¡Hola Papi! How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons
John Paul Brammer is an American writer and artist. He writes the queer advice column ¡Hola Papi!, originally published in
Grindr's magazine Into and subsequently via
Substack, and is the author of the memoir: ¡Hola Papi! How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons. In 2021, he became an opinion columnist at The Washington Post.
Early in his career, Brammer wrote for the
Huffington Post and in 2014 he joined
MSNBC.[3] In November 2021, he joined The Washington Post as an opinion columnist, to write as well as illustrate.[4] Brammer is also an artist, often drawing inspiration from his Mexican-American background.[5]
Brammer first pitched his advice column "¡Hola Papi!" as "queer Latino 'Dear Abby' huffing poppers".[7] He pictured a "spoof" on the genre.[7] Writing in
Vice, Maggie Lange said, "Instead, and almost instantly after he started writing it in 2017, '¡Hola Papi!' became too meaningful, kind-hearted, and warm to read as parody."[7] First published by Into, a magazine from the gay dating app Grindr, ¡Hola Papi! later moved to
Condé Nast's LGBT magazine
Them.[8] The advice column is now on Substack and is syndicated on
The Cut.[9]
Memoir
Brammer's memoir ¡Hola Papi! How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons was published by
Simon & Schuster on June 1, 2021.[10] It is a series of fourteen essays, framed as advice columns on topics like dealing with childhood trauma or life
in the closet[1] and drawing on his early life as a young gay person in a rural place.[2] In The New York Times, Matt Wille called the book "a master class of tone and tenderness, as Brammer balances self-compassion with humor."[1] In The Boston Globe, Gina Tomaine described the book as "a warm and funny read, and an ode to storytelling — to the possibilities it holds for both forgiving and reinventing yourself."[11] In
Axios, Marina E. Franco says Brammer also "lovingly and humorously" probes the "question of what makes us Latino 'enough'."[12]
The memoir was optioned by
Funny or Die for adaptation as a scripted series.[13]