We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Missy Spears a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Missy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
My passion is creating community through impactful storytelling, creative events, and meaningful projects. (And letting humor shine through as a source of connection for folks.) Before I had a paying job running creative projects and organizations I volunteered my time for 8 years in my community, at first signing up to help other people’s events and then creating and managing my own projects. I did anything and everything I could to gain experience, make an impact, and expand my name in the field. Knowing that I needed to rely on volunteer work to make a career jump at some point I focused on smaller projects that stood out due to creative naming (Cut Your Balls Off Covington was my stray cat TNR program), being a new concept for the area (I ran a podcast in 2015 where I would get drunk with local leaders and then discuss the community), or looked fun (Big Lewbowski themed adult scavenger hunt/bar crawl featuring over a dozen small businesses.) The main obstacle I came across was trying to find a work life balance- I was working 45-50 hours a week to pay the bills and putting in 3-40 hours a week on community projects. I also learned two main takeaways: relationships are everything (be authentic, don’t be a dick, hit those deadlines, don’t overpromise, and ALWAYS give more than you take) and it’s necessary to be a Jack-of-all-trades. Google.com is your best friend for learning how to do your own design work, social media, researching original ideas, write your own press releases, etc. Also check out your public library for free/low cost resources like photography studio access, a vinyl printer for banner/stickers, and more.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I use humor to get folks engaged in their communities. I got into this field almost 10 years ago through volunteering for local nonprofits, and after seeing how the events and programs were run behind the scenes I jumped in and started creating my own projects, events, and fundraisers. My background was working for financial organizations, and I often just felt like a robot at work. Being able to create my own programming, and be sarcastic or quirky when doing so allowed me to be fully creative (and release the sarcasm within) while also working to improve my community. Using humor also allowed me to stand out against all the other folks running other community events and programming, which led to opportunities to showcase my projects in the press quite often. I also worked hard to stay ahead of trends locally, which allowed me to build a brand by constantly offering something new and different. Some of my past projects included writing unofficial expansion packs to the game Cards Against Humanity at the peak of it’s popularity that drew attention to sketchy local leaders and important issues, throwing the “I Slept With Missy Spears And All I Got Was A Halloween Party” which featured Burlesque and a free voters guide for each participant, and creating Missy Spears’ Civic Club- a bathroom stall advertising program that featured provocative signage showcasing civic engagement opportunities and trainings for residents. I have built my brand around being authentic, dependable, and not being afraid to ruffle feathers when it comes to advocating for my community.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I’m just an angry butch lesbian on a mission to destroy the patriarchal system. For years I only followed national news and politics, and it wasn’t until I started volunteering in my community that I realized that the majority of the laws that affect our daily lives are implemented by our local and state governments. And nobody pays attention to their city or state officials. Most folks can’t name their state rep or their city council members, and I was definitely one of them. My mission has been to use creativity and humor to fully engage our community in these local issues and leaders, and then make sure folks feel empowered to speak out against issues, to act to protect their families, and even create their own projects for the betterment of the community. One great example of this is our neighborhood in particular has been hit by stickers and other paraphernalia promoting a white supremacy group in the area. Through social media we have been able to get the neighborhood educated on what symbols to looks out for, organized to quickly take the stickers down when they reappear, check video footage for images of the folks putting them up, and we even got news coverage by creating a sarcastic coverup sticker (Just Covering Up Another Racist Sticker By Another Insecure White Man). Because of our work we have been able to limit the effectiveness of their campaigns, and they have gone from putting up stickers every month to just once or twice a year. The media coverage has also allowed other communities to become aware of the hateful images, and caused them to educate and organize in a similar fashion.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I started this creative community journey by establishing a brand in the community called Keep Your Shirt On Covington, a playful riff on the longstanding troupe of Kentucky men walking around shirtless as soon as it was warm outside. All of my projects, events, and social media were centered around this brand until 2017 when brand engagement suddenly died off due to a complete downfall of political and community satire after the 2016 elections. People only knew me through that brand, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to come back in an impactful way. My solution was to relaunch under my own name, and to do so with a “Stephen Colbert Report” esque run for City Commission. It was terrifying to no longer be able to tell the jokes drawing attention to local issues and local people while hiding behind an organizational name, and to fully put myself out into the public eye. I modeled my 2018 political run after Trump’s 2016 campaign, complete with a promise to build a wall between my city and the next city over to keep drugs out. I launched a video campaign supporting my Covington/Newport Wall promise, used my high school senior photo as my campaign pic (featuring my late 90’s long hair and cross necklace), and at public events for candidates reused actual Trump speeches (as well as monologues from Idiocracy). I didn’t come close to winning, but I received a ton of free media attention and was able to reengage my audience, pull in new followers, build relationships with dozens of elected officials who loved the bit, and rebuild my social media following on a new account.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://msha.ke/missyspears
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missy.spears/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissySpearsCOV/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/missyspears/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@missy.spears
- Other: Check out Youtube for my campiagn videos.