What many might not realize is that the true story of gunnar.app began many years ago in the far-off land of New York City. Before TikTok, before OF, before massive inflation, before human rights really started getting eroded in America... Let’s turn back the clock to the now distant time of 2017, nearly a decade ago.

Gunnar Kortenbach, then a promising up-and-coming web designer, laid the conceptual foundations for gunnar.app as part of a design assignment at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Their coding class project, a personal social network app to rival all social network apps, was presented to a panel of industry insiders. Although Gunnar had been coding websites since they were 11, taking that class they really started to see their potential as a UX designer.

Attendees of the private panel included employees of Meta, then known as Facebook, as well as representatives of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Google, now known as Alphabet. Gunnar showed off the working prototypes of their new app that would change the world to everyone who mattered in the industry. Everyone in attendance agreed that Gunnar was an amazing web designer and was clearly very tech savvy. Everyone promised Gunnar would have a fabulous career in the design and technology industries. Then everything changed.

All throughout college at The Cooper Union, America’s best art school in New York’s East Village, Gunnar worked studiously on their app concept. Their final round of design revisions was just being worked on when the crisis of 2020 hit. Because of circumstances entirely outside of their control, Gunnar was exiled from Brooklyn pop punk stardom to permanent “vacation” in Miami, FL.

As if that wasn’t enough trauma for Gunnar, a then punk scene queen who had previously hung out in the green rooms of every music venue in Brooklyn, now they couldn’t even drive to escape their situation. Gunnar had never learned to drive because they were always supposed to live in New York City. Trapped at home in Miami with nowhere to go, cyberattack after cyberattack was launched against Gunnar’s then fledgling influencer career. After Gunnar received the grand prize for their Pride Month skincare commercial for Bliss World and The Trevor Project, a jealous ex-classmate (re: narcissist) launched a smear campaign against Gunnar which took over the East Coast of the United States. 

Privileged white girls from top northeast liberal arts schools, trust fund punks, RISD students, communists, and others who were easily baited from across the country rallied in Gunnar’s comments and DMs. "Protestors" which included the children of the founders of Fortune 500 companies, television media empires, and pharmaceuticals. All of these one percenters, trust fund kids, and other grifters and “guilters” attacked Gunnar, sending dozens of threatening messages and hundreds of comments.

The haters attacked Gunnar for their beauty, their skill, their artistry, their stardom, and their talent. On the Fourth of July 2020, as fireworks exploded in the sky over their historic Miami home, Gunnar sobbed on the couch for their sorrows, as well as the hundreds of cruel comments and harassment DMs that had been sent to them that day. Meanwhile, Gunnar’s attackers celebrated victory in their seaside millionaire mansions.

What nobody ever knew was the truth. Gunnar had been told to do what had happened that July, by the very people who had attacked them. It was in fact, an inside job. Each person involved in the conspiracy had triangulated Gunnar behind their back, which is a very common technique used in cultic and narcissistic abuse. One person had told Gunnar to make the shirt, one person told Gunnar to make it for a certain charity, one person told Gunnar to post it to Instagram. Of course, the narcissist had been threatening Gunnar the whole time via DM, at every step. Then everyone involved switched their story as soon as the public attack began. All the sudden everything Gunnar had been told to do by the narcissist's cronies, very specifically, was all claimed to be Gunnar's idea.

What nobody had told Gunnar, was that actually the so-called charity was founded by the plotting narcissist themselves, as well as a person tied to the South American politician Maduro. Yes, not only had Gunnar been tricked into raising money for their longtime bully and was subsequently had been punished for it, but the whole thing was also possibly linked to foreign government interference. (In 2026 Trump himself kidnapped Maduro from his country for unknown but perhaps in some way related events.)

All of the English language in 2020 had been so corrupted in advance by punitive cultic rhetoric (called thought terminating clichés, look it up) that Gunnar couldn’t find the right words to tell everyone what had really happened. Two examples of early thought terminating clichés created for dissemination were "beach pics" and "going to brunch," both of which meant you weren't supposedly a good 'activist' or member of the 'revolution' of mass cyber bullying. Given that Gunnar was famous for their New York brunches, and at the time all there was safe to do in Miami was go to the beach, the national controversy was very specifically targeted.

Being trapped in a cycle of having to ‘explain’ the abuse you have experienced is one way psychopaths and narcissists try to manipulate you and keep you trapped in the cycle. In Gunnar’s situation there was no way to even leave the house let alone tell the true story. The whole experience was so traumatic in so many ways for Gunnar and their self image that they had to take a break from the public eye. Years of attempts at healing followed, however the abuses kept coming.

Through a series of humiliation rituals, cultic corporate employers, and narcissistic abusers, Gunnar lost all direction. Trapped in subtropical hell in an invisible prison of rhetoric and perception whose bars were inescapable, Gunnar did what they could to survive. Although Gunnar knew they were the inventor of the future, all they could do was shelter within their own mind from all of the storms of the outside world.

Gunnar built an entire private world in their exile, one of mountains and valleys, places and people. The haters who had once disguised themselves as friends told Gunnar she was just digging herself deeper, but at the bottom of the pit flowers bloomed. Gunnar tended their garden and created a paradise outside of time, where nature worked with their hand and time to create the ecology of the future. Entire empires rose and fell as Gunnar stayed the same. Not exactly quiet, not exactly loud, not exactly present, not exactly gone. Gunnar was in limbo. All of these worldly things they nurtured into being, crafting a lonely paradise on earth, but still nothing was ever quite right. 

The fact was that everyone lied. Nobody ever told the truth to Gunnar and everything was but a world of illusions. All was but shadows on the cave wall in which Gunnar been locked with everyone else. It sometimes comforted Gunnar to reason that it had all been some giant conspiracy to take their throne, which is still in many ways true. But honestly, bigotry happens for many reasons but most often by ignorant accident. Whether all that had transpired really was an evil plot conducted by global superpowers, or just the way transmisogyny functions in our society, the results were still the same.

Whether on purpose or by accident, Gunnar had been totally trapped in a life that wasn’t meant to be hers. In a conservative state run by plutocrats, in a city of people who have forgotten history, constantly lorded over by ex-military managers, narcissistic scene queens, and plotting club owners. Hair fried by the 99% humidity, skin reddened by the scalding sun, hair pulled out by jealous narcissists, boiling 90 degree weather, and pointed at constantly by the supremely ignorant, gaslit by everyone everyday. Gunnar had to find a way out.

On a stroke of luck, in December 2025 Gunnar encountered the opportunity to buy Little Richard, their famous car, from a local HVAC repair man in Miami. At the time Gunnar didn’t know Little Richard was famous, but it turns out he is the exact car from the cartoon American Dad. With Little Richard’s help, Gunnar started their antique market business to help their family, and in the process finally gained wealth potential independent of the controlling and greedy capitalist overlords. Because the Lincoln Road Antique Market is only seasonal, Gunnar knew they needed to find a new way to advance their career. When a certain travel sale occurred, Gunnar knew as if by divine intervention what to do next.

It was finally time for Gunnar's famous train trip. When they left Florida on world tour around America, going from city-to-city and coast-to-coast, Gunnar met some of the most amazing people that America has to offer. Gunnar experienced real life for the first time in years, freedom of expression and of mind. Freedom not just to choose, but to live and travel as one wished. They knew that this freedom was just temporary and for the moment, and that they had to save up as much of the memory of it as they could. Gunnar dutifully lived life to the fullest, in secret, recording everything, all around America, knowing there was some secret danger ahead. Gunnar was living for the moment as well as the future as they brought a new reality into being for the first time.

Towards the end of their American tour, Gunnar’s sneaking suspicion of threat turned out to be correct. While they had previously been gaslighted by a certain Miami DJ that they were in no danger whatsoever, Gunnar had a hunch that something bad was going to happen. While on the second-to-last stop of their Doll of America Tour, Gunnar foolishly posted that they were attending GA at a music festival in Chicago. Within an hour or two of posting that Instagram story Gunnar was physically assaulted in the GA mosh pit for EssDeeKid. As the music loudly played and fireballs exploded onstage, Gunnar was first jabbed with an elbow up into her chest cavity, and then punched repeatedly in the ribs by possibly up to five white girls at the same time. 

The scene was so crazy that Gunnar was disoriented by the physical assault. The music was so loud and the crowd was more packed than a can of sardines. It was hard to figure out where all of this sudden pain and injury was coming from. Seemingly every other minute Gunnar's hair was being yanked back so hard that all they could do was look up at the sky at EssDeeKid in agony. Gunnar looked down and all the sudden saw five small fists punching them in the ribs at once. WTF! Finally Gunnar turned to the girls and said, “will whoever is punching me in the ribs please stop?” To which the girls’ response was simply, “you’re just so big.”

While vague the statement does ring true regardless, Gunnar is just big in so many ways! Not only a giantess, Gunnar is a global superstar, an icon, a celebrity, an artist, a designer, a model, a singer, an actress, and so much more! A naturally beautiful superstar like Gunnar had no business attending a concert in GA and honestly she should have known better. Gunnar had even asked the rapper she was secretly in contact with playing the festival to get her VIP, but he hadn't done so, instead parading his girlfriend around on the stage to spite Gunnar. As a result, Gunnar had been entirely unprotected from violent physical harm when that time came. Perhaps the attackers were fans of his girlfriend, who really knows.

So many adventures and fabulous stories occurred on Gunnar’s famous trip around the country that Gunnar realized that there was too much content for just Instagram. No single video, photo, caption, or essay could convey the life-changing events and realizations Gunnar had experienced on tour around America. No one video could ever impart the wisdom of the Universe that Gunnar had personally witnessed through their story.

There were so many hating hoaxes lurking on Gunnar’s Instagram (@gunnar.rhea) always watching stories, replaying reels, and reading Gunnar’s comment section for controversy. Although Gunnar really is of the opinion that all press is good press, at the end of the day who wants to waste time and effort on a bunch of haters who don’t pay your bills? Gunnar decided it was time to laugh all the way to the bank, and give the haters something to really write about!

In a flash of insight while pondering how to rescue their bank account from extreme broke-ness, Gunnar had a revelation, which is not uncommon. Those who know Gunnar are fully aware that Gunnar has revelations around the clock, so this really comes as no shock. What Gunnar realized is that they had already invented the means of their salvation many years ago, in the form of a personal parasocial network called gunnar.app - YES where you are reading this now!!

Gunnar finally did it. After years of torment, psychological manipulation, MKUltra levels of gaslighting, being drugged, beaten, screamed at, persecuted, assaulted, accused, abjected, and exiled, Gunnar finally did it! That beautiful dream they had so very long ago, so long that they had almost forgotten. After years of knock-offs, degradation at the hands of the capitalists, targeted smear campaigns, and human rights violations, Gunnar finally rose above their horrendous conditions with only 89 cents left in their bank account.

Sometimes we have to find the very lowest point in order to take off into the sky. You see, Gunnar may be skinny but she is naturally bouyant and will always rise to the occasion. Gunnar often gets much higher than the occasion even allows! So, what now? As you read this, Gunnar is flying up into the sky, higher than ever before. Gunnar is so high I would say they could touch the stars, but everyone knows Gunnar has already touched a few of those…

The facts are a star belongs in the sky, and if you build it they will come. Gunnar has transformed, some would say crystallized, from punk to electronic, from club kid to booth babe, from influencer to celebrity, from reject to superstar. One person can be so many things and live so many lives. So why be limited to just one? Limited to pictures? To videos? To drawings? Gunnar deserves an entire universe and they will have it no matter what.

Introducing gunnar.app, the place for all people, places, and things, LIVE from the world of Gunnar! 💅