Ivy Wolk on Adderall, iPad Babies, and Bisexual Awareness

Most of the internet first encountered Ivy Wolk’s sharp and overactive imagination a few years ago on TikTok, where sharing a steady stream of unfettered hot takes won her a devout following and a close brush with internet cancellation. Fortunately, the 20-year old writer, comedian and actress remains chronically online. On X, formerly Twitter, her unbridled, witty and perverse cultural commentary sits alongside more vulnerable personal accounts of coming of age in the thorny entertainment industry. After graduating high school, Wolk, a one-time, self-described “struggling child actor,” left Los Angeles for a quick stint at Emerson College. But after a year, she dropped out to pursue acting full time, a gamble that’s paid dividends. Later this year, you can catch her in Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning Anora; or Mary Bronstein’s If I had Leg’s I’d Kick You; or Eugene Kotlyarenko’s The Code, in which she appears alongside Peter Vack and Dasha Nekrasova. But the role she’s best-suited for might be Rorschach Test participant, so we asked Ivy to take the hot seat and sound off on bisexuals, democrats, polyamory, twinks, and 5150s.

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BISEXUAL AWARENESS

“I think the joke of the bisexual is played out. We have to find somebody else to hit now.”

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BEING IN YOUR 20s

“I don’t predict a lot of drama. I don’t predict a lot of nasty sex. I don’t predict a lot of nights tripping over myself, throwing up in the back of a cab. A lot of people in their 20s act like children, and I just don’t think that’s going to be my truth.”

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POLYAMORY

“To polyamory I say, go to a meeting and work the steps.”

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CHAPPELL ROAN

“Pretty hair, nice ass, good voice. People are mad at her right now for these TikToks that she made where she was like, “Stop following me around.” And now gay guys are like, “Well, she’s complaining about her fame. She doesn’t have star power.” People are always looking for an excuse to denigrate this woman.”

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PORN

“I was pretty neutered for a long time because I was on a really high dosage of SSRIs. Trying to masturbate was like digging through an endless sandbox to get to the center of the earth—it was not going to happen. So sometimes you need a video to spark inspiration.”

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5150s

“I was a voluntary admission to the hospital because you can’t steal my sunshine.” 

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MICRO-BANGS

“A lot of girls aren’t doing the micro-bang; they’re doing the curtain bang, the wolf cut, the shag where it kind of fans out to the side. That’s not a bang. Bitch, if you can tuck it behind your ear, that’s not bangs. That’s regular hair.”

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CLOUT

“I had to distance myself from the whole downtown Manhattan bullshit, because most of that is people standing outside the party, shivering in the cold, and talking shit when they can’t even get in. I guess I’m speaking from a place of clout privilege because clout has always come so easily and so naturally to me.”

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DEMURE

“I’m from L.A., where women at parties speak in a fucking whisper because they’re scared of what everybody’s going to think of them. People looked at me like I was a fucking barking seal at the zoo for speaking above a five on the MacBook volume scale. I moved to New York and it was so refreshing, hearing women yelling on the phone and fighting in a fucking store and arguing with people on the street.”

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DEMOCRATS

“Lame. Corny. Old.”

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LYING

“I don’t do it very often. I’m addicted to the truth. The truth will set you free.”

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ELLA EMHOFF

“I hope that the book Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis happens to her. That is what I’ll say.”

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BMI

“I’m going to step on that scale and find out those three digits. I don’t need to be put in a vast category with other people. I need to know my truth. BMI is for the birds.”

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POST MALONE

“Gross, schlubby, hot.”

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TALENT AGENCIES

“What I’ll say about talent agencies is representation matters. As a white woman, that’s what representation means to me.”

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SLURS

“We all like them. Even the people who are the most hoity-toity, woke buttons-all-the-way-up-to-their-chin on their fucking shirt. Obviously, there’s many slurs I wouldn’t say. And you can get that on the record.”

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IPAD BABIES

“If Zoomers are fucked, then Gen Alpha is really cooked. The thing I’ve heard about Gen Alpha is they already understand irony, whereas Gen Z’s media consumption started sincere and then transitioned into irony. There’s going to be a really nasty emotional upheaval where the iPad kids lash out.”

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DROPPING OUT

“Best decision I’ve ever made.”

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CHILD STARS

“I started acting when I was 13, so I was aware of the pain and the pressure and how I felt odd about standing in front of adults, begging them to think I was pretty enough to film and to capture forever. The boys turn themselves into machines and for the girls, there’s an emphasis on beauty and body image.”

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TWINKS

“Hot and misunderstood. Unfairly maligned.”

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BETRAYAL

“I’ve only ever been betrayed by men who were supposed to be my father.”

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PETER THIEL

“Would I spend time with him, despite the fact that he’s a gay libertarian billionaire and those things seem fun on paper? No, I wouldn’t. You know what? Maybe I would for the story.”

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ADDERALL

“A stimulant will make me shit. But I took half a Focalin at a party a few months ago and that was nice. So Adderall’s out, Focalin in.”

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MATT RIFE

“In person, he looks like a La-Z-Boy sofa made a wish on a star and said, I want to be a real boy. I watched his Netflix special and, in his way, he is an artist. Is he funny? Is he smart? Is he interesting? Is he a voice to look out for? No, not at all.”

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VIVIAN JENNA WILSON

“Come to Bushwick.”

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QUEER-BAITING

“It’s attention-seeking, slutty behavior, and I think we need a lot more of that.”

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ANNA NICOLE SMITH

“No matter how sexy she was, and how white she was, and how blonde she was, that couldn’t rescue her from the judgment and the smear of being perceived as a dumb poor person. I hope she’s resting in peace because she really was a beautiful, sunny soul.”

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