Greetings, internet friends. It's time to meet the Angry Reader of the Week, spotlighting you, the very special readers of this website. Over the years, I've been able to connect with a lot of cool folks, and this is a way of showing some appreciation and attention to the people who help make this blog what it is. This week's Angry Reader is Jes Tom.
Who are you?
I'm Jes Tom. And if you don't know me yet, you will soon.
What are you?
I am a queer, nonbinary trans, 5th generation, multiethnic, Japanese & Chinese American stand up comic. Which means I look like Mulan but move & sound like Kermit the Frog. I'm also an actor and writer. Oh, and my pronouns are they/them. So you can say, "that's Jes, they look like Mulan but move and sound like Kermit the Frog."
Where are you?
I'm in NYC, which I still naively -- and perhaps sacrilegiously, as a West Coast Asian -- believe is the greatest city definitely in this country, and maybe the world. More specifically, I am in Queens, darting back and forth between Woodside and Forest Hills.
Where are you from?
I was born and raised in San Francisco, in the Richmond District, which was once a pan-Asian cultural enclave. White people live there now, and they are very rude.
What do you do?
I make people laugh and sometimes think, when I am very lucky. I go to auditions and try to get people to fall in love with me. I am working on creating more of my own content (maybe you've seen the short I made with Chewy May about Ghost in the Shell?). But if I'm being honest I mostly spend too much time on Twitter.
What are you all about?
Telling the truth. Speculation. Fantasy, science fiction, and horror. And getting to know every queer Asian person ever.
What makes you angry?
Right now I'm really mad about the ways I see East Asian American activists hold ourselves and each other to impossible standards of perfection. I think we reproduce our own traumas about never being good enough, about mistakes meaning total failure, about either being gold or garbage, but with each other in the crosshairs. And that pisses me off. I think of us as a bigass family, and it is our familial responsibility to support and learn from each other -- not to look for reasons to tear each other down. I have this crazy idea that we'll feel better and get more done that way.
