An Interview With Michael Rios of Queerantine.Me
Staticc is committed to highlighting useful tools to help creatives experiencing hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnnie sat down with Michael Rios of the website Queerantine.Me to discuss the inspiration behind the site, and how it’s helping LGBTQ service industry professionals in Philadelphia and beyond.
Johnnie Ray Kornegay III: Tell us your name, where you're from, and what kind of work you do.
Michael Rios: My name is Michael Rios. I am a resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I work in front end web development as well as freelance photography.
JRKIII: How are you in this current moment right now?
MR: Right now, I'm feeling a little bit tense as I imagine everybody is, but I'm finding ways of getting through the day. Trying to stay positive keeping in touch with friends. Doing a lot of video conferencing with my friends and virtual game nights as well as going for bike rides. Just trying to get some sunlight whenever I can, keeping the windows open.
So even though it's stressful, just trying to keep my head held up high and think.
JRKIII: So if you could tell us a bit about Queerantine.Me and how the idea came about.
MR: So Queerantine.Me is a website that pretty much is a list, a compiled list, of all the different Venmo, CashApp and PayPal accounts for all the different bar staff, restaurant staff, drag performers, burlesque performers and cabaret performers who are displaced right now who don't have the source of income because of COVID-19.
I got the idea … a couple of weeks ago and I was sitting with a friend in the living room … and I thought, you know what, I'm having a drink right now ... if I wasn't sitting here, because of the quarantine, I'd be out at the bar and there'd be a bartender getting a tip right now from this drink. Wouldn't it be cool if there was just an easy way of knowing what would be the Venmo account of my favorite bartender? What if we had just a compiled list? I put a post on Facebook saying that I wonder if anybody would be interested, and ... a lot of people showed interest. So I said, you know, I'm a web developer, let me just make it.
I registered the website Queerantine.Me. I got a GoDaddy account, did the whole a website thing and put it up. And next thing I knew it took off, and I thought it was going to be a small list of just Philadelphia - the Gayborhood here - but it kept getting just a ton of people emailing me, asking to be put on this list. Next thing you know, it's grown right now. We're not just in Philadelphia. It's covering Washington, DC, Dallas, Texas, Austin, Texas, with a couple of requests to expand to other cities as well. That's how the idea formed, and it's actually getting a bit bigger now for me to handle.
I put out a call for help. And a web developer friend in Harrisburg, Michael Kulczyckyj, he owns his own web development firm and … he volunteered the services of his company to help out with the database so people can go in and add their own information on the website. Mike's company is FullStac LLC. They're a company based in Harrisburg ,.. and they specialize in dashboard OEM and database design, which is exactly what I needed to help Queerantine.Me expand so that we can cover multiple cities around the country, even though it's just being maintained by just me and a couple of friends. My best friend, Joel Bautista, he's helping put in the data.
So, a special shout out to these people that are really helping Queerantine.Me expand.
JRKIII: For folks who may not have used it, how does Queerantine.Me work if they were to visit the site?
MR: Now, the way the site works is you go to Queerantine.Me, if you're just a normal person who wants to help donate to somebody in need, you click on the city that you're from and you can navigate either to a specific bar or a find a specific drag performer or burlesque performer, and you'll see their Venmo account or CashApp account listed right there. And then you could just click on the link, it'll open the app and you can make your donation through that way. If you are a person who works in the bar industry or you're a drag performer or you fit into one of these categories and you'd like to have your information listed, right now, you can email me at queerantineme@gmail.com and I'll put you up on the list.
Right now it's just me manually maintaining it, but we are in the process of upgrading the site. It should be released here within a day or two where you can just go on the website, fill out the form, and your information will be automatically posted.
(Note From Staticc: Queerantine.Me has been updated with this form. It can be accessed at https://queerantine.me/add.php)
JRKIII: If I or other folks wanted to support the running of Queerantine.Me or make donations, how could they help?
MR: Right now, if you'd like to support Queerantine.Me, the biggest way is to just go on the website and donate to somebody. If you're sitting at home and you're having a Friday night/Saturday night at home and you're having a drink, you would be tipping a bartender or a server for the dinner that you made. So go on the website, find somebody to tip and give them that few bucks if you can. Otherwise the best way to help Queerantine.Me is to share the links. Just continue to share the URL on Facebook, on Twitter, or however you can get the word out there so that more people know that there's a way to find the information on how to help these people that are out of work in our LGBTQ community.
JRKIII: So what are you doing to take care of yourself right now?
MR: Right now to take care of myself, I'm trying to listen to good music that keeps me happy, keeps the energy getting up there and exercise in my basement. I have some weights, I got my bike, I go out on bike rides. I try to keep moving. Also, cleaning the house. I've been cleaning the house a lot. (laughs) Anything you can just to not stay idle. I think it is important that you're constantly moving around and you don't let yourself get consumed by all the negative energy.
JRKIII: From your perspective, how can creatives make the world a better place right now?
MR: I think right now, more than ever, we're relying on creatives to keep us motivated. It's so easy to be bogged down by all the negativity we see on the news. Just all the notifications coming out about different levels of quarantine and keeping us at home.
So we're relying on digital media right now a lot, and creatives. I'm seeing some inspirational people do some incredible things online - from drag performers putting their shows on Facebook live, to people doing concerts and even virtual reality meetings and things like that. It's just these creatives are finding new genius ways of keeping us from sliding into that dark area and just keeping the light in our world.