Meet Baby Darrington

Images Courtesy of Baby Darrington

While at an Airbnb in the suburbs of LA, I had the choice between watching a DVD of imported Chinese pornography, or a show on Roku called Agua Donkeys. I chose the latter.

We have written about the strange ‘comedy’ before, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you should. The breakout star of that show was a character named Jackie, played by Baby Darrington. I Googled the actress expecting to find a scattered IMDb credit list, but instead, I fell into the Baby Darrington Universe. Darrington is an idea, a willing participant, and a trusted aid.

Possibly performance art, though more likely just a sincerely compelling weirdo, Darrington’s website is inexplicable, lacks any sort of context, and challenges my understanding of internet entrepreneurship, so I reached out in the hopes of gaining some insight. Darrington thanked me for my viewership but explained that Agua Donkeys is not necessarily reflective of who she is today, which is a strong, strange, confusing, contradictory, ever-helpful, hilariously indecipherable ideas man. In my professional life, I am often tasked with simplifying complex people, art, and situations to make them more palatable for our readers, but when I saw a check box on her website asking if I have lain with a pig, I realized that Darrington is truly an enigma. Though I think I may have failed, I chatter her up anyway with the intention of finding out where the joke was, why it’s funny, or if there even was one.

Who are you? What are you?

I am an entrepreneur and an ideas man.

I often can’t tell what I’m supposed to be laughing at, but it was funny. How would you describe what you do?

Well, I think that it depends. On Instagram, there are vignettes—ideas of mine that can only be expressed in performance. Some humorous or dramatic, some educational. Whereas my online shop houses my more entrepreneurial ideas, like the Penis Critiques, or selling My Darkest Secret, or the This Was Inside Me pencils. I have really great ideas and I have to get them out in whatever form. It doesn’t feel like I could be limited to one title. I refuse to be pigeon-holed, figuratively or literally.

What is your darkest secret? Can I have a hint? Will it devalue it?

I’m trying to think of what I could say that wouldn’t affect it or give it away. I think that if you heard it, it wouldn’t change how you viewed my morality or anything, but if you knew what it was, you might think about it every time you looked at me.

How did you begin? What are your origins?

I grew up a dreamer. Not to say that I was an immigrant. But I did have dreams— almost nightly. I also wet the bed a lot. As I grew older, my unavoidable calling as an innovator became more and more obvious. I needed to make my ideas happen. I really enjoy making things.

So when you say that you’re an entrepreneur, what do you do? What is your day job?

I sell calendars, I sell penis critiques, I sell pencils. I’ve got my hands in a lot of different pies. The ideas are just flowing.

You may disagree, but your ideas and personality are very niche, in that you couldn’t sell your pencils in a CVS. Where do you think that niche persuasion comes from?

I do disagree. I think my products and designs are for the people. All the people. They just don’t know what they want yet.

I can’t seem to place your references. I’m not sure if you’re American or British or some sort of Scandinavian—you seem sort of borderless.

This is carefully constructed. I pick things up from everywhere: my travels, television, street people. I’m an obsessive note-taker. I try to remember everything I’ve heard that I liked and want to adopt. Phrases, attitudes. I use them to construct what I think is the perfect personality. Some people might think this is artificial or unnatural. I think they’re boring idiots.

You are very confusing, and I often can’t tell if something is a joke or not. On your contact page, there is a box you can check that says, ‘I have lain with a swine.’

Did you check that box?

That’s between me and the swine. Looking at your body of work, I see a strong feminist woman who is leveraging the male gaze and objectification of women in her favor in order to create a commentary and also to make a profit.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. To me it is as simple as this: I have a skillset and a service to be offered, people have a need for it, and I will supply them with that service. I am here to help you. Your friends and family aren’t giving you honest feedback about your penis, so I will give you honest feedback.

That is so strangely genuine.

It is genuine. I want to make the world a better place. Even if it means being critical of a penis or two.

I was first introduced to you as Jackie from Agua Donkeys. Can you talk about your acting career?

Acting has always been in the background, but I think that ultimately I enjoy acting in things that I have written myself. I have a proper agent and am often sent roles for love interest types, but no one wants me for that because I’m not the right type. I can’t do sexy love interest. Too butch I guess. Agua Donkeys was great because MP is chill to the point of being clinically sedated. He is so mellow. The most mellow person. When you’re talking to him, you’d think it’d make you feel calm, but it doesn’t. He’s really great to work with and let me put in a lot of my own jokes which was great. I think that long term, I’m not opposed to acting, but I think that it’s more likely that roles will find me rather than me auditioning.

Do you think that you’ve already found your place as a public figure?

Yes. I am someone that people can aspire to. I am confident and direct and vulnerable. I’ve been putting out videos for years and years and haven’t had major growth, but I do have this really good level of participation and interaction among the people who are there.

It’s better to have a very small but devoted audience than a very large but indifferent one. It’s better to have a fanatic who will spend $20,000 for your darkest secret than a bunch of people who won’t subscribe to your patreon.

Well it hasn’t happened yet. No one has bought the secret. It can only be bought once and it only goes to one person. That’s an important part of it to me, that you get to be the person hearing this one secret.

What if they tell?

Well that’s part of it, there is a risk. I want it to be meaningful.

That’s so stressful.

Perhaps, but what’s the worst that could happen? Someone finds out that I’m a person with flaws? Like with my browser history book, what’s the worst that could happen if someone finds out what kind of pornography I watch? I don’t think I would go to jail. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go to jail.

Where did the idea for that book come from?

People always talk about their browser histories, and it seems like no one is sharing them. There’s a hole in the market, and I will happily fill that hole, with my browser history.

Can you talk about your other products? What’s your most successful so far?

Definitely the This Was Inside Me Pencil. I sold out of those. I do batches of those – 4 or 6 at a time. I try to make it special. The concept behind that is that as a public figure, I recognize that people want to be close to me, so it’s a way for people to feel close to me. And I do actually put them inside of me, I think that that’s really important. I am not lying about any of the products or services that I provide.

What is the goal here? What are you working toward?

I would like to have enough money that I could fund the new projects that I have coming up. Rugs is a big one. I have a lot of good ideas for rugs. There’s also Fabric Boy who has been around for a long time, Boner Machine; just a lot of projects that come together to form the overarching Baby Darrington Universe.