will never rebuild my twitter follower count on any new platforms as i am simply no longer that mentally ill

I don’t think so, but if it is I’ll post it!

It is free!

Come hang out at this roundtable featuring Andrew Mark Henry, me, and other folks engaged with public scholarship and religious literacy. Tomorrow!

A large corn snake coiled on a branch in his enclosure. Looking directly at the camera. A red heat lamp is on, so the photo is lit in red.

Everybody has to look at my baby

Ryan is one of the best people and this sucks. I hate GoFundMes but this is one I will gladly contribute to.

I’m familiar with the situation and I’ve read the complaint/lawsuit against Ryan. If I could represent him myself I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Hahahaha and not a one of these people would even know how they’d been scorched.

I appreciate you! The internet is just getting trickier and trickier!

Thank you! I hope so!

But the good news is I FOUND ONE. Holy shit finally.

Oh Instagram is a totally lost cause. I’m not even *on* Instagram anymore.

Everybody please use your brains. Scammers are very, very easy to spot. Look for low follower counts, multiple posts per day (often of old content without context), spam, DMs, different usernames (usually with additional characters or misspellings), suddenly posting misleading political content.

A screen shot of an account by @ademolahammed076.bskt.social, displaying stolen images and texts and purporting to be “thornthewitch”

This is not me. The account has been reported, but we all know that never really works.

And the account impersonation has made it to BlueSky. Reminder that I have one account (this one), will never DM someone randomly, sell nothing directly, do not offer metaphysical services or consultations of any kind, and mostly only follow academics, musicians, and writers.

My favorite was always being scheduled at one hour under full time work, so I couldn't qualify for benefits. But sure. Just get your health coverage from your part time job in the United States. That will definitely work consistently.

The assumption that you could just…have a nice relaxing easy job at a cafe like it’s Stars Hollow just feels like an affluence-adled fantasy.

I was just talking about this with a fellow (working) grad student: how people in high earning, high respect professions assume their jobs are the hardest and most stressful. It comes up in job advice from profs, and also in wider conversations about things like saving for retirement.

Have any of these barista FIRE people actually been baristas though. The way some of these finance blogs describe part time service work is not it. It’s a cute name I guess? Also lol at the assumptions about part time benefits.

That's definitely how it sounds to me! Either they used a bot, or they are bad communicators. Both are problems.

I often filter for degrees from progressive states, in the hope that I won't have to explain my witch cult to them. Sometimes it backfires. 🥲

I was spoiled by my very first therapist, an elderly social worker who'd lived all over the country and had spent most of her life dealing with substance abuse patients. That woman was brilliant.

Yeah, I'm thinking that the strategy is going to have to be "go against your impulses and better judgment and pick someone who seems really incompatible and pray that they just had no idea how to write a bio"

My favorite therapist ever was exactly that.

Oh but if you find the one who got their degree in California, they are also open to using tarot in your sessions and can *really relate* to you as a fellow spiritual seeker.

And then you get to guess which evangelical college they went to, but didn't openly list on their profile. (Just kidding, it was Liberty)

And then it's like "do you want the twenty-something who looks like they got invited to parties in college, or the older man with the beard and the earring."

No but really why is absolutely every bio the same: "I believe in [platitude about authenticity and healing]. I come from a place of [language vaguely about a calling to heal]. I rely on [platitudes about dignity or respect]. My hobbies are [list of non-threatening boring things everyone does]."

And it would be one thing if therapy was cheap, but it's hundred of dollars to talk to these people. I could just read Mary Baker Eddy or something.

Also the sheer fucking number of these people who, when you do the most cursory internet search beyond their web sites, turn out to really be "faith based counselors" with degrees from sus as hell schools is staggering.

I want someone who looks like they've seen some shit. Like, if my therapist was a cat, I want them to have a grizzled face and to be missing an eye. I don't want to hear weird platitudes about authenticity and love. I want to know what you studied and what your methodologies are.