Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cheyenne M. Davis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cheyenne M., appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think the definition of success is very nuanced in the sense that I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about ways I could prove to other people how great, worthy and talented I was. I used to think that success meant how much of these things that other people could attribute to me, yet I was missing out on the thing that mattered most– me.

Success isn’t about how people feel about you. It’s truly about you embracing your own wins, losses, stalemates and entire being and feeling affirmed and secure in the here and now while doing so. My personal success is about me being fluid and transparent in my experience and feeling empowered to surmount obstacles in the name of cultivating my peace, community and happiness.

Cheyenne M., before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Cheyenne Davis (they/them/theirs), and I am a queer, fat, Black, non-binary and femme-identifying moderator, storyteller, aspiring screenwriter, podcaster and content creator. An adjunct instructor and curator of a course on marginalized identities in media at NYU and a graduate of the master’s program in Media Studies at The New School, my work focuses on the intersections of fatness, Blackness, sex, kink, media, anime, video games, pop culture, pleasure and gender, and what it means to experience joy in these identities. My words have appeared in digital and in print publications like TripAdvisor, Buzzfeed News, The Verge, Input Mag, Bustle, PopSugar and Popsugar Australia, Refinery29, R29Unbothered, MadameNoire, The Infatuation, Metro UK, and The Rutgers Daily Targum. I have also been featured and quoted in Vice and Cosmo.

Aside from my creative pursuits, I am a cat mom, avid reader and a video game and anime aficionado.

The thing I am proudest of currently is the fact that I am allowing myself to grow and diversify my reach and talents as a creative– opening myself up to various ways of connecting my passions for social advocacy and intentional content curation, education and creation.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Funny enough, I am currently in a phase in my life where I am looking to pivot in my career. I work full time in marketing, and do other side jobs and projects like collegiate education and journalism, and although the work has been rewarding, I am looking to pivot more into roles where I can pair my creativity with leadership and monumental change– especially for marginalized communities. I thoroughly enjoy moderating and participating in panels to guide, organize and/or contribute to conversations around topics like sex, identity, media, anime and social justice, and this love has made me recognize that I want to also incorporate moderation into my career as well.

This being said, the pivot I am working towards currently is a career that allows me to travel while also doing what I love- moderating, twitch streaming, writing novels, stage plays and television shows with the ability to be mentored in these areas and have an easeful work life balance . I am realizing now in my late twenties that work is important, but my well-being supersedes that. This segue into my passions and dreams will be an opportunity to intentionally build a life that prioritizes my health, abundance (in all forms) and happiness.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Film and television have always played a big role in my life. From an early age, I have been immersed in the world of media, gaining much familiarity with various storylines and genres, especially romance media. At first, I was fascinated by seeing Disney princesses pining for and coupling with brave, dashing princes, rom-coms with proverbial, blushing brides and happily ever after moments finally coming to fruition. But as I got older, I started to notice that there were recurring themes that were quite limiting. As a Black, fat tween and teen, I recognized that most of the depictions that I was seeing were picturesque and perfect. The characters were usually white or light-skinned, skinny and could explore their worlds with minimal worries, and when people of color were present, there was hardly any size diversity. When watching this content, I was always left with the same question– where were the fat Black femmes?

Seeing that there was a lack of marginalized people, especially those who looked like me on screen, I decided to devote my life’s work to using media and media literacy as a means to educate people on the experiences of marginalized people, especially those who exist in fat, Black, femme and gender expansive bodies. I was tired of seeing fat characters being seen as comic relief, flat, and best friends who were only thrown into the script to either lose weight, lament over their bodies or support their fully developed and realized cast mates in their quest of finding love and happiness. I was tired of being disappointed by seeing fat, Black femmes being mammied on screen, being relegated to roles where they were mothers, maids and caregivers. Although these can be true depictions, I knew that there could be more done to produce more nuanced stories because I saw it displayed in everyday life amongst my community members, family and friends. I saw it in myself.

We live in a world where antiblackness and fatphobia still dictate what stories we tell and how we tell them, and this, unfortunately tends to leave many colorful and important stories behind. My goal is to challenge this notion by showing fat, Black, femme characters front and center in my content. Fat characters are witches. Fat characters are also superheroes, ethereal beings, lovers, fighters and friends.

But most of all, fat, Black characters have depth and deserve to have multifaceted representation from an intentional, humane and open-minded perspective.

My goal is to create content and build teams that help to promote building a genuinely inclusive world and a future that is aligned with that.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.allmylinks.com/cheymodee
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/cheymodee
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/cheymodee
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cheymodee
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@cheymodee?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc