Inés Hernand arrives late at the bar in central Madrid where we meet, walking from her house, but she tells us every five minutes on WhatsApp where she’s going and what she’s missing, and when she’ll finally show up, all in one Hurry up, she apologizes profusely. She comes across beaming, freshly made up by a specialist at home for the various work appointments that lie ahead of her today, but she engages in the conversation generously and without haste. He’s been on the other side and knows that an interview doesn’t go well if either party doesn’t deliver. She is a born communicator.
I could be your mother. How many times have you said to someone my age, “Okay, Boomer?”
Look, I’m a Millennial because I was born between 1982 and 1997, but age is just information. Being young is a prism, an optic that comes from being contemporary in the times in which you live. Saying “OK, Boomer” is like telling you to shut up, and I’m not saying it: I want to listen.
At 31, he’s not that young anymore, I tell him too.
It depends on what you value. I feel absolutely youthful, especially in the emotional area: we are all children and should know how to enjoy it. What has changed a lot is the way we are perceived socially. We are children of constant uncertainty. We live in a liquid society, so we want everything fast: fast food, fast fashion, fast relationships. The obligation used to come at 30, but now that doesn’t happen: either because you can’t, or because you don’t want to, or both. And none of it is free, neither financially nor emotionally.
Young people also pray the rosary in Ferraz [sede del PSOE en Madrid] against amnesty. Perhaps generations have to do with both class and age.
You have found Pandora’s Box. They want to sell us that there is a middle class because you have an iPhone, and no. You are your context. They see their privileges threatened and, in their opinion, try to defend them. It’s good that they’ve discovered social movements, but I think they don’t go out so much to demonstrate, but rather to let off steam and laugh.
Would you go for a drink with them?
Naturally. I go out for drinks with absolutely anyone. I am a humanist and I want us all to be able to reconcile through words. I look at Ferraz’s with a look like I’m in a zoo. Of course I would go out with them, not just for laughs, but because I want to understand them and for them to understand me.
In other words, it doesn’t “cancel” distinguished people.
The posh people are my favorite tribe in the city. They know how to have fun like no one else. At the moment I am in a privileged economic situation, having experienced precarious circumstances since I left home due to disagreements with my parents at 18, but I am not outclassed. Now when I go to one of these uber fancy restaurants I love them and I’m like, how can you not hide that, you bastards?
Why isn’t it declassified?
Because I care about the rest of the social fabric and I use my speaker to continue to bring things that seem very important to me into the public debate. What’s classic is that the rest of you start sweating.
Aren’t you fed up with so much activism?
No, I carry it in the pit of my stomach. It also depends on the season. After the elections I was devastated. But I can’t give up, it has to do with my personality. It would be impossible for me not to report something unfair. Of course at the weekend I talk about rags, or about boys, or about a series. But there is always something that makes you jump. I sometimes say to myself: I’m giving up. I’m already sorry.
Inés Hernand, on the handlebars of one of the electric scooters that proliferate in the center of Madrid, where she lives.Bernardo Perez
From 0 to 10, what is your level of cell phone addiction?
I can’t give you a 10 because I use it a lot to stay connected for work, but I can give you a 6 or 7. Now we are slaves to it, it dominates our cravings because the algorithm is designed to give you brain functions Doritos, and get you addicted. Therefore it shows us desirable bodies, desirable goods, desirable relationships. The revolutionary thing is to see each other, stay, touch each other. At the moment I’m single, as soon as I see that someone might interest me in an application or a social network, I prefer to meet up, because between the Botox and the filters we lose each other.
How close do you care about the image?
I’m not a stranger. The yoke of aesthetics is very deceptive. There have always been beautiful and ugly ones. I have a big butt and no matter how many surgeries I have, I won’t be able to get a certain body. But I am an advocate of aesthetics and I also tell you: if your frown or rictus bothers you, take Botox or acid before spending $50,000 on therapy, but don’t stop therapy when you need it. Neither Botox nor acid will cure you. More friends and less Botox.
Did you get along with Mercedes Milá, your partner in I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About, despite their 40-year age difference?
Wow, Mercedes has a very strong aura. She is extremely intelligent and while she tirelessly scans what is in front of her, she is loving and generous. Beyond this professional association on Spanish television, I will make Mercedes a friend for life.
Well, you will always have a law degree as your “Plan B”.
Now my membership card is like having a Toni 2 coaster with me [célebre local de copas de Madrid] in the portfolio. It helped me understand the Ferraz children because I lived with them in college, and to know how to read reality and society, everyone should take some law in all majors…
Do you get along better with your parents now that you’re older?
The truth is: no. In the early stages of my life, there were situations of abandonment, of feeling that I was not their priority, and I made the decision that seemed the least painful to me: not having contact with them for seven years. I need to protect myself and get away from something that is harming me. I don’t want to have anything to do with these people now or in the future. As they get older and the severe downturn occurs, we want to see how we can address the problem in the most aseptic way possible. It sounds terrible to have to talk about parents like that, but it is reality because they have not done the same with their responsibilities towards their daughter.
I cry when I hear it.
They would suit me too. Man is selfish, we have to analyze ourselves, these people didn’t work for it and believe that everyone is guilty except them. . In return, I had a great-grandmother. And I have built a family of friends from childhood to now.
How much did the therapy cost you?
About 6,000 euros and four years since I started making money when they hired me at TVE and until now. That was the first thing I did before moving to another apartment: pay for therapy and radiofrequency treatment for cellulite.
Live the contradictions.
I wanted to allow myself this luxury. I am completely imperfect and that is what I think gives me some value. It is impossible not to commit hypocrisy under capitalism. Everything is super hypocritical, everything is disgusting, and if you recognize it, you’re at least on the path to trying to change it.
GENERATIONAL ALLIANCE. Inés Hernand (Madrid, 31 years old) financed her law studies, among other things, by working as an employee at a fast food chain after becoming independent of her parents at the age of 18. She later practiced law “precariously” and gained thousands of followers on her social networks as a legal advocate, political activist and comedian before TVE signed her to the show “Gen PlayZ” on its digital youth platform, where she addresses topics such as Precarity, mental health, feminism or the LGTBI thing. After her popularity skyrocketed as host of the mass phenomenon “Benidorm Fest” and the podcasts “Dulces y Saladas” and “We’ll Come Out Better,” public television has once again chosen her as co-host along with Mercedes Milá. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, a space for interviews, reports and meetings between generations in prime time. That, the audience, is still a mystery.
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