from it. You were so funny, Katya, and all I had to do was try to put another joke on your joke or whatever. And it took all the pressure off myself at 24, 25 to try to be whatever. It was like: She's so famous and everyone loves her so much. I just got to be the friend of, which was a perfect thing for me at the time because I was so scared. I aspired to it.

Katya: That was the relationship!

Trixie: Do feel like over the years, we've switched a little bit?

Katya: Wait, somebody described us.. correct me… I have to get it right… somebody called me a barnacle on Trixie’s boat with a blaccent.

Trixie: I shouldn't have written that. I'm sorry.

Katya: I got to find it somehow. And I was like, I don't want to validate this person, but….

Trixie: I think that's right. We've switched roles in the sense of: at the time, you gave me so much security, you were like the anchor and I just got to be there. And I think over time, with ups and downs, sometimes I've anchored you more. But I was younger, really. I was just like, I get to be the friend of the world's favorite fucking drag queen right now. I had hardcore Trixie fans, but when you happened, it was like you were the favorite of the favorite.

Katya: I don't really think that way. I think with age and having done drag for so long with nobody giving a fuck about me, I was too old to have an ego about it. I'm too old. I had already developed. I already knew that humility is an essential virtue for peace. There's no time in my life. Even as people were saying, I love you, you're the best, you should have won that… I felt like no, I shouldn’t have won. That's revolting to me.

Trixie: We both were experiencing some type of success that hadn't matched our experience leading up to Drag Race. And so it was really nice to be appreciated.

What was it like, creatively, in the room between you? What were some of the things that you remember learning about each other in that time that have carried through in your relationship creatively and comedically?

Katya: Wait, can I say: I often interpret her energetically as male and me as female. I don't really know what that means. So she obviously presents on the outside as a pink Barbie doll, but I think on the inside, she's very much a dude sometimes. But then on the other hand, she's actually a princess, so it's like a princess-dude. There's a sandwich going on. It's like Barbie, man, princess. And then I am a 45-year-old woman struggling to find…

Trixie: Girl, you’re John Cena dressed like Phoebe Buffet.

Katya: No, no, no, no. I was a beautiful trans woman caught in Kane from Poltergeist’s body. That's what it was. I always felt… and I mean this in a very… I'm not trying to….

Trixie: I don't take it that way. I don't care!

Katya: Because you play video games and you’re blunt, straightforward, direct. You don't beat around the bush, don't play mind games. You are very ambitious, exacting, focused, driven. These are all, I would say, solar — I don't want to say masculine, but solar — qualities. And I'm very lunar.

Trixie: For sure, for sure. We're just so opposite, and we are opposites who have parallel experiences, so the same events happen to the same people. We fly on the same planes, do the same shows, have the same managers and a lot of the same friends. We live in the same world and the same city. She lives probably a mile from me. But we have completely different takeaways from the same experience. Over time I've learned that's part of why this works so well, because we don't finish each other's sentences. We're not best friends like that. We're not going into things saying: We always think the same thing. I know you so well. I still don't know what this person's going to say at any given moment.

Katya: That’s what makes it fun.

Trixie: That's what makes it fun. And the age difference, I will say too, has helped, because we didn't have the same high school years. We have really different lives.

Katya: Seven years is a good gap.

Trixie: Even though I looked fucking crazy in UNHhhh… when I watch back, I'm like, Oh, I'm kind of the straight man. I’m like, Why don't I have any of the jokes? Because I'm the straight man. I'm the part of the joke that sets up the joke. I'm a little more grounded, even though I look crazy reacting to what's really happening, as a real person might. And she looks more normal, and is always throwing curve balls. It's a little bit like improvisation. I never know what she's going to say. And then my job, I feel like, if I have a job, is to try to tether that to some kind of punchline.

Katya: I think it's also just our legs, our long legs. Beautiful legs, sexy legs…

Trixie: At least we have a point of view.

Katya: I wouldn't say that we never both looked like shit at the same time.

Trixie: That's true. But we both had a point of view. So at least what we wore felt consistent and felt… I don't know! We tried to visually tell a story, and I don't think that's a high priority for a lot of drag queens.

Katya: There were significant fashion journeys taking place on that show. Let's not get it twisted.

Trixie: My God, I saw a picture the other day that was like, What the fuck was I doing, you guys? The thing about no money and no nothing at the time too, is we were just scrambling for outfits.

Katya: How many nightgowns did you wear?

Trixie: So fucking many. And none of them were good, actually.

Katya: Because now we're in the age of $60,000 Brazilian floats.

Trixie: Something I learned from it that was really valuable, was to watch it and go, Oh, that didn't look like I thought it would. Oh, that hair didn't look like how I thought it would. You learn a lot. Granted, they had UNHhhh beautifully lit. You never look better than the lighting at World of Wonder. I'm sorry.

Katya: There's a few episodes where I'm like, Well, I'm trans and I need to go to have a sex exchange tomorrow because I look so good and that's who I really am.

Trixie: So you think that surgery is what qualifies transness? Make sure you write that down.

Katya: It's funny, we never talked about Pete.

Trixie: Oh yeah. Peter…

Katya: Pete Williams.

Trixie: Pete Williams, who shot and did all the sound.

Katya: Did everything.

Trixie: Did all the cameras and all the sound, did everything, set up the studio. He would go on the day before, set up everything, and just let us talk. He would prompt us a little, but just let us talk. There's a fucking fruit basket! He did everything.

Katya: So we've worked for Netflix, for example, doing a similar show. There are how many people on the set?

Trixie: Probably 20, 25.

Katya: At least 25 people. There are three camera people. There's a director, there's a sound person. It is just so wild. We were doing our own makeup, our own hair. Pete was doing everything. We didn't even have an assistant. No sound person. It was just wild.

Trixie: We're in drag carrying our suitcases down to the basement, lugging them down the stairs…

Katya: And then, between episodes with my pantyhose down around my knees and a bald head, going to the bathroom, wiggling up there to pee, with no dignity at all.

Trixie: There were no bathrooms at World of Wonder in the studio. So we'd take the elevator up to the fourth floor, and we would walk by James St. James desk, to go pee in drag.

Katya: No, I would run across the lobby.

You then transitioned the show to a different format with Viceland. Did you feel, at that point, We’re growing, the show it getting bigger, we have to move it to something bigger.

Trixie: This was at a time where I don't think digital media had the respect it has now, and probably many of us on YouTube thought what you do is: do YouTube, and then your goal would be to put TV wheels on it and do that. But now, looking back, it's like all my positive memories of UNHhhh have to do with UNHhhh. The Viceland show was a blip, because as soon as we had it in our hands, it was gone, because of extenuating circumstances. So in a way, artistically, I prefer to watch UNHhhh. What could have happened with it got snatched away so quickly that we just went back to YouTube. And I will say this: it did not ever feel like a tail between our legs going back to YouTube. We were thrilled to.

Katya: I think at the time it was definitely like: What's the next step from a web series? Of course, it's a network television show, and that would mean success. But I think for me, if I can parse out the crazy and the psychotic-ness, I do remember feeling that it just wasn't fun, and it wasn't the same. It wasn't the being directed by different people. They were really great. Everybody on the crew was fabulous, and the network was so supportive, but Viceland was a network for guys. It was such a bro-y kind of thing. We really did not fit in there.

Trixie: At the time, I was 26, 27. If it happened to us today, I would've approached it totally differently. I would've made it be more sketches and things. It was a shoestring budget for that TV show. And it was like 12 hour days in drag, back to back. I was a little bit relieved when it didn't continue. It was a huge undertaking, and obviously what happened off camera ushered in the worst time in our working relationship. So getting back to YouTube and back to working was the training wheels of us working together again, honestly.

Katya: I did not feel like a failure or defeat at all. I can't think about life that way. It just doesn't work for me like that. But it felt like coming home,

Trixie: I was young at the time. The day the show stopped, I knew it probably wouldn't continue because of what was going on. That was hard. But again, looking back, girl, it never felt as good as the YouTube show felt. So what did it matter? Even if everything was going perfectly and you didn't lose your mind, I really should have rung a bell on set and said: This isn't as good as the YouTube show. It's not hitting the same way. Is that horrible to say?

Katya: No.

Trixie: But when you're young, you don't have the audacity. With UNHhhh, we had our own separate touring careers. All we had to do was get together a few times a year and bank episodes. We would film for, what do you think, a five hour window block?

Katya: Also for me, it helped, because sometimes going on the road, really, you'd run out of juice creatively. You'd feel like you're just chugging along, and then that episode would come out and you'd be jolted or buoyed.

Trixie: Honestly, the show gave me confidence.

Katya: I’d be like, Oh, I like myself.

Do you have a favorite episode, a least favorite episode, and then an episode that people quote at you or reference to you the most?

Katya: Okay. My least favorite episode is the one where I'm bearing my middriff and I'm clearly psycho.

Trixie:Which time?

Katya: Shut up! I have the cheerleader top on. Horrible.

Trixie: With the winter hat? Tough to watch

Katya: Yeah, tough to watch. Favorite? “Weather.”

Trixie: “Weather” is amazing.

Katya: Or “Thanksliving,” or “mountain biking witch from the future.” Or, “Fuck my pussy with a rake, mama.”

Trixie: Yeah, yeah. “Fuck my pussy.” There we go. Which is a crazy thing to have yelled at you at the airport, but here we are.

Katya: It still happens. It still happens!

Trixie: When I see a blue, gender affirming haircut, I immediately cover my ears. I know that that is going to be screamed at me in the Delta Lounge. It's common. My favorite? I love “Weather” and I love “Space.”

Katya: “Space” is great too.

Trixie: “Space” was fierce. My least favorite? We did a goodbye episode before going to the TV show, and I was just unnecessary. What was the point? YouTube doesn't need a goodbye.

Katya: My least favorite was that Hocus Pocus integration.

Trixie: Oh yeah. At World of Wonder, anytime we had to do ads… it was just a really hard show to fit an ad into.

Katya: It was pure. It was pure.

Trixie: On YouTube as we know it now, creators have ads all the time, but at the time it was always a very clunky fit. The show was so specific.

Katya: It was the opposite of selling out.

Trixie: I didn't like having guests, pretty much anytime we had a guests. I didn't like guests!

Katya: Yeah, Willam was a real dud. Courtney was lovely, but didn't gel. It was just a different show. We weren't fucking Gale and Oprah

Trixie: And the things people yell at us… I mean, “Thanksliving” lives forever apparently. And that's lovely.

Katya: Happens every year.

Trixie: Happens every year! And what else?

Katya: “Oh, honey.”

Trixie: My roommate at the time, who passed away, he was the “Oh, honey” guy. And now, I'm always like, Wow, that lives on. I don't think he even realized I was kind of doing him.

Did you feel like when you started doing other projects as a duo on YouTube, I Like to Watch and the podcast, was it like riding a bike? Or did it feel like a totally different thing?

Katya: I thought it was a really easy transition, because first of all, it took care of a couple of things. When we were tired, it gave us something to look at. You know what I mean? Sometimes I have a hard time focusing, let's just say. UNHhhh was a lot, energetically.

Trixie: I Like to Watch secretly has been going on a long time now, girl, I kind of forgot. It’s from like, 2019 or something.

Katya: Well, yeah, it happened before COVID.

Trixie: We started that in 2019. I think?

Katya: It's been seven years…

Trixie: I Like to Watch, to me, it feels like we've only been doing it two years, three years, so I can't believe that.

Katya: No, we've had five different sets.

Trixie: That's crazy. And honestly, I Like to Watch is easier to make.

Katya: That whole team… that was a big difference. Love Pete, one man band. But Jennifer and everybody at Day Trip, they've been with us since the beginning. They're so lovely. Incredible, they’re stars.

Trixie: They treat us like stars. Accommodate us to death.

Katya: Not only do we have toilets, we have bathrooms with locks.

Trixie: The most cunty air conditioning. That can ruin the whole shoot. At World of Wonder, we had to turn the air off when we filmed, which was, in the California heat, something that is really hard.

Katya: I always forgot about that. The heat in the basement was fucking diabolical. But then, we go to Netflix, and they can cool an airport hanger to like, a walk-in freezer.

Trixie: When they rent the studios, they tell the studios that they're doing a reality show about ice sculptures.

Katya: Ice sculptures! Fierce, Fierce, fierce.

Trixie: When Netflix called, I'll just be honest, our manager at the time said, “Hey, I'm probably going to pass on this for you guys. Netflix wants you to do a show where you come in and sit and kind of riff on their content.” And I remember being on the phone and saying, I think we should do that. I think that would be fun. If we had gotten passed on… I think about that all the time. What if World of Wonder just said: "No, that sounds stupid?"

Katya: But what if a tree fell on my house?

Trixie: But what if we hadn't gotten those editors either? There's a lot of what ifs. Oh, it was only good because of so many weird Rube Goldberg machine moments. As much as we have talked about it, we wouldn't have anything without World of Wonder giving us that show. When we went to Netflix, we didn't think it would be a series. We were like, Let's just really talk about these shows the way we want to.

We would get unhired because of the way we talk about some of these shows. We really get into this shit. We talk about this all the time: In a world where all companies are slowly becoming one company, it’s kind of punk rock, in that we sit in these spaces and get paid by these companies to give completely shit-ass undiluted opinions of their content. It's super honest. We do not ever say shit that's not true.

The reaction when Katya said UNHhh was over, on the podcast… it felt like it was already available information, considering it had been so long since an episode had been released. But the reaction was still so sad, and so strong! What about it lives on for people so strongly?

Trixie: I saw it in a headline, and I was like, what did she say? I thought it was kind of implied that it was over. So I was like, Did people think that in two years, we were just going to drop more? I was surprised but not surprised, and people love it, and it was the first project I ever did where it's not even really about me. Our job was to have that experience in the room on camera. The fans' experience with it… it's really not even your thing. It has everything to do with where that show fits into people's lives, what mindset and mood they attach it to, whether it's distraction, relaxation. People are like, “I met my work bestie. We both loved it.” A lot of that. A lot of two people, two best friends — “I'm the Trixie, I'm the Katya” — who watch it together. Roommates, a lot of young people being like, “We watch it every week as a house.”

So I think it has more to do with a time in their life that people attach to the show. Not to be too psychological about it: it's the reason people get so protective of a reboot, because they don't fuck with the original experience. I wasn't surprised. I was surprised she brought it up in a way that was like breaking news. Even after 10 years she acts like she has no media training, so that's her. But… I wish we could do it sometimes. Sometimes I fantasize about doing it again.

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Photography courtesy of Trixie Mattel and Brandon Lim