Boy George Comments on Online ‘Ogres’ Who Don’t Bring Their Negativity into In-Person Spaces (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Boy George has teamed up with Julien’s Auctions for the ‘BOLD LUXURY: Boy George Edit’ auction

• A portion of the proceeds from the auction, comprised of outfits from theater to arena stages, will benefit MusiCares®

• The British artist, 65, talks about his perception of pop culture and how the internet has skewed the overall pop culture experience

Boy George has too much perspective to be affected by hate.

The British entertainer, 65, recently teamed up with Julien’s Auctions for the  Bold Luxury: Boy George Edit auction, a portion of the proceeds from which will benefit MusiCares®. Speaking with PEOPLE at the preview for the auction at New York City’s Soho Grand Hotel, Boy George opened up about the experience of being a “voyeur of pop culture.”

“We are all, I think, voyeurs of pop culture. We all comment on it, and now we get to do it at alarming speed because we’ve got our own little portable TVs that we take around with us, broadcasting our view of the world, but also taking in quite dangerously a lot of other people’s views of the world. It’s what the internet is. That’s the perceived world,” he shares.

“The actual experience world is a whole other thing, where you rarely encounter the ogres that have been painted to fill your life with fear. You never see any of them. You look everywhere and they’re nowhere to be seen. Then you go back online, ‘Oh, there you are, monster. Hello. I hate you,’ “ he points out. 

George, born George Dowd, points out that his own journey of understanding pop culture was a major factor in his own self-expression journey, which began before he found fame.

“It’s an interesting time because there’s such a big discussion about identity, and I came from the generation that kind of had no money and we had to invent ourselves from cardboard and glitter,” he says. “It was all about using what was available.”

He continued, “It was anything, a dustbin turned upside down, wrap a bit of cloth around it, suddenly you’re Cleopatra and you’re giving this huge vibration of largess, but actually you’re just a little guy from Elton who wanted to be seen.”

Looking back at his own upbringing, George continued, “I posted this thing the other day, ‘If your kids are smart, they know what they are. And if they don’t, the world will tell them.’ And I think that’s definitely true in my case.” 

“I was a little bright-eyed kid, quite feminine-looking, certainly wasn’t interested in soldiers, or not for those reasons. And just basically in love with girls, in love with music, love with Hollywood films, in love with Busby Berkeley and Mae West and Carmen Miranda and all the things exotic and beautiful,” he notes.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“And why not? I mean, that’s a much better world. But of course, I was born into sort of gray suburbia where that sort of thing wasn’t encouraged,” he shares.

“But I would say despite that, I managed to kind of slip through the cracks, like a defiant flower growing through the concrete, and I came out the other end of it with my parents on my side,” George explains. “Even though they weren’t perfect parents, they were open-minded. The whole idea of individuality is a fact. Identity is a fact. It’s not something that even needs to be discussed. Nobody’s the same as anybody else. Ever.”

He concluded, “In fact, I would say that only in a world that is completely diverse could Donald Trump be president and Boy George be a pop style in America. And those two things are a given because of diversity.”

Read the original article on People