If you’re anything like me, you are as fascinated by maths as you are intimidated by it. For most of my life I’ve considered myself to be anything but a STEM girlie while desperately admiring those who are. Whenever I’ve looked at the STEM world, it’s been hard to find people who look like me, who know the things I know, and who share some of my life experiences. That was until my TikTok feed was graced by the glamorous and entertaining queen of maths, Kyne. Kyne gained international fame when she appeared on the first season of Canada’s Drag Race and has since gone on to revolutionise conceptions of mathematics through her TikTok content as she explains everything maths from Mobius strips to mathematically perfect music. She has also taken her talent for making maths accessible for the girls, gays, and theys by writing a new book Math in Drag. I was lucky enough to speak with Kyne about her book and a few other exciting things, here is what TNF’s favourite edutainer had to say.
First of all, I love the book! I am one of those people who has always considered themselves not to be a Maths person, and when you explain things, I get them!
Oh my gosh! That’s the exact reaction I want people to get out of the book!
It is so exciting that you have written a book. What inspired you to take your maths content on TikTok and create a book?
So what happened is an editor from John Hopkins Press reached out to me a few months after videos started going viral, and she asked if I would ever consider making a book out of my educational videos. I never thought I was the author type, but I said yes because I thought this would be a fun challenge for me. Plus I guess that’s the same kind of misconception that people have about not being a math person, like they think being good at math takes a special kind of person; I thought being an author took a special kind of person. My editor really helped me with the process and took me through it step by step, going through each chapter one by one. I learned a lot in the process.
I was really curious about what made you decide to set out the chapters the way you did and cover the things that you did; maths is such a broad topic!
Really I just went off which math topics I wanted to talk about. A lot of it is based on what I learned at university in my math degree. My editor also suggested looking at what videos of mine did well and what people want to learn about. From that, we chose infinity and illegal maths; of course, we had to do a chapter about Pi and the celebrity numbers. It was my idea to do a chapter on game theory and statistics because that was what I loved learning about at uni. I also feel like I have a good gauge that if something is really interesting to me, it’s also interesting to my followers.
What made you decide to start sharing content about maths on TikTok? what made you take the leap and post?
I used to do wig tutorials and drag content before the pandemic, and I feel like I started to get burned out from that; I started my YouTube channel in 2013, which is about 11 years ago now. I wanted to try something new. When I found TikTok, at first, I thought it was just a dancing app, then I saw people doing skits and comedy routines and being really creative, so I thought about what I could do on there that was creative. I thought I’d do some math riddles, and it would be camp to be honest, so that’s how it started really.
In the book, you state that some people initially questioned the concept?
Oh yeah, my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) was like, ‘People don’t really like math Kyne, like its a pretty hard subject. I don’t know if people really want videos about this’. When I set out to do it, I never thought it would be taken seriously; I just thought it would be fun. But then I started receiving all these messages saying they loved learning math from me, and it showed me there was this really big intersection between people who were into math and people who liked drag. I thought I was the only person!
You competed on Canada’s Drag Race Season One, and you discuss this in your book: how do you feel like your experience on the show has impacted you as a drag artist and as a social media personality?
It’s really given me a lot more confidence in what I do, which is ironic because I feel like I had too much confidence when I was on the show. I feel like maybe I was overcompensating a bit when I was on there because, to tell you the truth, when I was on the show and even before I felt this embarrassment over being a social media queen; I felt like I needed validation and approval from people and I needed to do the same thing as every other drag queen to feel legit. Now I feel like I have so much more belief in myself and my own unique vision. I’m just really happy with what I’m doing and this online community that I’ve grown with.
I know that in the book, you mentioned that in the first photo shoot challenge (that you won, congratulations!) the judges compared you to Ongina (another Filipina queen from the US show). Do you feel like there were microaggressions on the show?
Yeah, it was kind of weird but they would do these little quips of like comparing me to other Asian queens. We were a really diverse cast; I can’t say that there was racism on the show. It was just that one thing that was a bit weird to me.
You discuss receiving a lot of hate after your appearance on the show, and we know that the Drag Race community has a massive problem with racism; I’m curious to get your take on this.
I have to admit that I think it’s a symptom of Drag Race being a global phenomenon with millions of fans around the world. I think that there’s racism and toxic communities everywhere on the internet, so I don’t think it’s going to be an easy thing to fix. What I have found easier is just to hit that mute button and that block button. I can’t change the world, but I can protect my peace, and I can currate my timeline. If that means I have to restrict the comment section, that’s just the best solution for me.
The book has a whole chapter about Game Theory (my personal favourite chapter). Can you explain to our readers a little bit about what Game Theory is?
Funnily enough, Game Theory isn’t a math course at university; it’s an economics course. I took it because I majored in Mathematical Finance, and I remember really loving that class and how it relates to the real world. Game Theory is about the science of strategy and games, which really has a broad definition. Really a game is any time in life when you’re strategising and thinking about what other people are doing. For instance, if I’m driving to another city, I can take the highway or the surface roads, and part of that decision is influenced by what other people are doing; if it’s rush hour, then there’s probably a lot of other people on the road.
Games can be as broad as anything. I find Game Theory so interesting because you could apply it to the way companies set prices that we see on supermarket shelves; you can even apply it to Drag Race!
You apply it to Drag Race in the book. Did you actually go into the show with Game Theory in mind, or is it something you thought about after the show?
No, I really didn’t go into it with a whole textbook on Game Theory. I was thinking in terms of trying to think a few steps ahead, like a game of chess; if I move my bishop in one way, then there’s a natural way for my opponent to respond. I was thinking about if I said something in a confessional or if I messed up in some way then what story arc would the producers make for me. I was on the bottom in one episode, so how was I going to get my redemption arc? I really was doing too much strategising, I think, and it didn’t work out! People say the best approach is to go in and just be yourself and that’s probably the truth.
So having studied Mathematical Finance at university, and in the book, you discuss things like debt and inflation; I’m curious to know if you’d ever pivot into writing about finance or producing finance content.
I would! I’ll tell you, I think there are a lot of personal finance influencers out there who aren’t exactly qualified to be giving financial advice. I can also tell you it’s a very regulated and well-paid industry; you can get paid a lot of money to promote a finance app or a bank. I don’t do so much of the finance content myself because I’ve noticed that my audience doesn’t really respond super well to it and it isn’t going to get millions of views if I just talked about the stock market. Never say never! I love talking about money, and I think financial literacy is so important, so who knows, maybe someday in the future!
When discussing John Nash in the book, you mention that the mathematics space is often unfriendly to queer people and women; have you had first-hand experiences in the maths world where people have been unwelcoming to you as a queer person of colour?
As I mentioned in the book, I had a lot of teachers who were really accepting and tolerant and treated me like everybody else. So I can’t really can’t fault any of them. Really it’s been some of the online communities that I’ve been a part of in the past few years. It’s just trolls online who send messages saying things like I don’t belong in math, why am I dressed up like this. It’s tough because whenever I do a brand deal, they always have to moderate comments and deal with comments saying, ‘Oh, this company’s gone woke, I’m unsubscribing, I’m boycotting’. I’ve done events where I’ve spoken at conferences and schools, and people come out of the woodwork to try to dox me or get administrators fired. All because they hired me. It’s definitely made it harder for me. I can’t think of any other math educator online who has to deal with this, where people treat them with such contempt and scorn just for going around talking about math.
Your content often connects maths and science to topics like queer identity, colonialism, and gender and Filipino history (amongst other social issues/topics); have you always had this ability to make these important connections or did researching the book highlight how interconnected these topics are?
Really the latter, I set out to just write a book about math. I wrote the first chapter, and then we sent it out to reviewers, who all said they couldn’t see the drag in the text. If you look at my videos, they really are just about math; I don’t start every video with, ‘Hey I’m a drag queen, my pronouns are she/her, and this is my gender identity’. I just talk about math in my videos; the drag is just the visual aspect. When I was writing that down in words, my writing came across as quite serious, so then I started writing, knowing I had to talk about drag, and I didn’t really know what that would look like. I don’t really consider myself as a very funny writer.
As I was writing, all of the drag bans started happening, and I was writing as a reaction to what I was seeing in the world. That’s when I started thinking more deeply about the connections between math and queerness, and colonialism. At the same time, I was going through another personal journey of learning more about my heritage and the Philippines. All of that is in the book because that’s what I was going through in my personal life and what I was seeing in the world.
In the process of writing and this journey of connecting to your Filipino heritage, was it a conscious decision to learn more about Filipino history, or did it naturally become a part of your recent life?
It was a more conscious decision because, growing up in Canada, I felt a bit disconnected from my Filipino heritage. I had to make a conscious decision to learn Tagalog again, and in the process of learning my language, I learned more about the country and its history itself. When you learn a language there is history within the words; in Tagalog, we have words derived from Spanish, words derived from Sanskrit. The Philippines is such a rich mosaic of other cultures that have come through the islands. That’s how I’ve been naturally learning the history.
My favourite thing about your content and the book is how accessible you make mathematical concepts and ideas that are otherwise out of reach for someone like me who doesn’t consider themself a ‘maths person’. How did you find your voice as an edutainer, how did you find the middle ground between explaining complex concepts and being accessible?
I used to be a tutor in high school, so I think it started there; plus, I used to make wig tutorials. I think I’ve always just liked teaching and telling people what to do! Maybe that’s just my ego! The funny thing about TikTok is that its short-form content. When I started, there was a 60-second limit on videos, and I think that short-form limit forced me to take these long explanations (because I could talk about Pi for 20 minutes) and condense them down to 60 seconds and draw out the most important parts. I think that’s what has made my content effective because being able to explain something as simply as possible makes you explain it better.
The 60-second limit makes you cut out everything that isn’t crucial. Of course, people are going to have follow-up questions, so you can’t appeal to everybody in that one video on every different level, but I ty my best!
One of the themes in the earlier chapters of the book is self-confidence, both as a mathematician and a performer. You mention coming out in the top three of a maths competition at a young age. How does that impact your own confidence?
I guess it really felt like a fluke to do so well on a test. I knew I was good at math but didn’t know I was that good! I feel like if you do enough of these tests, you’re bound to get lucky.
What advice do you have for others in the maths and drag spaces who are struggling to feel confident in their abilities?
You just have to believe in yourself. I’ve always operated on the idea of faking it till you make it, which isn’t to say you should be cocky or think you’re better than everyone else and think you have nothing to learn. You want to be open to new perspectives. You have to have confidence and believe in yourself. You’re showing other people how to treat you with how you treat yourself and perceive yourself. For me, growing up, confidence was my shield and my defence mechanism. I could always pretend it came from a place of irony and sarcasm, but it really did evolve into me believing in myself.
In the book, you include the Quintessentially Kyne playlist toward the end; what made you decide to include it and pick the songs you did? Was there a rationale for which songs made the cut?
Oh my gosh! There really was no rationale! I hope you didn’t read too deeply into it! I mentioned the playlist in passing in the book, and my editor was like, ‘Oh my gosh, let’s put the playlist in!’ Those songs are just songs I chose when I was like 19 and it really wasn’t that serious. It’s just ballads and my favourite karaoke songs!
I’m sure you’ve seen on TikTok as much as I have that the Philippines is now famous for karaoke.
Oh yeah, it’s our national pastime. I wouldn’t say everyone is amazing at it; I’d say I’m the best in my family. At every family function, there’s always a karaoke machine!
What’s next for Kyne? Please let us know if there are any plans for the book (a tour?). Would you consider All Stars/Vs the World?
The book really has sparked a love of writing in me, so my next project is my newsletter, which I’m doing every week on Substack. I’m writing essays and blogs and providing content in another form. I am touring Canada with the book in April, and I’m in the UK pretty often because my husband is from there, so keep an eye out for me! I think I would do All Stars and just go in there and have fun with no real expectations.
Kyne’s excellent book, Math in Drag, will be available everywhere books are sold from March 5th. Check out all her social media links and book pre-order link below!
[TikTok] [YouTube] [Instagram] [Substack] [Podcast] [Book pre-order link]