Tara Yummy Makes A Case For Going To Parties By Yourself

Tara Yummy has a heart-shaped tattoo with a ribbon over it that’s usually reserved for the name “Mom,” “Dad,” or even “Steve.” But instead, hers is left blank. She wants to fill it in as she goes. “If my friend is performing, I'll write their band's name, or if it's someone’s birthday, I’ll write that in,” she tells me over brunch in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood.

It makes sense; why just commit to one thing when we’re always changing? And Yummy, who is most well-known as a content creator — she has 14.5 million followers across social media platforms — is in the process of doing just that. The 24-year-old is in town from Los Angeles to do her very first DJ set, a skill she says she’s been dreaming about for years.

“I knew nothing about any of the boards,” she says. “I knew what play was, I knew what pause was. And then my friend, Zetra, who's a producer, taught me everything I know in 21 days.”

She showcased her skills at a surprise 10-minute set at Webster Hall, where her friends, DJs Ky Newman and ATL Grandma, were performing. Yummy admits she isn’t one for stage fright — “I could speak to a million people and be fine” — but her DJ experience was different. “People like Frost Children were there, and I'm such a big fan of them, so I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I didn't want to mess up.”

For the creator, DJing feels like the next logical step in her career, but she says she’s never going to stop her YouTube videos or her viral Stuck In A Car With series, where she interviews guests like Madeline Argy, Hasan Piker, and Alix Earle from her car. “But it's definitely something where I thought, ‘I already party enough, so might as well be picking the music while I'm doing it.’”

This sentiment reminds me of another famous party girl-turned-DJ: Paris Hilton, who is one of Yummy’s idols. “She's my biggest inspiration,” she says. She met Hilton a few years ago after the reality TV pioneer duetted one of Yummy’s TikTok videos. “I said, ‘If I ever meet Paris Hilton, I think I'm going to throw up on her,’ and she duetted, and said, ‘Please don't throw up on me.’”

I partied my way to making YouTube videos. I'm not even kidding.

Partying is also what led Yummy to her YouTube career takeoff in the first place. Though she had a YouTube account since 2012 and first made videos when she was in middle school, her channel really took off in 2019 when Yummy started meeting other popular creators in Los Angeles. “I had the opportunities and friends that really taught me everything they knew,” says Yummy. “My ex lived with Sam [Golbach] and Colby [Brock], and they're huge YouTubers, so I had all the assets and all the background information.” Yummy met everyone by showing up to random LA parties totally alone.

“A photographer friend would be like, ‘Hey, I'm stopping by. You want to come?’ I'd go and then they would leave, and then I would just stay and make friends,” she laughs. “I partied my way to making YouTube videos. I'm not even kidding.”

People were less fearful to be themselves because iPhone cameras weren't a thing yet.

It’s all so reminiscent of a time when people weren’t so intimidated to make moves, to put themselves out there. Today, the threat of a viral iPhone clip has most Gen Z women fearing any sort of awkward moment or mistake. This, Yummy admits, is what draws her into the Y2K aesthetic in the first place.

“People were less fearful to be themselves because iPhone cameras weren't a thing yet,” she says. “To me, it's being 7 years old, watching MTV or Hannah Montana, and being like, ‘I want to dress like that.’”

Yummy sits across from me and orders a meat-free Mediterranean breakfast plate (she’s a pescatarian). She’s wearing a studded flat-brim hat, an eyebrow piercing, a blinged-out brass knuckle necklace, and black oversized furry boots. For a second, it does feel like we’re back in the early 2000s, a time when I, like Yummy, was too young to rock the iconic trends. I have to admit, I felt nostalgic for it too. “I just like that era — everything about it,” says Yummy. “The music, the style, the drama of it all. The Uggs. Why are you wearing Uggs in the middle of the summer? Everyone was so dramatic.”

But Y2K culture also had its dark side. Yummy tells me she’s been recognized on the street a lot during her time in New York, and I can’t help but think about the horrible way pop-culture icons like Hilton and Britney Spears were treated by fans and the media when they were Yummy’s age.

“I've had some nasty things said to me, even in person,” says Yummy. “If it's some stupid sh*t, excuse my language, like, ‘You're annoying,’ or, ‘Shut the f*ck up, you're insufferable,’ I ignore it. I like to always say Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Lindsay, they were the most hated girls on the planet, but they're the sh*t. People will hate you no matter what you do.”

That attitude is exactly what it takes to be a successful internet star, where trolls seem to reproduce overnight, and the people who rip you apart the most are actually the ones who are the most envious of you.

For now, Yummy takes the troll comments in stride and the opportunities as they come. She’s manifesting more DJ sets and more Stuck In The Car With dream guests (Bill Nye the Science Guy and Paris Hilton are high on her list) for her YouTube show.

And the rest, as Y2K pop star Natasha Bedingfield once said, is still unwritten.

Photographs by Brittany Leitner