“I like to do a lot with fake blood” - A portrait of ApocalypsticK

Helen Nicola Seeger (she/her)

Jónína and I are meeting at Café Babalú, a cute café in downtown Reykjavík. As we have only been in touch through Facebook, I don’t recognize him at first in the line to order, but we find each other eventually. Jónína has long hair, wears black clothes and no makeup. That is quite a contrast to what I expected since I checked out his social media beforehand, which is filled with drag and cosplay pictures.

Jónína grew up in a small village in Germany close to Münster and the Dutch border. His family always had an affinity for Iceland so it is no surprise that he moved here. He has been living in Iceland since 2017, when he was only 21 years old. He says that this move changed a lot in his life. When he came to Iceland he got in touch with a person who identifies as agender and suddenly Jónína realized that there was a name for what he has been feeling his whole life. Growing up in a small German village, before the time of Google, as he puts it, there simply wasn’t any education on that topic. Queerness in general yes, that was a topic in school, Jónína remembers, but it was limited to trans people from a biological perspective. I ask Jónína which pronouns he prefers as I myself am afraid of using the wrong ones. He tells me that he used all of them at the beginning but soon came to realize that because of his female looks people tended to use the pronouns she/her a lot more than he/him or they/them. Jónína, who works in a tourist souvenir shop, already gets gendered as she/her so often in his daily life that he decided to even it out by using he/him most of the time and sometimes going by they/them, too. Finally being able to put a label on himself, helped Jónína come to terms with himself after years of not fitting in regarding hetero-normative categories.

But it was not only the labeling that played a role in the process. Also Jónína’s hobbies, drag and cosplay, helped him accept his body. Jónína says he likes to play with different features in his drag performances like showing his breasts and wearing a beard – whatever he feels like that day.

In 2019 he found a home in the Icelandic drag community and took part in a show at Gaukurinn. The feeling was far from new to him, as he was used to standing on a stage through his cosplaying hobby but drag was a new facet. He likes his appearances to be impressive and labels himself as a drag performer within the category alternative drag. “I like to do a lot with fake blood,” he says, smiling, and continues to tell me about a performance he did when he pulled a sword out of his chest – followed by a lot of fake blood, of course. His costumes are partly bought but Jónína also gets creative in manufacturing them himself. It is an expensive hobby though, especially in Iceland. Jónína says that drag facilitates his creativity, that it is a place which allows him to be himself. And what will always put a smile on his lips is the acknowledgement he gets from the audience. It helps Jónína to like parts of his body that he usually would rather not possess, like his breasts. It gives him the comfortability to say: “That’s me.” Also, he says, he is no supermodel, but hearing fans tell him how pretty he is despite a couple extra fat cells or his boobs feels great. He also has fans that regularly come to see his show, the Drag Cabaret “ApocalypsticK” which he co-organizes every first Friday of the month at Gaukurinn, and some die-hard fans on social media all around the world.

When asked whether he’s noticed any differences between the drag communities in Iceland and Germany, Jónína says it’s far from easy to distinguish between countries, and that you can more easily spot the differences between regions. In Germany the community is very big and different cities bring out different forms of drag, some are more focused on beauty while others are more alternative – it really depends. In Iceland he is especially happy that his genre alternative drag is so popular with the audience. He can, however, see differences in how people react to him when they see him on the streets. In Iceland he had never had a problem with harassment and not being accepted for who he is. Jónína says he never found it dangerous to walk by himself through downtown Reykjavík, not even at night. People rather leave mean comments on social media, he says. In Germany on the other hand, he hasn't had any experiences related to drag yet as he started it as a hobby after moving to Iceland and hasn't lived in Germany after his coming out. But he remembers how people reacted to him being asexual. Not in the streets – “It is not like you look at me and see: Ahh, he is asexual. I don't have a partner with whom you could make inferences on my sexuality.” But what he often experienced when talking to German men is the typical statement rooted in toxic masculinity: “You just haven’t had sex with me yet.”

Additionally, Jónína’s family has had problems in understanding asexuality. For his mother, it was the wish of having grandchildren, whilst for his father it was trying to find a rational explanation for his “choice of lifestyle” – a former ex-boyfriend must have broken him.

In Jónína’s opinion that can be due to the non-existing education and incorrect media representations on not only the topic agenderness but also on the topic asexuality. He remembers watching a documentary on asexual men that frightened him when he was only 8 years old. The men as portrayed in the media were ashamed of themselves, so, of course, 8 year old Jónína thought it was a bad thing to be. Which is especially harmful considering that he already had a feeling that it might apply to him. In general Jónína calls for more education on agenderness and asexuality and correct representation. He hopes that this way others can also find a home in queer communities like he did in the Icelandic drag community.

Image: ApocalypsticK