This bootlegging project uses American Horror Story as a starting point to explore real-life horror within American culture. I focused on the Cornell 7 case, connecting the disturbing events to the show’s Freak Show season. I altered imagery by placing bootlegged stickers over the faces of the seven men, recontextualizing them as “freaks” to challenge the normalization of harmful behavior. I developed the phrase “Freaks will be Freaks” as a play on “Boys will be Boys,” confronting the way this phrase can be used to excuse unacceptable actions.
To expand the concept, I created a short animation featuring the show’s iconic intro music, imagining it as a social media post, along with a call-to-action flyer encouraging viewers to reject and challenge this behavior. Through these pieces, I used recognizable language from the show to create a provocative commentary on accountability and the ways society responds to harmful actions.