What are you doing New Year’s Eve? If you’re doing what you should be, the answer is “not much.” The holidays are looking a little different this year with the pandemic, and while it’s easy enough to be festive when there’s a tree involved, it’s a little less inspiring to count down at midnight with only yourself around to kiss.
Fortunately, there are options for what you can do: There are the old network standbys, like Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper on CNN, and whatever Ryan Seacrest is up to this year for Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve. If all that sounds so-so, though, perhaps consider New Years Queens: Goodbye 2020, an 11-hour livestream event showcasing some of the best drag queens around. Hosted by Miz Cracker, Peppermint, Bob The Drag Queen, Trixie Mattel, Katya, and Alaska, the show will also feature performances from queens like Manila Luzon and the Boulet Brothers, along with eight different New Year’s countdowns—one for each time zone the New Year touches during the stream.
In preparation for the show, we talked to one of our favorite queens, Alaska Thunderfuck 5000. For the video below, we asked her thoughts on New Year’s Eve—specifically the whole “meh” anti-climax of the whole thing. While she’s firmly in the “no big deal” camp, she’s happy to have a mic in her hand this year, when we’re all just looking to say an enthusiastic adios to the nightmare that is 2020.
While we had Alaska, we had to get her thoughts on a few other things, including her new take on “Let It Snow,” which she says was made with the intent of adding new, very gay layers to the old classic. Plus, in her new video, she basically gets to be a sexy Sim, so, bonus!
We also asked the drag star who she’s excited to see on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13, which premieres on VH1 on New Year’s Day. Since she’s been in LA for years, she’s leaning toward the West Coast queens, but there are a few others she’s got her eye on.
Alaska also chatted us up about her podcasting network, Moguls Of Media, which she runs alongside Race Chaser co-host Willam.
Finally, we got Alaska’s thoughts on how the drag industry has been affected by COVID-19. She weighs in on the future of the digital drag space, and on how—even in the face of great adversity—queens have found a way to make it work in 2020.
New Year’s Queens tickets start at $49—a bargain at twice the price—and are available now. Alaska’s podcast, Race Chaser, comes out every Wednesday and Friday.