Welcome To Megan Newsletter #25 - Extremely Jewish Edition!
In this newsletter you will find:
An interview with the amazing H. Alan Scott. H. Alan Scott is a writer/comedian based in Los Angeles. Scott appeared on The Jimmy Kimmel Show, Ellen, CNN, Fusion and MTV. Scott has also written for TV Land, VICE, Fusion, OUT Magazine, Newsweek, and is the subject of the documentary Latter Day Jew (watch the trailer).
A little thing that I wrote for Passover (which is coming up this week). I was asked to contribute to an artist’s Haggadah and assigned Yachatz/Afikomen. Thought I’d include it here for my Jews.
My normal wrap-up/news about what’s going on with me.
TRAP #92 - H. Alan Scott
As some of you may remember, I spent the first half of 2020 quarantine recreating 100+ gay thirst traps. To refresh your memory, HERE is a PAPER Magazine article where I go into more detail about the project. I’ve decided to continue exploring this world, interviewing some of the people I satirized. This week, I talk to H. Alan Scott. Enjoy!
In one sentence, how would you describe yourself and the work that you do? I’m a writer, comedian, drag queen and Kathy Bates’ biggest fan.
Define a thirst trap in your own words. A thirst trap is a picture or post meant to fundamentally tease the viewer into responding in a salacious or tongue in cheek way.
How did you feel (honestly) when you first saw that you were tagged in my photo/ parodied? Honored! Let’s be real, thirst traps are about attention, so any attention (positive or negative) fully serves the initial intent of the original post.
Did you feel good after posting it/getting engagement? Nah, I was still broke and probably out of work at the time. Like my naked ass isn’t paying off my cancer medical debt, so who cares.
What moves you about the trap? That for a rare moment I was able to show a profile pic of myself and not look pregnant.
What makes you laugh? That I think I didn’t look pregnant in the pic.
Was this a first take? There were like 4 takes, to lessen the impact of said pregnancy.
Will it hold up in 5 years? No, I’ve had 7 children since this picture was taken, my body is now a nightmare.
Did you post your photo in hopes that a certain person or a couple of people would see it and react? To “intentionally trap” someone so to speak? I posted it as a joke, just like any other thirst trap I post. I used nudity to get a response from people with a stupid caption. If it resulted in a response from someone wanting to see my shmekel, cool, but that never really is the intent. At the end of the day I post for me, I could care less about people’s reactions to it.
What is your honest opinion about Instagay thirst traps? Do you feel there’s a power to them? A perversity? A danger? Well I would say mine come from a place of humor, sometimes making fun of Instagays, so my opinion of Instagays isn’t exactly stellar (particularly ones that take themselves so seriously). At the end of the day, you’re posting your naked filtered ass on an app owned by Mark Zuckerberg, so you really gotta be able to laugh at it. The Instagays who turn a post that obviously is begging for attention into some sort of “message” post or political statement deserve every bit of roasting they get, because like, coopting a narrative (particularly narratives of marginalized communities) just ain’t a good look.
What is your honest opinion about parody, satire, and queer reading/roasting? Do you feel there’s a power to it? A danger? Where’s the line? You can roast someone for posting a vain pic and not like personally attack them. It’s all about intent. If you’re so sensitive to public reaction to thirsty pics, don’t have a public profile (but like, going private almost defeats the purpose of posting the pic in the first place). It’s a vicious cycle. All that said, if you’re upfront about it, cool, be sexy and show your ass. If you’re showing your ass and are like using a larger social issue as a means to get likes on a pic of your naked ass, girl bye, ya deserve the roasting.
What’s next? How will the thirst trap and Instagay economy evolve? Will it? Or are we forever stuck in this current iteration of trap-reality? Trap-reality has and will always be here, whether on social media or as some like social hierarchy. Which is why taking it so seriously is dumb. Like, make fun of it, laugh at it.
Favorite or least favorite Instagay/celebrity thirst trap(s) and why? As a drag queen, I’ll never, ever post a trust trap to my drag account. I hate it when queens do that. My fave Instagay is Max Emerson, because he’s in on the joke and lets me make fun of him.
Anything else you want the world to know? I regret everything.
Yachatz + Afikomen
*Campy Voice* THREE Matzahs stand before us. But only ONE will be cracked in half and hidden for later (the middle one).
As we break the unleavened bread, we are reminded that it is the bread of poverty which our ancestors made in the land of Egypt. A bread made with haste as they fled oppressive circumstances. This year, like most years, it also holds the weight of those who could not get out or are still running.
There is no prayer that goes with Yachatz. It is supposed to be a time of silent reflection. We’ve had a shit-load of time for that this year... we’ve broken ourselves off from the world– from friends, family, and loved ones... we’ve sheltered ourselves in small apartments and had plenty of time to make bread that rises all the way... I’ve done so much reflecting on who we are and what we’re doing on this insane-and-sometimes-amazing-but-currently-facacata planet that I feel like I’m going to explode.
In this sense, Passover and Yachatz may feel redundant. BUT! As I previously mentioned in my hopefully recognizable Drag Race/America’s Next Top Model reference at the top, Yachatz is ALSO about hopefulness and re-discovery. It’s about breaking and hiding with the knowledge that we will be returning to the broken piece later on (...even if the person who hides it, let’s say your grandpa, forgets where he hid it and it takes an extra 20 minutes to locate meanwhile your grandma has already jumped to the worst case scenario deciding you’ll never find it and it will rot in the wherever-it-is space causing giant rats and bugs infest the house forever and ever until everyone dies).
Finding a broken piece of matzah is cool (mostly because it’s been stuffed in a bookshelf and covered in dust and one of your cousins is going to dare your other cousin to eat it), but the anticipation? Is thrilling. Which proves that waiting, yearning, hoping, and preparing can be enjoyable. Something that I feel we, as Jews, often forget. Worry is very Jewish. But, as demonstrated by the afikomen, so is a childlike wonder for what’s next. A desire to search and hope and find.
In her recent essay, “No I'm Not Ready”, author Anne Helen Petersen writes about her anxiety surrounding our collective return to post-COVID “real world”: “It’s going to feel periodically awful in new ways… but it’s also going to be amazing… Our post-pandemic selves will contain multitudes.”
We’re at a period of breakage, but there are also big things that have been wrapped up and hidden away for a beautiful and rewarding discovery down the line.As we break the middle matzah, let’s guide healthy Jewish wonder and anticipation out of the shadows. What have you discovered in the breakage that you’re excited to carry forward? What are you excited to discover/re-discover? How will you continue to give yourself breaks even as the world returns?
Oh, and good luck finding the Afikomen … * Campy Voice* May the best Jew? Win!
Thank you for reading! Apologies for any type-o’s. I canonically write this the night before I send it out. Wanna read older newsletters? Sad essays? Funny jokes? It’s different every week, baby! Click here for the archive.
You can still fill out this survey with your thoughts, questions, topics you want me to write about, etc!
-Meg
Social- @megspope@mpopetweets
Venmo- @mpope-venmo-26
Website- meganpopework.com
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Donate to Danny Yu Chang: Asian Hate Crime Victim
Song Of The Week: The Steps, HAIM
News Of The Week: I got into an MFA program! Woohoo!
Laugh Of The Week: I was a reader/judge for the Bay Area Jewish Plays Project (on Zoom). 30 minutes in, a woman’s pet bird flew into frame, landed on her, and continued to climb all over her stomach and shoulders for the rest of the session. This whole thing went completely unaddressed. I had to do everything I could to hold in my laughter. WHY DID NOBODY ADDRESS IT?
