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When Next Gen NYC's Georgia McCann first appeared on our screens, you’d probably never seen her face before. She was a regular in the New York City nightlife and subculture scene, but she didn’t have any social media, doesn’t have famous parents, and didn’t grow up on television like some of her co-stars.
“It was subculture to pop culture overnight,” McCann, one of the stars of Bravo’s Next Gen NYC, told Teen Vogue when we caught up with her at BravoCon over the weekend. That level of exposure has had its ups and downs. McCann, a brand and events creative strategist, said it’s a bit easier to get her foot in the door work-wise, but she’s also dealt with a difficult level of scrutiny that prompted her to open up about struggling with an eating disorder.
Now filming season two, McCann and her co-stars were mobbed by fans at the reality TV convention held in Las Vegas from November 14 to 16. McCann sat down with us on the first day of BravoCon. In a cream colored feather jacket with matching feathers glued around her eyes, the New York it-girl got real about being on TV for the first time, being in the public eye, and, of course, that handwashing moment.
Georgia McCann: My makeup artist is Frostie Delite on Instagram. She's amazing. I have to shout her out because she's a visionary. This is her look, this is her vision. And my friend made this feather jacket as part of her senior thesis at fashion school. Her name is Emma Gonzalez Pini.
GM: It was a learning curve, for sure. I don't know. It was just very new. It was like, trying not to be in your head about what you were doing and being as authentic as possible. That was the hardest part, I'd say, but that was also my main priority. I know people crave authenticity these days. So it was interesting, but also like a learning experience and a growing up experience too, to be so public literally overnight. I didn't even have a personal social media until I did the show. My face was not on the internet at all.
GM: Exactly. You never know what the audience is going to latch onto [or] what [the show editors are] going to put into it at the end of the day, because we filmed so much. [The handwashing thing] was a winning combination of [it made it into the show] and then on top of that, the audience was like, ‘Oh my God!’ It was so polarizing too. I had so many supporters and so many haters. It was like a presidential election over, like, should you wash your hands or not every time you use the bathroom? It was very interesting.
GM: Um.. [long pause]
GM: No, I have to think. Uh… I bathed this morning! But I actually haven't used the restroom all day.
GM: Yeah, I do.
GM: I think it's very Gen Z to be doing many different things and doing them on your own track and own timeline and not having a boss. I don't believe in resumes. I plan on never submitting a resume again in my life. We're on a good trajectory for that, I'd say. I think Gen Z was very open from a young age to so much information. I think other generations could see that as a bad thing, but I think it's actually been used, surprisingly, as a way to kind of diversify interests and hone in on other interests, you know?
GM: I feel like people knew, people could just see from my Instagram that something was very wrong. So I felt, in a sense, that an explanation was owed — not that that's something you need to feel is owed to people, but I did feel like that's something I wanted to share. And then I think on top of that it was just, my story felt very specific and unusual until I opened up about it. And then [other people were saying], “No, I felt these exact things and I have these exact manifestations of an eating disorder.” I almost thought for a while that what I was going through wasn't as important or as serious. Once I opened up about it, the floodgates kind of opened with that. So that was really special to be able to talk about that more publicly.
GM: I think you have to just not engage with it. Your brain is, in a sense, like an AI machine where whatever you tune into, it learns and grows. So, I just try to tune out all the comments, negative or positive. I like to remain in a state of self-referral, which just means not really considering what people have to say, good or bad.
GM: Oh my God, the bowling alley club. You have to watch season two. It's sort of taking a back burner for other things that I feel I need to do right now. It might surprise people, but it feels very authentic to me. That does not mean it's never going to be done. It very much will. We're just shifting priorities.
GM: It's been interesting. I'd say everyone is opening up a lot more this season and really getting into the groove of it, where I think there was some like cold feet [last season] because we didn't really know what we were doing or what we were getting into, which was I think a big factor why not everyone went 100%. Now, literally everyone is giving 100%, which is cool to see and I think the audience will appreciate that.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
