INTERVIEW
MEET
LILY O’ FARRELL
In an interview with Sleuth’ s Holly Harris, feminist cartoonist and‘ Hot Girl’ Lily O’ Farrell explains the relevance of her artistic productions. Her main goal is to create content that engages people in discussions about contemporary social issues surrounding women.
Lily O’ Farrell is a comedic feminist cartoonist based in London. She openly shares her experiences and thoughts on an array of topics, primarily on Instagram. From discussing‘ cultural myths invented by men’ to presenting examples of the male gaze through TV and film, she educates and engages with her audiences through comic illustrations, ensuring a safe and open space for all women to freely express their struggles and discuss topics.
How did you first get into being a feminist cartoonist? Did you have any inspirations?
My initial inspiration was female comedians like Amy Schumer and Bridget Christie. When I was in my teens, all I could think of was how amazing female comedians were. I finally felt as though someone was doing this comedy for me. Growing up, I was only ever exposed to male comedians and I never related to this, but when I found these women talking about their lives, I got really into doing comedy myself.
But there’ s only so much you can write about your own life, so I decided to engage more in how these topics, which were close to me, were affecting others around the world. I wanted to make sure my work was relatable to other people. I began focusing on bigger topics and bigger concepts, and then I got a lot more confident with the work I was producing.
The key thing that’ s always stuck with me when creating content is having trust. It sounds strange, but the way I look at it is, if you’ ve experienced it, then there’ s a high likelihood that someone else has. So, I have to trust myself that the content I am making is worthwhile to help others. Every time I upload new content, it really takes off, making me realise I’ m not the only one going through these things
Self-portrait portraying her‘ hot girl’ persona
I started doodling as well, and two became one in this lightbulb moment. I decided to turn one of my sketches into a drawing and upload it online, and it really took off among my followers. Once I saw this, I literally had to rush home because all these ideas were pouring out of me at once, and I realised it was the perfect medium for me to express all these kinds of feelings about being a woman.
So, although all your content is under the same category of feminism, each cartoon has a specific topic. Where do you find the inspiration for the variety?
Image: Lily O’ Farrell
That’ s a good point. Sometimes I worry that all my work comes across as the same because they’ re all based on feminism. In terms of variation, I started basing my work off my own life and my own experiences, whether that was dating, one-night stands, sexist coworkers, or bosses.
22 SLEUTH ISSUE 5