Wen Neale, Personality & Model

Life for Wen Neale hasn’t always been easy, in fact life seems to have a curve ball at every angle, though when Wen connects with his audience, there is a sense of camaraderie. Creating art and merchandise that’s wholesome—Wen wants to create to make people happy. We sat down in Wen’s apartment in the midst of making content for his shop.

So we’ve featured you (Wen Neale) before, but has been going on since our last interview? We see you’re ramping up your merch and store!

I think it’s been about a year and a half since my last interview, time really went fast! To oversimplify, a lot has happened since our last interview. Recently I’ve been wanting to put myself out there in a creative sense and pursuing more with my art, I have a lot of ideas crammed that are just waiting to come out with the right materials, and I thought to myself “I have these silly ideas, I want to put them on clothes, so I’m going to put them on clothes and at least two people will probably buy it” and that’s enough of a reason for me. Yeah I don’t get it either.

You were also featured in VICE, incredible, how are we feeling after momentous coverage like that?

Yes I was!  I didn’t think much of it when it came to how big the coverage was, I actually didn’t know the coverage was gonna be THAT big, like it got on every other of their social medias and I wasn’t expecting the huge amount of response. I genuinely have never wanted or felt wanting to be noticed that much when it comes to social statistics of gaining followers, impressions, or even networking. Maybe I’m always internally a mundane kinda guy, or maybe it’s my low-self esteem that keeps me humble haha.

If we don’t mind getting personal, how has been everything with transitioning?

Transitioning has been going well, despite a few rough patches, but a lot of the rough patches is truthfully my battle with being patient in myself and in what I expect out of transitioning. I’m learning to understand that things I’m wanting out of my transition can’t be as easily snatched up as I hoped initially, and this also ties into my financial situation with surgeries. Fortunately I’m optimistic, and I know if I push myself to take chances in what’s better for me professionally, I will get closer to becoming the person who I want to be both mentally and physically. 

Also tell us more about Leek. He is your cat but seems to have added a sense of joy into your life. Explain that to us!

Oh I would LOVE to talk about Leek. First, I’d like to proudly say that Leek is a one-of-a-kind cat, I’ve never met a cat like him. I adopted him from a local shelter, he’s a 8 years old Siamese that’s full of pure love and a ton of quirks. He likes to face plant on the ground when he’s sleeping, scratching himself with his hind legs while licking out his tongue like a dog, and he loves belly rubs. He’s a little weirdo, but he’s the absolute stars in my life, and has helped me through a lot regarding dealing with loneliness and depression. All he wants to do is give you affection and cuddle at night, and he refuses to intentionally scratch anybody. I love my weird puppy-cat so much.

We had also a chat about how so many people reach out to you from all over, how does that feel? Do you find satisfaction of being their “friend” in distance?

It feels amazing, and gives me a lot of reassurance when I fall into periods of self-doubt. I usually forget the impact I make on my following, not in a irresponsible bad way, but more of in a way that something I would personally consider a simple advice or something being said in passing could mean the whole world to someone else. It gives me a stronger reason on who I want to direct my platform to, and that’s to people who just wanna figure themselves out whether it’s gender or sexuality and giving them reassurance that if I was able to find happiness for being my true self then I know they can too within time. 

Coming to the end of 2018, did you accomplish all that you wanted to do?

Not quite. I still have a list of things that I’d like to get through such as name/gender marker change and making myself more involved in my online store, but I still have a few months left so I shouldn’t cut myself off too soon from reaching these goals! I’m looking more forward to next year actually! I’ve got a lot of things the works including attending conventions in selling my art, and expanding merchandise in my store! 

// wenxwen.co.