19.11.20
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This article is taken from our special print edition Crack Magazine: The Collections, Vol. 1.

Co-founder Casey MQ explains how a group of friends carved out a digital space that became the queer community’s hottest new club. As told to Nathan Ma.

We didn’t know Covid was going to be that big of a thing. We started Club Quarantine with the idea that it was going to be cute, so we’d do it every night for two weeks, but that wasn’t the case, obviously. With each day, we realised that both the pandemic was growing more intense, and that Club Quarantine was becoming a place for people to seek comfort in times of isolation.

Courtesy of Club Quarantine

It started with the four of us on Instagram Live – me, Mingus, Brad and Ceréna Sierra – but quite quickly after the first call, we knew that we wanted to have all of our friends hanging out. We knew each other from club shows in Toronto, or the music and arts and queer scene. There’s a history there, and we wanted to bring everyone together. It was the start of the lockdown and everyone was on Zoom anyway, so the same night we made our page to announce the first Zoom party. It was just a way to say, ‘We’re doing this, come hang!’ But it moved fast, and it pulled a community together. By the second or third night, there were people we didn’t know who joined the call. We realised that it was beyond our imagination when we got an email with a subject line that said “Charli XCX x Club Quarantine”.

Courtesy of Club Quarantine

From the beginning, we knew that this was going to be a queer platform because we’re all queer. There’s a certain feeling of expression that comes from knowing that everyone is in a place where they can be themselves no matter where they are in the world; that they can perform as much or as little as they want to. It’s a space that I think a lot of people have been missing, especially since queer clubs are closed and Pride celebrations were cancelled.

At Club Q, people can come and go as they like by just leaving the chat. It’s not a public space, but it’s still a digital space that is public. It’s also a club space and we knew we would dress to the nines right away. On-screen, though, there’s another level to this: you have your fashion, of course, but you’ve got your lighting, your set, your virtual backgrounds. There can be up to 1000 people on a call at a time, and everyone brings their own worlds to Club Q.

Courtesy of Club Quarantine

I’ve been online all my life, and our strengths really came together working on Club Q. As a musician, I focus on the booking side of things, and Mingus is really great at graphics. Ceréna is head of production, running all things behind the scenes for the parties. Then we have Brad, who loves comedy and content and handles the Instagram page. As the Zoom calls grew, our team did too: Akosua Adasi helps organise our team into shape, and Myst Milano, Allie Graham, Nadia Chopra and Pascale Mendes joined us as well. The organisational help really allowed us to use our platform more effectively. We raised money for Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Youth Outreach and other projects that help those on the margins. Myst also took over our Instagram stories to share anti-racism resources and reports from the global protests to keep our community up to date with what was going on.

We try our best to make the space feel as comfortable for as many people as possible, and we’re always considering how to use and preserve this platform now that it’s grown. We have a digital door policy to deal with what can and cannot happen on-screen or in the chat, but that’s also to give people an idea of what kind of space they’re entering and how we are leading it. In the beginning, we were just running around, planning haphazardly, and messaging friends who were DJs to see if they would come on and do a set. Now there are more logistics to work around the roadblocks we have come across along the way. How can we make sure that the sets are streamlined? How can we moderate the chat and prevent online harassment and how do we run a socially-distanced soundcheck?

Courtesy of Club Quarantine

Courtesy of Club Quarantine

The response has been amazing. We’ve had Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, Tinashe and Kim Petras join; for my album launch, Jessy Lanza and LYZZA came through with sets. We’re still running Club Quarantine one night a week, and it’s hard to describe who our audience is because it’s still always changing. While we see some of the same people consistently in the moderator overview, there’s always a new transformation that comes with whoever discovers Club Quarantine next.

I know I’ve made friends there, and found a community that keeps growing and building. It’s one that might even take itself offline. The other night we were just hanging out watching Canada’s Drag Race in someone’s backyard and someone in an Airbnb next door opened a window and shouted: “Oh my god, it’s Club Quarantine!”

Courtesy of Club Quarantine