Crackhead Barney

Last updated

Crackhead Barney
Born
Jamaica, Queens, New York City
Alma mater Hunter College
Known forSatirical interviews
Notable workCrackhead Barney and Friends
Style Performance art

Crackhead Barney is an American performance artist [1] and ambush interviewer. [2] She shares video of satirical interviews on social media [1] as a viral interview show titled Crackhead Barney and Friends. [2]

Contents

Early activity

According to Crackhead Barney in January 2021, the Crackhead Barney persona originated "a few years ago" when she began dressing up in a Barney costume and harassing random people in New York. The costume was missing an eye, leading people to refer to her as "Crackhead Barney". [1]

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, Crackhead Barney often performed in the subway. The pandemic reduced subway traffic, and she later began attending the George Floyd protests in New York City. At one demonstration, videographer and producer Drew Rosenthal saw her, and eventually convinced her to collaborate on a show called Crackhead Barney and Friends. [2] The name parodies the name of the Barney television show. [1]

Crackhead Barney and Friends

The Crackhead Barney and Friends series is inspired by Eric André and All Gas No Brakes. [2]

Content

Before the 2020 United States presidential election, Crackhead Barney attended a campaign rally by Donald Trump in Staten Island. She later described it as the most dangerous video she ever filmed, stating that she was apprehended by the police and brought to a psychiatric hospital, where the police stated that she was having a mental breakdown and attempting to expose her naked body to children. [1]

Crackhead Barney was present at the 2021 United States Capitol attack, where she interviewed rioters. She additionally attended the inauguration of Joe Biden to interview "some more Patriots and QAnon-ers". [1] At the latter event, she was photographed by Barry Goldstein of New England Public Media, who later discussed her and the photos on Connecting Point . One photograph showed the performance artist holding "a dead rat that she picked up on the street" while the next depicted her confronting a group of National Guardspeople just outside a high-security area. [3]

In June 2021, Crackhead Barney interviewed Andrew Giuliani, and the two ended up shouting at each other. [2] After she asked him why he was campaigning to be Mayor of New York City, he clarified that he was running for the position of Governor of New York and stated that he was "standing for Israel" and wanted to "see a New York where you have an Israel that is respected." Crackhead Barney subsequently insulted Giuliani's father; Giuliani stated that he believed someone who made an insult like that in Palestine would be beheaded. Members of Giuliani's entourage began shouting at Crackhead Barney, at which point both she and Giuliani began arguing about whether the other had ever visited Palestine. [4]

In July 2021 Crackhead Barney, along with performance artists Matthew Silver and David Henry Nobody Jr. wrapped themselves in tape together while chanting "we are the unborn" to disrupt a prayer outside an abortion clinic. [5]

Crackhead Barney has additionally interviewed Jake Angeli, asked Eric Adams "how much Black pussy" he gets, and encouraged children at a New York City Police Department gathering to chant "abolish the police". [2]

Platform

Crackhead Barney and Friends is active on social media platforms which include TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. [2] In December 2021, the show was added to Means TV. [6]

Style

Crackhead Barney has stated that her videos are unscripted. She has cited Dada as an inspiration, stating that it "offers an element of terrible randomness in this terribly random state our country is in." [1] She has also described her work as slapstick. [6]

Views

In January 2021, Crackhead Barney described the attackers of the United States Capitol as "violent MAGA idiots." She referred to "Patriots and QAnon-ers, whatever you want to call the nazis who wear the red hats and fuck their American flags or their machine guns." [1] She additionally stated that "Biden is trash, Kamala is trash, and Trump is definitely trash" because "Biden and fucking Kamala [...] have jailed and incriminated more Black people than Trump and Pence put together." [1]

Personal life

Asked by Metal about her identity, Crackhead Barney stated that she was born and grew up in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York City. She attended St. John’s University and has a BS degree in chemistry with a minor in communications. She refused to provide more details about her background, saying that she generally avoids interviews to keep her identity hidden and that "I’m upset right now, I’m an alien from Mars, and I feel like I give you all you need to know about me from my performance art. That’s it, next question." [1] Later in the interview, she described herself as a "Black queer woman artist". [1] She told Ben Weiss of Input that her parents immigrated to the United States from Nigeria. [2] She attended Hunter College, where she studied painting and sculpture. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudy Giuliani</span> American attorney and politician (born 1944)

Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is an American politician and disbarred lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Kerik</span> Former NYC police commissioner and pardoned felon

Bernard Bailey Kerik is an American consultant and former police officer who was the 40th Commissioner of the New York Police Department from 2000 to 2001. As a convicted felon, he obtained a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump in 2020 for his numerous federal convictions for tax fraud, ethics violations, and criminal false statements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">QAnon</span> American conspiracy theory and political movement

QAnon is a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement that originated in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". Those claims have been relayed and developed by online communities and influencers. Their core belief is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic child molesters is operating a global child sex trafficking ring that conspired against President Donald Trump. QAnon has direct roots in Pizzagate, an Internet conspiracy theory that appeared one year earlier, but also incorporates elements of many different conspiracy theories and unifies them into a larger interconnected conspiracy theory. QAnon has been described as a cult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kellyanne Conway</span> American political consultant, pollster (born 1967)

Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway is an American political consultant and pollster who served as Senior Counselor to the President in the administration of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2020. She was previously Trump's campaign manager, having been appointed in August 2016; Conway is the first woman to have run a successful U.S. presidential campaign. She has previously held roles as campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party and was formerly president and CEO of the Polling Company/WomanTrend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pizzagate conspiracy theory</span> Debunked conspiracy theory about alleged child-sex ring

"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, falsely claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner's emails. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl J. Nichols</span> American judge (born 1970)

Carl John Nichols is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign</span> American political campaign

The 2020 presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, a United States senator from California from January 2017 to 2021, officially began on January 21, 2019, with an announcement on Good Morning America. Harris had widely been considered a "high profile" candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries since 2016.

Social media was used extensively in the 2020 United States presidential election. Both incumbent president Donald Trump and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden's campaigns employed digital-first advertising strategies, prioritizing digital advertising over print advertising in the wake of the pandemic. Trump had previously utilized his Twitter account to reach his voters and make announcements, both during and after the 2016 election. The Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden also made use of social media networks to express his views and opinions on important events such as the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the controversial appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lev Parnas</span> Soviet-American businessman (born 1972)

Lev Parnas is a Soviet-born American businessman and former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas, Giuliani, Igor Fruman, John Solomon, Yuriy Lutsenko, Dmytro Firtash and his allies, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, were involved in creating the false Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, which is part of the Trump–Ukraine scandal's efforts to damage Joe Biden. As president, Donald Trump said he did not know Parnas nor what he was involved in; Parnas insisted Trump "knew exactly what was going on".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kash Patel</span> American lawyer and federal prosecutor (born 1980)

Kashyap Pramod Vinod Patel is an American lawyer and former federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice. Previously, he served as Chief of Staff to U.S. secretary of defense Christopher C. Miller, and senior advisor to the acting director of national intelligence, both during the first presidency of Donald Trump. In November 2024, President-elect Trump nominated Patel to succeed Christopher A. Wray as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Robert Finley Hyde is an American businessman, lobbyist, and political candidate. Hyde gained attention during the first impeachment of Donald Trump as a figure associated with the Trump–Ukraine scandal. He runs a lobbying firm, Finley Hyde & Associates, in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Stanton-King</span> American media personality and politician

Angela Stanton-King is an American author, television personality and conservative speaker based in Atlanta, Georgia. She spent two years in prison for conspiracy and was later pardoned by President Donald Trump a decade after serving her sentence. She subsequently became a media personality and was a main cast member on the third season of the BET docuseries From the Bottom Up. She was the Republican candidate for Georgia's 5th congressional district in the 2020 election, losing to Democrat Nikema Williams. Stanton-King has shown support for QAnon, which espouses a number of far-right conspiracy theories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taylor Lorenz</span> American journalist

Taylor Lorenz is an American journalist who writes the Substack publication "User Mag". She was previously a columnist for The Washington Post, a technology reporter for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and Business Insider, and social media editor for the Daily Mail. She is particularly known for covering Internet culture. In 2023, she published a book called Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. In 2024, she was a podcaster for Vox Media, hosting a show called Power User.

<i>U.S. WeChat Users Alliance v. Trump</i> Lawsuit between U.S. WeChat Users Alliance and President Donald J. Trump

U.S. WeChat Users Alliance (USWUA) v. Trump was a court case pending before the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction on September 20, 2020, blocking the Trump administration's ban order against WeChat based on concerns raised about harm to First Amendment rights and the hardships imposed on a minority community using the app as a primary means of communication. The lawsuit was dismissed in July 2021, following the Biden Administration's rescission of the executive order.

Caroline Rose Giuliani is an American filmmaker, political activist, and writer. She is the daughter of Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City. Giuliani has received national media attention for publicly disagreeing with, and criticizing, her Republican father's politics and political endorsements.

Sidney Katherine Powell is an American attorney and former federal prosecutor. In August 2023, she was indicted along with Donald Trump and eighteen others in the Georgia election case. In October 2023, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years of probation and agreed to testify against the other defendants.

<i>Sarah Cooper: Everythings Fine</i> American comedy special

Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine is an American comedy special starring comedian Sarah Cooper with a series of sketch comedies featuring guest appearances from various celebrities. Netflix released the special on October 27, 2020. The special was created by Cooper, Maya Rudolph, and Natasha Lyonne, and was directed by Lyonne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Ashli Babbitt</span> 2021 shooting in the U.S. Capitol Building

On January 6, 2021, Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot during the attack on the United States Capitol. She was part of a crowd of supporters of then U.S. president Donald Trump who breached the United States Capitol building seeking to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of incidents involving QAnon</span>

Since the movement's emergence in 2017, adherents of the QAnon far-right conspiracy theory have been involved in a number of controversial events, some of them violent, resulting in the filing of criminal charges and one conviction for terrorism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aaron Parnas</span> American lawyer

Aaron Gideon Parnas is an American lawyer and democratic activist. Parnas is the son of Lev Parnas, known for his role in the Trump-administration Trump–Ukraine scandal. Parnas, who was once a staunch Republican and supporter of President Donald Trump, has since become an activist in support of the Democratic Party.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Adrián, Walter (January 2021). "Crackhead Barney and Friends". Metal . Interview with Crackhead Barney. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Weiss, Ben (December 2, 2021). "Meet Crackhead Barney, TikTok's outrageous ambush interviewer". Input . Archived from the original on December 2, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  3. Bauer, Zydalis (January 29, 2021). "Photographer Barry Goldstein's 'Divided: Scenes from Inauguration 2021'". Connecting Point . Interview with Barry Goldstein. New England Public Media. Archived from the original on February 27, 2021. Retrieved October 22, 2021.
  4. Graziosi, Graig (June 11, 2021). "Andrew Giuliani gets into shouting match with TikTok personality as he campaigns to be NY governor". The Independent . Archived from the original on June 12, 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  5. {{Cite web Crackhead Barney &Friends [Crackhead Barney &Friends]. (2021, July 10). Unholy Trinity - Crackhead Barney And Friends [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved July 19, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ81OEZeuo }}
  6. 1 2 3 Song, Sandra (December 28, 2021). "It's Time to Take Crackhead Barney More Seriously". PAPER . Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.