User:Rug2001/Rinny Perkins

Rinny Perkins, known online as rinnyriot, is a social media celebrity, comedian, visual artist and writer. In her visual art, consisting of 70s-themed advertisement-looking collages, pop culture influences and satire inspired by the Blaxploitation movement, she emphasizes Black personhood and the existence of intersectional feminism. Her work has been featured by i-D, and in 2020 Office Magazine highlighted her in honor of Black History Month.

Biography
Rinny Perkins grew up in the Third Ward area of Houston, Texas, in a community filled with appreciation and honor towards Black personhood and different images of Blackness. Perkins went to a predominantly Black elementary school where they would show their students Blaxploitation movies from the 70s, such as A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But A Sandwich and Cornbread, Earl and Me, and Cleopatra Jones. She says to have seen Black trail riders of the Southwest Trail Riders Association ride their horses through her neighborhood. This allowed for representation that would not be shown in general media others her age would grow up with.

Perkins attended Louisiana State University for a period of time, where she changed her minor and major three times. She left Texas after finding her way in comedy and deciding that she wanted to work in entertainment. Hence, she moved to Los Angeles, where she took classes in comedy and trained herself at Upright Citizens Brigade. Perkins started performing and coming up with creative ideas for graphic design in combination with her words. After some time, her digital work developed into an Online Shop called Brownie Points, where she now sells collages and goods that carry the message of “celebrating showing up as we are”.

Social media career
Perkins created a platform for herself on Instagram with her account @rinnyriot, on which she began posting her meme-like designs, collages, and activism around 2017. Her posts have been very successful and with thousands of followers, she has become an influential voice for Black and queer women. She stated to have found it difficult for a long time to speak openly about her struggle with depression, and the medication she took because of it. However, she decided to change her attitude towards it and be more open about the subject, which is when Perkins started creating items saying ‘Bad Bitch On Antidepressants’ on them to sell in her online shop. The responses from followers with similar experiences caused her to feel more confident and to make other people feel less alone too. The collages Rinny makes are based on how she has explored and experienced social spaces as a dark-skin Black woman, but she uses her photos and designs to create the representation that she feels history failed to create.

Writing career
Perkins is now working on a book named ‘Not Everyone Is Going To Like You (Thoughts from a Former People Pleaser)’, which will be published on April 24th, 2023. It is a debut illustrated manifesto by Rinny herself about what she has learned as a queer Black woman through a journey of self-appreciation and validation. The book touches on topics such as mental health, work, family and dating. She for instance writes about having found that people are never entirely disconnected from who they are on social media, which makes it hard to post what people want and not care what others think. Perkins’s main focus of the book is on beginning to understand that the only person who can honestly offer us validation is ourselves.

Acting career
Perkins decided to move from Texas to Los Angeles, California when she knew she wanted to pursue a career in entertainment. She has had supportive roles in the fourth season of Amazon Original crime series “Bosch”, short film “Demetrinox” (2018) and Apple TV+ original TV series “Physical”.

Activism
Rinny Perkins expresses her activism for intersectional feminism and the personhood of Black identity in her digital art and other work. Black History Month is something that Perkins wishes to celebrate every single day, and she mainly uses it to stress that offering reparations to the Black Community does not fix the problem, but it does guide the situation in the right direction. She uses her Instagram account @rinnyriot to draw attention to societal problems, feminist issues and Blackness. Intersectional feminism is of great importance to Perkins as it shows feminism through a lens with which systemic structures can be pulled apart that hinder genuine equality. “You can't take down inequality without addressing the injustices that extend beyond the scope of them damn cis-centric 'pussy hats'”.