Reid Pope Is the DeuxMoi of T-shirt Entrepreneurship

Thanks to the coronavirus, comedians are now trapped at home like the rest of us, so we decided that while we’re all self-isolating, we’d do something a little different from our usual “Follow Friday� column. Instead of interviewing up-and-coming comedians we love on Twitter, we’re going live on Instagram every week to check in with some of our favorite people in comedy to get a firsthand look at how they’re handling the pandemic. So welcome to our new version of the column, now titled “Follow (From a Safe Distance) Friday.�

This week, I finagled the talented multi-multi-multi-hyphenate Reid Pope (Awf Magazine, Paste, deftly recreating the myriad thirst traps of social-media influencers) into a virtual conversation about how they’re doing so late in the pandemic. They explained to me what New York City is (I’m still not entirely sure), broke down how they ended up wearing so many hats in the Brooklyn comedy world, and gave us some unbeatable advice on how to become an honorary member of any club, school, or identity you want. They also described their motivations behind the verrrrrry specific T-shirts they have for sale: “There are more coming, but right now we have: ‘Martha Stewart Is Kristen Stewart’s Mom’ — this has been a queer theory that I have been spreading all over Brooklyn, and I’m really trying to have it catch on — we have ‘Jessica Simpson Is Bart Simpson’s Mom’ and ‘Emma Stone Is Rolling Stones’s Daughter.’ Things I just feel like people should know.�

You can find Reid on Twitter at @rpopetweets and Instagram at @rpopegram.