The Museum of Pop Culture’s mission is to make creative expression a life-changing force by offering experiences that inspire and connect our communities.
MoPOP Invites Pop Culture Obsessives to First-Ever 'Hot Takes Symposium'
Do you have a strong opinion that’s a little bit ... spicy?
Maybe you believe bananas and cheese belong together, or perhaps you’ve spent hours extolling the virtue of 2019’s Cats to friends and family. MoPOP has just the place for strong opinions loosely held.
We present to you the Hot Takes Symposium: our new virtual program where fans can convene to discuss and defend their strangest points of view to an indifferent moderator. It all takes place online at 6 p.m. PT on Saturday, April 24.
Hot Takes Symposium Topics:
-
Early 2000s Fashion vs. Everything Else — Britney and Justin in matching denim. Keira Knightly in the lowest of low-rise jeans. Lil’ Kim’s scandalous pasties. This is just a snapshot of some of the most iconic early aughts fashion moments. Has anything held a candle to that moment in fashion history since? We aim to answer that very question.
-
Old Klingon Design vs. New Klingon Design: Who Did It Best? — Even for those who don’t consider themselves Trekkies, Klingons are some of the most recognizable characters in the Star Trek universe. Recently, these ridge-faced extraterrestrials got an update. Is their new look an upgrade? Or should we engage hyperspeed and go back in time a few years?
-
Frequency vs. Every Action Movie from the Year 2000 — Fashion wasn’t the only thing the 2000s had on lock. It was also a golden era of action movies. We’re going to do a deep dive into one of the seminal 2000s flicks, Frequency starring Dennis Quaid. Best action movie ever, or dated trash?
Hot Takes Symposium Presenters
Eucalypstick
Host and Moderator
Eucalypstick, Ph.D. (Doctor of Rectal Studies), will be hosting this Hot Takes Symposium. The president and founder of the Society of Professional Poopy Ladies, and a voting member of the Associated Council of Hot Pieces of Ass, Eucalypstick has spent her career tirelessly advocating for extreme sexiness in academia. Despite being a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Humana Humana AWOOOOGA — among countless other glamorous awards and accolades — Eucalypstick’s most illustrious title is that of mother to her zero beautiful children.
Natasha Ransom
PowerPoint Presenter | Early 2000s Fashion vs. Everything Else
Natasha Ransom is an education specialist at the Museum of Pop Culture. Her master’s thesis defended why The Muppet Christmas Carol is a perfect film (evidence: Bean Bunny) and Ransom has a penchant for mixing high-brow and low-brow tastes. With obsessions ranging from Clueless and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure to Tokyo Story and Babette’s Feast, she recognizes that sometimes a fine wine pairs best with puffy cheetos. When she isn’t watching movies or crying about Ted Lasso, you can find Ransom co-producing Intersections, a comedy festival focused on equity, inclusion, and representation.
Kwapi Vengesayi
Debate Club Member | Old Klingon Design vs. New Klingon Design: Who Did It Best?
Deemed overqualified by Ancient Aliens casting agents, Kwapi Vengesayi is considered an expert in all things Extra-Terrestrial and their representation in pop culture both imagined and real. Having sent over 300+ consultations via Twitter to directors such as J.J Abrams and M. Night Shyamalan, Vengesayi is confident some of his ideas have made it into numerous movie scripts and storyboards. But being the humble fellow he is, you will not find is name on any of the end credits because he does it for the love of the craft and not the prestige. He is currently in the process of producing a new YouTube reaction channel that will react to YouTubers reacting to people recording and reacting in real-time to UFO sightings.
Jessie Earl
Debate Club Member | Old Klingon Design vs. New Klingon Design: Who Did It Best?
Jessie Earl is a journalist, media critic, video producer and proud nerd. She has produced work for The Advocate, Pride.com, Out Magazine, Microsoft, Skybound Entertainment and more, mainly focusing her work on LGBTQ issues and representation. She has also co-published several works on transgender representation in media. She currently works for the Museum of Pop Culture as a video producer and makes weekly content on queer issues in geek culture on her YouTube channel "Jessie Gender."
Jessica Lane
Debate Club Member | Old Klingon Design vs. New Klingon Design: Who Did It Best?
Jessica Lane is MoPOP’s manager of museum education. She has more than 30 years of Star Trek experience and is the only panelist old enough to have gone to a Star Trek convention when they were still run entirely by the fans. She once received a love letter written in a Klingon dictionary and submitted a script for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Although both submissions were rejected, her passion for Star Trek was not. She joined MoPOP in 2015 and has no problem admitting she cried when she saw the original consoles on display. She is a life-long sci-fi fan who proudly displays her Star Trek cast autographs in her bedroom and hopes we all will live long and prosper.
Shea Suzer
Debate Club Member | Old Klingon Design vs. New Klingon Design: Who Did It Best?
Shea Suzer is a Star Trek scholar known throughout the galaxy. After travelling the dimensions with the Q collective, spending a year meditating at Vulcan, and graduating at the top of her class at Starfleet Academy, she settled at the Starship MoPOP. She reads a lot, watches more, and occasionally writes a terrible poem. Her greatest dream in life is to one day crash an AI by confusing its logic receptors. Shea is still in search for the perfect cup of tea and thinks she ran across it once—but can’t be sure, since she was forced to blink.
Josh Ching
POPx Presenter | Frequency vs. Every Action Movie From the Year 2000
Joshua Ching is a professor in the Richard Wang School of Swashbuckling in Ba Sing Se University where he has been a faculty member since 2015. He is the school’s lead historian, specializing in American Myths and Legends from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Josh is known to be quite the workaholic around campus, constantly immersed in old scriptures, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Dr. Evelyn O’Connell. Other than reading, Josh has been known to enjoy a nice pair of relaxed high water slacks.
Hot Takes Symposium to Include:
The Hot Takes Symposium uses three different formats for pop culture obsessives to air their “hot takes” on their favorite movies, TV shows and more: a PowerPoint Party, Debate Club, and a POPx on the given theme. This highly participatory event also involves PRIZES! Think of it as an intellectual gladiator match where no one dies and you get goodies.
-
PowerPoint Party — Feeling nostalgic for Word art, swipe-in transitions, and clip art of the presentations of yore? Join us for this visual, slide-based discussion of the speaker's hot take.
-
Debate Club — Modeled on the infamous high school debate club. Debates in this format will be between entities in the same pop culture universe (ex. Batman Returns Batsuit vs. Batman Begins Batsuit).
- POPx — Our take on a Ted Talk. A little more academic in nature than our Power Point Party, POPx discussions will focus on topics like conspiracy theories, academia, and more.
Learn more about MoPOP's Hot Takes Symposium + for contests, the latest news, and behind-the-scenes content, be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
If you like what you see, support our work by making a donation or planning a visit to MoPOP today!