The idea of the gay experience, it feels like a relic. I felt like in the '90s when we were watching the gay characters on ‘The Real World,' there was definitely a gay experience that was distinct from a straight experience. If you talk to high schoolers in 2017, I don't know that is as much a part of how they experience a social dynamic.

I was fascinated by the word ‘Rudy,' which is connected to the Jamaican term 'rude boy,' which migrated from Jamaica to London. I was also fascinated by that name, because it exists in Persian culture and Iranian culture. There is actually a place called Rudy in Iran, and there's Iranians that I know with the name Rudy.

I like that I can write my name in Persian, and it's a small unit, like a graphical unit. I feel the same way about my name in English, it's a graphical unit.

I feel like I've had this ability to infiltrate, as an outsider and an insider, different groups.

I think that for a lot of us gay people, we do feel that pop is our music. We identify with it and its iconography, and that's been a tradition.