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" There&amp;#039;s certainly no shortage of meme accounts on Instagram but in a sea of funny squares, Violet Benson of @DaddyIssues_ manages to stand out. Benson&amp;#039;s hilariously self-deprecating and often blunt, female-driven memes make her feel like one of your closest girlfriends\u2014the kind that truly understands how you can drink a bottle of wine by yourself and isn&amp;#039;t afraid to crack a joke about your pathetic dating life (or lack thereof).  The 27-year-old meme queen launched her account just two years ago and has since racked up over 3.4 million followers\u2014whom she dotingly refers to as her &amp;quot;Daddy Issues Family.&amp;quot; So after those followers started leaving comments declaring, &amp;quot;you should have your own wine!&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I want to drink wine with you!&amp;quot; Benson decided to take action in a way that made the most sense: by launching her own wine brand, of course.  Labeled &amp;quot;Fun Wine Co.&amp;quot; (a name that makes perfect sense if you follow Daddy Issues on Instagram and Snapchat), Benson&amp;#039;s new line includes a red, white and an Instagram-ready ros\u00E9 served up in what looks like an adult juice box (because who doesn&amp;#039;t want to sip ros\u00E9 from a straw?).  Benson talked to BAZAAR about her new Fun Wine, the art of memes and how she&amp;#039;s taking back the term &amp;quot;daddy issues.&amp;quot;  Harper&amp;#039;s BAZAAR: How does one go from running an Instagram meme account to launching their own wine label? Violet Benson: Well, obviously when I first started out my Instagram that was not the end goal for me, but I think the more I&amp;#039;ve been evolving as a brand, the more I&amp;#039;m making moves that I think are right for my brand. So, my followers\u2014my Daddy Issues Family\u2014were always saying to me, &amp;quot;you should have your own wine line&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;if you had your own wine we would totally buy it!&amp;quot; So eventually I was like, you know, why not? HB: I love that you call them your Daddy Issues Family, that&amp;#039;s amazing.  VB: I don&amp;#039;t like to use the word fans and &amp;quot;friends&amp;quot; just seems really fake because there&amp;#039;s millions of them and in real life I literally have like three friends, so obviously you&amp;#039;d know I&amp;#039;m lying. So &amp;quot;family&amp;quot; just makes more sense for me to say, I like that; it feels closer.  HB: So tell me a little bit about Fun Wine Co., how is your Instagram and the Daddy Issues brand reflected in the wine?  VB: Well, the name itself! Anybody that drinks it can get the hint that, you know, alcohol is pretty fun. I&amp;#039;ve always said that.  HB: That&amp;#039;s always the motto.  VB: Exactly, so it just makes sense. I just thought, we use the word &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; so often I think it just makes sense versus I&amp;#039;m going to use a lot of really trendy words\u2014that all go away eventually. And I think they&amp;#039;re also offensive. Like, if I called the wine &amp;quot;F*ck Boy&amp;quot;or &amp;quot;Sugar Tits&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Daddy Issues&amp;quot; I think it may turn off a lot of people. I think those are funny in a meme or a tweet, but probably not for wine. Um, what was the question again? Right! You know, the Daddy Issue account and actual brand is so much about drinking and wine that it just makes sense that I have my own, why not?           ITS OFFICIAL!! I CREATED my own fucking WINE with @funwineco so now u can blame ME for all ur bad decisions!! LINK IN BIO TO BUY \u2B06\uFE0F &#127863;&#127881;\u2764\uFE0F Red, White n Rose! A photo posted by Violet Benson (@daddyissues_) on Jul 18, 2016 at 1:20pm PDT     HB: I love how the ros\u00E9 is served in a little personal bottle with a straw.  VB: That&amp;#039;s actually my favorite one! I feel like I drink more when I sip from a straw versus from the bottle itself. And it makes me feel classier.  HB: You&amp;#039;ve obviously mastered the art of having fun, what&amp;#039;s the number one key to making sure you do so while drinking wine? VB: Don&amp;#039;t drive! That&amp;#039;s the best way you can have fun is not to get behind the wheel. I never encourage anyone to drink and drive. The second best thing to have fun while you&amp;#039;re drinking wine is to be with people you really like; that&amp;#039;s the ultimate key regardless of what you&amp;#039;re actually doing. I think that some people think you have to go clubbing, get a table and all of that, but that&amp;#039;s not how you have fun. That can still be depressing\u2014I would know. If you&amp;#039;re close to being thirty and you&amp;#039;re at a club, you may reevaluate what you&amp;#039;re doing with your life and if you&amp;#039;re single, you&amp;#039;re like &amp;quot;why am I here?&amp;quot; Hahaha, sorry, that&amp;#039;s more for my therapist.  HB: Is there any specific celebrity or social media star that you would love to see drinking Fun Wine? VB: There are a few. I don&amp;#039;t get starstruck unless it&amp;#039;s female comedians that I look up to. So, obviously, Chelsea Handler would be the dream... I mean even if she sat next to me! You know, when I was younger and I used to watch Chelsea Lately, I once wrote her a letter that I wanted to mail her and then I got so scared and threw it out. But the letter was like, &amp;quot;I feel like you&amp;#039;re my mom, I think one day you got really drunk and you had me as a baby and you threw me in the dumpster.&amp;quot; [Laughs] because that&amp;#039;s just me but I never sent it to her though because I was scared she would make fun of me and read it on her show. And my emotions just could&amp;#039;t handle that, you know? But she&amp;#039;s definitely number one. Other females would be Kristen Wiig or Amy Schumer because Amy Schumer just makes sense.   HB: What platform do you think has been the best in helping to establish your brand, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat? VB: Definitely Instagram since that&amp;#039;s how Daddy Issues was born. But if you ask me what&amp;#039;s my favorite platform, it&amp;#039;s probably Snapchat because Snapchat, no one can &amp;quot;like&amp;quot;, I can literally post something and no one can respond to me. And I kind of like that. Or likes, you don&amp;#039;t have to worry about how many people are liking this or how many people are commenting. Or if someone is going to bully me, I can just be me and not have to worry. But Instagram obviously I&amp;#039;m thankful for because that&amp;#039;s how my brand got noticed.  HB: What&amp;#039;s a secret to killing it on Instagram whether someone wants to start their own meme account, or just get their own personal brand out there? VB: I think it&amp;#039;s figuring out what your brand is and being true to yourself. As long as you&amp;#039;re true and honest to yourself with your brand, I think you&amp;#039;ll figure out how to make it your own. It needs to be your own voice and you need to make it real, I&amp;#039;m talking about like any type of brand, you have to think, &amp;quot;how am I going to stand out? How am I unique?&amp;quot; And you&amp;#039;re usually unique by being you. So I think with meme accounts who sound like me, yeah they can be successful in the beginning, but eventually, they&amp;#039;re going to be repeating themselves because they&amp;#039;re not being authentic and they&amp;#039;re just sounding like me over and over and over again.  HB: What&amp;#039;s one thing people who follow you on social media would be surprised to know about you in real life? VB: I do post memes of being awkward with boys, but I feel like people don&amp;#039;t actually believe me. So I think they would be surprised about that, maybe? That I&amp;#039;m really awkward with boys and I rarely date and I don&amp;#039;t go out as much, at all, I kind of just stay home a lot. I definitely think when I meet people they&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;LET&amp;#039;S GET WASTED,&amp;quot; and I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;Ummm, no!&amp;quot; Also, people would maybe be surprised that I&amp;#039;m not from here, I wasn&amp;#039;t born in the U.S. HB: Where are you originally from? VB: Russia and Israel, I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.  HB: How long have you been living in the U.S.? VB: Since I was fourteen....so about 2 years now [laughs].           The guy you can&amp;#039;t stop thinking about is currently texting 9 other girls &#128530; So instead of crying, go buy some of MY WINE (LINK IN BIO \u2B06\uFE0F) and move the fuck on. #FunWine #BUYMYWINE #LINKINBIO \u2B06\uFE0F A photo posted by Violet Benson (@daddyissues_) on Jul 18, 2016 at 7:12pm PDT     HB: Your whole brand has kind of made people rethink the term &amp;quot;Daddy Issues,&amp;quot; you&amp;#039;re kind of using that negative phrase in an empowering way for women. What are some ways you think that other women can embrace their daddy issues? VB: Well, I feel like in the past when people looked at daddy issues, it was something to look down on and people maybe wouldn&amp;#039;t talk about it as much. Or men would put it down, you know, daddy issues means you&amp;#039;re a slut. I feel like I&amp;#039;m able to empower women by saying...A) you don&amp;#039;t have to categorize yourself\u2014you don&amp;#039;t have to have one specific type of daddy issue, B) it&amp;#039;s okay to talk about having daddy issues, it&amp;#039;s normal. Everyone grows up with some type of issues. And C) it&amp;#039;s okay to laugh about it. I think that&amp;#039;s the best way to get over something is if you laugh about it. And I think talking through my own daddy issues has helped other people feel like they&amp;#039;re not alone and they can work through it. Because one thing, you know, if relationships don&amp;#039;t work out for me, I sit and I write about it and I try to figure out how I can make myself better. Like I don&amp;#039;t sit around and blame my daddy issues for every bad move that happens in my life. HB: And you&amp;#039;re really an advocate on social media for women doing their own thing and not worrying about being labeled a &amp;quot;slut.&amp;quot; VB: Yeah, that really bothers me, I HATE slut-shaming. For me, I don&amp;#039;t go out and f*ck a ton guys but I&amp;#039;ve said it before, it&amp;#039;s only because of my type of daddy issues that I get emotionally attached right away. So if I slept with a stranger I would just be sitting on their bed or even while they are inside of me I&amp;#039;d be like, &amp;quot;so, what are we?&amp;quot; That is totally something I would do and that&amp;#039;s why I don&amp;#039;t go around sleeping around but I also don&amp;#039;t judge girls who do that, I wish I could do that. Don&amp;#039;t blame your issues for anything you&amp;#039;re doing between your legs, be proud of whatever you are doing. Just do you. HB: And let&amp;#039;s part things on a wine-related note, because duh. What kind of wine is Fun Wine Co. going to be doing? VB: There&amp;#039;s a red, a white and ros\u00E9, which is perfect for summer. And it&amp;#039;s just so easy to drink, for me the ros\u00E9 tastes just like candy. HB: And what better way than to sip it through a straw? VB: I totally agree.  Watch Violet demonstrate how to (sort of) open a bottle of Fun wine and then the two best ways to drink it:        "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a16775/daddy-issues-violet-benson-fun-wine/>