Hello everyone! We had the opportunity to spread our reach and had a chance to do a phone interview with Missy, the founder of SuicideGirls as well as attend of the of Blackheart Burlesque shows they had! This is just a little bit of how SuicideGirls got started and what Missy is all about!
Missy got her inspiration from Betty, a female photographer. Betty would like to capture women in a more natural setting. After doing a photo-shoot and being serious, Betty would snap photos in the moment to capture a natural smile or reaction. Her goal was for women to feel good about themselves even if they didn’t have a socially accepted “hot body” or be “good looking”. This would help women be more accepting of who they were inside and out.
Seven-teen years ago this November, Misty took on her passion for photography and allowing woman to freely express themselves. She moved to Portland, Oregon. Missy immediately started taking photos of her friends and allowed them to be comfortable and express themselves whether it was fully clothed, or no cloths at all. Eventually, she wanted to do something with the photos, and started SuicideGirls.Com. Missy’s goal was the same, and around this time, the internet was so new that it was a radical idea to put such photos on the web where it was not appropriate. Eventually, SuicideGirls was getting so big, a lot of business was coming from California, and Missy decided to move the company to California to be closer with clients.
Throughout the years, Suicide Girls has had a huge fan base, with being able to do many things. There have been multiple books that have been published about SuicideGirls. A couple popular ones being: SuicideGirls: Beauty Redefined and SuicideGirls: Hard Girls, Soft Light. SuicideGirls have also launched a few movies, the last one being Suicide Girls Must Die, which released in 2010. The girls have also gone around the country touring and making appearances at places like San Diego Comic-Con.
With all these successes however, came struggle. It was long and hard until SuicideGirls were able to become who they are today. Back in 2001, there wasn’t a huge platform of social media with people sharing everything. People were afraid to share personal information, or upload photos of themselves. Meanwhile, SuicideGirls was uploading revealing pictures of women and bios to go along with them. Many people, including women that were feminists, looked down upon this. Exposing women and their bodies was seen as bad, disrespectful, inappropriate, and socially unacceptable. Eventually, social media did blow up, and it started becoming more acceptable to post photos, stories, and personal information. This helped SuicideGirls and women in general control the image of themselves and their bodies with more acceptance by society on how someone looked.
We talked about how there are women around the world that would love to become SuicideGirls and have the opportunity to be apart of something so great. If you ask any SuicideGirl what their favorite part about being a SuicideGirl, it is the friendships they make with the girls and that they feel beautiful just the way they are. Missy let us know that there are recruiters all around the world looking for Suicide Girls. Also, the site will get about 1,000 applications a week from girls all around the world that want to be part of it. The great thing about SuicideGirls is that girls are able to send in their photos and see if they get selected. SuicideGirls just recently launched tipping, which allows for people to tip girls on their photos, even if they are not selected at the time because of the hard work and money they spent on a photo-shoot already.
Alright folks that’ll do it until next time. Just wanted to say one last thing, I had the privilege of attending one of the Blackheart Burlesque shows in Los Angles. The show was amazing and I highly recommend attending one if you can, or plan ahead for next year. The girls tour from now until end of November. You can find ticket and info here: blackheartburlesque.com . Also, keep an eye out for the video that I shot at the show, which should come out soon!
Hi there! Such a great short article, thank you!
Great post but I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Kudos!