The instinct to edit himself for acceptance would later become the emotional engine of Overcompensating. “It was that time in my life when I felt like I finally re-found myself a little bit, or at least, lit the match of who I actually feel like I am as a person.” But it was a long time before Skinner called himself a comedian. In 2017, he began uploading short, character-driven videos to Instagram and, before long, posts, such as his hyper-specific ‘girl you know from college’ skits and celebrity impressions, began going viral. This period solidified ‘Benny Drama’ – both Skinner’s Instagram handle and online persona – as an internet character brand. “I feel so lucky the internet existed, because it was this place where I got to find my comedic voice, finally perform and not have the iron gates of Hollywood being like, ‘You can’t play this part because of XYZ.’ I was like, ‘No, I am going to play Kourtney Kardashian today, and I’m in control.’”

Overcompensating began as a live show of the same name that Skinner was touring in 2018. “I just kept thinking about this character, Hailee, who was a girl who just got back from abroad that I was playing at the time, which is funny given the journey of that character now,” he says. “I was thinking a lot about this idea of doing so much to remain in the closet and my weird conversations and experiences with women at that time, but then also, the beautiful relationship I had with my best female friend, who kind of allowed me to finally feel like myself a little bit and feel like I couldn’t do a kind of masculine performance, or whatever my straight bit was at the time.” It was Skinner’s agent who first pushed him to try screenwriting. “They were like, ‘You’re writing scripts. Your sketches are scripts. Stop telling yourself you can’t.’” He jotted down the first scene on the Notes app of his phone and became obsessed. “I thought, ‘I could write this forever.’” 

Given the show’s autobiographical undertones, Skinner considered softening or omitting some moments entirely, but ultimately, he felt that would be a disservice. “So, me fishing a condom out of a trash can. I wasn’t proud that I did that, but I also was like – and the messages I’ve received after, I know people don’t want to talk about it publicly – I know these nasty fuckers have done that, too. We’re all in this together.” Of course, it didn’t all happen. “As far as being closeted and the experience of being gay, the feelings are all true, but regarding exact specifics, I want to make a TV show that you’re engaged with, so we need to add some drama. I didn’t do absolutely everything in the show, but it’s been a real journey of exploration of who I am as a gay person, and looking at hard conversations.”

Season one’s near-coming-out moment with his mother and the fan favourite Halloween rejection scene between Benny and Miles required what he calls “a specific headspace” to write. Performing them left him gutted, but also strangely relieved. “The gift and privilege of it is that these things that broke my heart at the time, in reliving them, I’ve stopped judging myself,” he says. “For the past 10 years, I’ve asked myself why I didn’t come out sooner. Like, I was abroad. I could have been a whore. I was in London! I could have ripped through the city. But I’ve now realised I had my reasons, and I think everyone has their reasons for these performative versions of themselves.”

Skinner’s been juggling what to share and what to keep private off-screen, too. He recently announced the end of his publicly adored nine-year relationship with music creative strategist Terrence O’Connor on an episode of Ride, the podcast he co-hosts with Mary Beth Barone. The news sent fans reeling. “I think I’m finding that I like to share specific things through work, using Overcompensating, or my writing, to say what I want to say. But, you know, I’ve been on the internet for so long, and we’ve done well over 100 episodes of Ride. You get to a point where it’s like, ‘I think some things are just meant for me and for my friends and my family,’” Skinner says. “It sounds so therapist, but literally my therapist and I keep saying, ‘I know what my narrative and truth are.’ So if this thing we said on this podcast is then taken to mean XYZ, it’s like, ‘I know who I am and what I meant by it.’” The blurring goes both ways. Skinner’s real-life sister has been asked why she was so mean to him at school (she wasn’t, but where’s the drama in that?). “I’m still making a TV show. For season two, I’ve been really trying not to get in my head too much of like, ‘Everyone will think it’s me.’”