Meme Girls is almost traditional cabaret. There’s music and there’s stories. The stories just happen to be material from YouTube.

The reason YouTube is huge is that people are connecting with it. And if they’re connecting with it there is something there, something really powerful; people just wanting to be seen, standing up and telling you a story.

YouTube is a strange world. I really like watching fails. I don’t know why. Fail Army is the channel I watch and it’s just essentially people hurting themselves.

I didn’t come to YouTube to have an epiphany. I came to laugh at straight boys falling down and yet I have been really moved by these stories and people from all around the world. Suddenly I’m seeing into worlds I could never see into before. And as much as they seem like they’re all different to me, it proves once again that we’re more alike than we are different.

It is a hard show to explain. Just picture a night where Maggie Smith comes out and does the great women of Shakespeare. It’s just like that, except Maggie Smith is Ash Flanders and Shakespeare is the world of YouTube.

I’ve made friends online that I’m still really good friends with. My boyfriend and I met when he sent me a message on Facebook. This is how people interact with each other nowadays. But I think the idea of commodifying your life – in the way some of these people do who are chasing YouTube fame – that can be a darker thing.

At some points you laugh at what YouTube is and this search for fame. On other levels, you see how powerful and incredible the technology is. How it really does give a voice to the voiceless. There’s something so democratic about the idea that anyone who has access to the technology can have their presence felt.

I don’t think an audience needs to know YouTube for this show. You can understand these people’s motivations. You know what it’s like to feel disrespected by a stranger. Or you know what it’s like when no one seems to be supporting you and you’ve fallen through the cracks.

I watch makeup tutorials a lot. I find it very calming. The same way I would watch my mother get ready to go out when I was a kid. There’s something hypnotic about watching someone decide how they want to appear to the world.

People ask me: “Do you love these people or are you making fun of them?” I think those two things are linked. I love my friends but, my god, I make fun of them. I love my family and we tease each other mercilessly. There’s no one in the show that I’ve just put in to go “Look at this idiot!” Even if they’re saying things that are funny, there is a truth to them that you can’t deny.

I hate that idea that you’ve never lived my life so you don’t know what it’s like. That just kills any discussion. I certainly wouldn’t expect that my brother can’t talk to me about life because he’s not gay. You know, I’m not bald ... yet. I’m looking forward to a blonde person yelling at me because I don’t really know what being a blonde is like. It’s a dye job.

I never did vlogs. There was a video of me sitting on a washing machine with my ukulele singing a song called Different from the show HR Pufnstuff, sung by Mama Cass. It’s about “different” is hard, “different” is lonely. I thought: this really speaks to gay kids, so I’m going to put this video out and really help the gay kids. I mean, who do I think I am? Really? Just put a link to Mama Cass. We don’t need you on a washing machine, Ash Flanders!

This show is the closest thing to being in my head. You could say that’s narcissistic but it’s exactly like these YouTube videos. These people are just talking about themselves but there is something in doing that honestly that allows people to connect to something much deeper and universal.

YouTube is like a very intense dinner party, with guests you’ve never met before. Some of them you’re really going to like and some of them you’re going to have a real problem with. And that’s life.

• Meme Girls is at Malthouse theatre, Melbourne until 2 May