Response 4: Internet Personalities

Lady Dakota Warren (Self-Proclaimed Poetess/cult leader/neoclassical circus freak/Nowhere Girl) 

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dakotawarren 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dakota__warren/ 

Literary Journal: https://www.dakotawarren.com/ 

    Dakota Warren is a poet and soon to be novelist. She has one collection of poetry out called "On Sun Swallowing" and is currently working on publishing her first novel. She is known, by some, for her bookish content and poetry that focuses on themes of: religion, rural childhood and ideas of femininity. She runs a blog titled "Nowhere Girl" and has since released a literary journal titled "Nowhere Girl Collective" that accepts submissions of poetry/fiction/etc. Online, her Instagram and Youtube particularly, is very known for: being pretentious, having specific fashion tastes, and appearing to the "weird girl" aesthetic(s) while also being very bookish. She is aware of these personas and often calls her audiences attention that "Lady Dakota" is for the people. This can be seen in the post below from her "Oracle" tab of her literary journal, where people ask her questions and "the oracle" answers: 

    I believe Dakota Warren has found her niche success by appearing to an audience (particularly feminine), of other readers of obscure literature including themes of––but are not limited to––surrealism, carnivalesque, sapphic, religious, etc. As the post above suggests, she is very crafted in her online appearance and seems almost flawless while romanticizing being anything but this. She came to gain popularity during a time when young people were becoming interested in literature again at least in my generation. She is perverse, controversial, in her taste. Her poetry is narrow, sharp and completely raw. In a realm of writers, she stands out as uniquely herself and wildly talented, it only makes sense that she would have accumulate the perfect cult-like fanbase. In my opinion, she has discovered the best way to modernly sell your writing, because as literature and writing continues, writers are having to sell themselves more; what better way than to become all your most unique interests, bundled into one. 

    I found Lady Dakota through her YouTube videos when I, like many others, began to get into literature. Her taste was much like my own and I was a young poet, with all the books in the world at my fingertips. She crafted parts of my taste, in literature and cinema, unknowingly. I felt just as perverse and pretentious as she and I liked the conscious awareness she held of it, while completely embracing it. I was a comforted to see another girl being weird on the internet who encouraged and romanticized this bizarreness. She cradled her art like small babes and had an air of mystery to her that was entrancing, never sharing too much of herself. She is set apart from other mainstream creators that are constantly crafting the same thing over and over. She is a small window open to a gentle breeze that I idolize and find common ground with; with her, there is constantly a broader question.