#I'm supposed to be an adult doing adult things now and I'm having several ongoing crises at once. help.

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

babes how are we supposed to handle it when two good friends get engaged and one informs me he's joined the military all within a few weeks of one another

[markscherz]

Can I ask how you feel about your Tumblr fame?

I get the impression you just made this account for normal casual funsies reasons, but it kinda blew up by happenstance. If that's right, I'm curious if now you feel like it's kind of a more serious thing, where you have an opportunity to sorta act as a science communicator with a reach you otherwise might not?

Or maybe something else? You gonna see if you can somehow leverage your Tumblr fame to get research funding? Deputize us to harass polluters and developers destroying habitats? Crowdsource name ideas for new species?

It's a bit bizarre, in that it has very little real-world-ness to it. I showed my mother the ongoing tumblr celebrity poll, and she was like 'how many people could possibly be interested in frogs?', to which I replied 'well as of today about 46,000 and counting'.

I have always had an unhealthy relationship with fame. I spent most of my teen and young adult life fawning after it, as is I suppose very often the case.

More after the cut…

I always really wanted to be famous, but I was never really interested in changing who I was or what I represented in that pursuit. That is to say, I wanted to be known for what I was already doing, or for things that were already interesting for me, rather than things that might have much higher chances of success but require more effort or be less in line with the things that I am interested in.

I had my first brush with virality in 2012, when a poem I wrote went a little viral (largely thanks to StumbleUpon). I remember the rush of seeing how much attention it was getting, and staying up late to keep refreshing the page as the visitor numbers went up and up and up.

But not long after that, I had some closer encounters with fame and people becoming famous. That was extremely eye-opening. I witnessed first hand how strongly that can affect someone's life, for good and for bad. That experience also made me realise, quite jarringly, that famous people are still just people; that celebrity is something extrinsic to them; that they also wipe their own butts (if they are able); and that in many cases, it is a substantial inconvenience if not downright pain in the ass for them. I think this is why we see so many of the big celebrities having mental health crises or trying to live as much of their lives out of the public eye as possible.

That experience pretty much stifled my desire to achieve fame, and really changed my relationship with it. I should add that I could say much more on this topic, but nothing so coherent or insightful as John and Hank Green, who have given me so much clarity on this topic over the years through their thoughtful commentary on youtube and their podcasts.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that fame itself doesn't really appeal to me anymore, I do still have a problem wherein I quickly became addicted to the microdosing of euphoria associated with every reblog and like and follow. So I put huge efforts into social media in order to try to gain traction in the space that I felt I could really compete in—Very Niche SciComm™—and build up a following.

Tumblr was the first platform where I felt that really succeed; I managed to fight my way to a few thousand followers with a thick queue of regular posts about herpetology and other science. At that time, there was a great community building up in the rudimentary private messaging system—I am still friends with several other tumblr bloggers from that era (none of whom I have ever met in person). From that early time (2013), I think my most successful post was probably this one about germination of 32,000 year old seeds—a post that, as of today, has 836 notes, but at the time felt huge and exhilarating.

As I went through gradschool, I got more and more active on twitter, and less and less active on tumblr (by the time I wound down, I had about 8,000 followers on tumblr). This was partly because of the pornbot takeover on tumblr, which meant I basically could not go on the platform in public or at work, but also because the audience and interactions are just fundamentally different. Twitter had a different kind of vibe and energy than tumblr, and there were real SciComm experts there, who were doing it just completely differently. More importantly, I became more focussed on doing outreach aimed at colleagues, rather than non-experts.

Then, in 2017, I hit headlines for the first time. The description of Geckolepis megalepis made it big on social and traditional media, and I had my first experience with real media attention. I had a flurry of late-night phone-calls with journalists in the US. This was a different animal altogether than the few viral posts I had had until that point. It was extremely stressful, but exhilarating. Then in 2018, our chameleon fluorescence story made similar headlines, and in 2019 the Mini frogs, and in 2021 with gecko fluorescence and the smallest chameleon.

Seeing my name on the BBC News website and in the New York Times and National Geographic—those things have been the most surreal moments of near-fame I have experienced so far. The number of followers on social media is quite difficult to conceptualise, but seeing your own name in a media outlet that you consume regularly, or have grown up with, is more palpable.

In any case, I continued to run with twitter as my main platform for years, because I found the interaction with colleagues and other academics highly stimulating. In 2021, I even posted a twitter thread about a different species of frog from Madagascar every day for the full year. All this work was ultimately greeted with mediocre success; I just crested over 10,000 followers a few months before the Musth takeover. But then the platform became basically unusable. And in the fallout, I came back to tumblr, where, just by chance, I happened to find a post about the Mini frogs and reply to it and it went properly viral and now here we are. In the space of a year, I went from having 8000 followers to having >46,000.

How do I feel about that? It's bonkers. I think it is great that so many people are interested in hearing the Good News about frogs and other creatures. But I also feel like I am not really on the same playing field as most of the others in that poll mentioned above, in that I do not have any of the celebrity that several others have. And I know for a fact that there are fanblogs with far, far larger followings than I have. But perhaps that is the great thing about tumblr; that the playing field is somehow levelled…

What's the point of this ramble? Well, first I guess it is to outline that I have given fame a lot of thought over the years, and I have a long-standing and complicated relationship with it, and take it quite seriously. Second, to illustrate that I have been working on as a science communicator or person in outreach for many years—it has kind of been my social media brand since I started gradschool in 2013. And third, to kind of outline how we got here, because I often feel like you have to know where an arrow has come from in order to figure out which direction it will continue to fly.

You asked if I would somehow try to leverage my tumblr fame to get research funding—I already do that. In fact, my social media activity had a signfiicant role in landing me my current job, and will continue to help me achieve tenure. Outreach is an important part of my job, and funders like it too.

I would love to have the community-building power and tenacity of the brothers Green; Nerdfighteria has achieved some incredible things over the years, and the power of that community is now being seen at an unprecedented scale in their battle for equitable access for tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment. But I do not have that in me; this platform is the wrong one for community activation, and my community is still too small for that. Moreover, it is not organised or structured, in the way that I think effective deputisation would require.

As for the crowdsourcing of name ideas, that is currently off the table. I like to try to name things on my own or with my colleauges; it is a very good part of the process. And I have yet to hear a suggestion for a Mini species epithet that I had not already come up with myself, so I am not convinced that this would really augment the experience.

So for now, I hope that the main way I use the platform, and the power that comes with a few thousand followers, will be to spread the Good News about frogs and other wonderful animals, and the other kinds of science happening around us (and occasional other off-topic content). I hope that you are encouraged to explore the world around you, and to do your own reading to find out more about the subjects that interest you. And also I will continue to try to make meme-worthy content, because it does nice, if addictive, things in my brain when I get the clicks.

Thanks for asking, anon, and sorry for the Wall of Text.

[adventuresindolls]

Meet Lexie Chapter 3: What Flying Feels Like

(Aside: I know in the story Sophie gets chocolate ice cream and this is clearly a popsicle, but it's the closest I had)

Sophie's friend did come over the next day after Sunday school, but Lexie hardly saw them. She hardly noticed anything that day. Over breakfast, Papa had announced that as a treat to make up for moving, and to forget new school anxiety, they would be going to the County Fair every day this week. Lexie hadn't heard anything said to her since then.

Fairs were thrilling. They meant rare treats and delicious smells and rows of bright booths to hop between. Sophie and Lexie had an ongoing system where they would run around as buddies between the game booths and the ones selling pretty necklaces and giving away paper fans. But when Lexie started to get overwhelmed, they would go together to the 4-H building to look at pretty dresses and pictures of flowers. It was air conditioned in there and much quieter than the rest of the fair. Sometimes Lexie would find a cool corner to sit and read the book she always carried while Sophie found a play area or other kids to talk to.

But best of all were the rides.

They usually went for one day a year. But this year was special—5 whole days of excitement! It was hard for Lexie to think about anything else all day. She read the same page 6 times, lost a Mario game badly to Sophie, and finally went for a long walk around the new neighborhood. She saw a bunch of kids outside playing in sprinklers or shooting Nerf guns at each other, all younger than her. She only got 3 blocks away before deciding it was too hot and turning around. The rest of the day was spent curled up on the couch watching her favorite magic girl anime, which the conversation at shul the day before had reminded her she liked.

She woke up way too early on Monday. By the time Papa called her for breakfast, she had finished her favorite book again and rearranged her stuffed animals. After her usual bowl of dry cereal, she put on her favorite space-themed dress and her comfiest velcro shoes and was pulling on the car door handle before Daddy even had the picnic basket closed.

Lexie had never been to these particular fairgrounds before, but they were as bright and full as she expected. The day wasn't hot yet, which was perfect for running around. They each got $5 for a snack so they didn't have to regroup until lunch.

"What about buying fair stuff?" Lexie asked.

"You can have souvenir money on Friday," Papa told her. "Otherwise you'll buy one thing today and find something better tomorrow."

They ran through the rows of stalls, stuffing Sophie's overall pockets and Lexie's narwhal purse with free pencils in every color of the rainbow and candy they definitely weren't supposed to eat yet. Lexie only had a couple chocolate kisses, but before they reached the end of the lane Sophie had eaten six.

They spent the morning looking at every single booth and spinning prize wheels until they got bored. Having pushed the absolute limit of their patience, they made it as far as 11 o'clock before heading for the games.

Lexie went straight for the ducky fishing game. They had a giant octopus as the big prize. The smiling man handed her a fishing pole and told her to go for it.

She did not immediately go for it. She thought the duck she was aiming for—the little gold one—was about three and half feet away. How hard would she have to swing to hit it without overreaching?

"Hey, are you gonna go?" The man looked a little less smiley now.

Lexie blamed him startling her for why the first time the line went flying past the entire tank. It was much closer the second time, but still plopped into the water an inch away from its goal.

"That's alright!" The man encouraged her. "Try one more time!"

"No, thanks," Lexie politely told him and dashed away before he could try to convince her. She had just remembered that she wanted to save her remaining 8 tickets for rides.

The next thing she remembered was that she hadn't heard Sophie's chatter in a long time. She would be in so much trouble if dads found her alone.

Even worse, something might happen to Sophie, who was "not the most responsible or cautious" kid.

The crowds around her seemed to double suddenly. They were mostly adults or teenagers much taller than her and she couldn't see more than three feet in any direction.

"Sophie?" She meant to call out, but it came out as barely a whisper. That happened sometimes.

Lexie ran up and down the aisles of games and all around the rides next to them. Surely her sister wouldn't be bored enough among the flashing lights and interactive booths to wander back to the ones she had no money for. She tried and failed twice more to call for Sophie, but she doubted even at her loudest she could be heard over the thousand conversations that buzzed around her.

She was about to give up and go find her fathers—who were probably listening to one of the free concerts—and enlist their help whatever the consequences (she was pretty sure by now that Sophie was being murdered or had fallen down a magically appearing manhole) when she spotted her long dark hair by a food booth in a far corner.

"Where have you been?" Lexie wanted to be angry, but instead she felt like crying.

"Right here," Sophie's voice was muffled by a bite of chocolate ice cream, "Where have YOU been?"

"You ran off! You can't do that! We have to stay together."

"I didn't run off. I stopped 'cause I wanted to play something different."

"You have to tell me that!" Lexie really wasn't about to admit that she was mostly embarrassed she hadn't made sure Sophie, who had ADHD and was known to get distracted, was with her.

"Don't yell at me!" Sophie was getting mad.

"Alright, I'm sorry," Lexie finally relented. She gave Sophie a quick hug, which was so rare for her—too much touch made her brain go staticky—that Sophie stopped arguing. "Let's go ride the rides. What's wrong?"

"I don't have any tickets left." Sophie's eyes were wide with surprise and disappointment. "I played a bunch of games, and I didn't even win anything. Can I have one of your tickets?"

Lexie looked down at her sister's tear-filled eyes and felt a sudden sense of protectiveness. She planned so Sophie didn't have to. "You can have two. But only if you tell me where you're going."

"Ok!" Sophie's face instantly brightened.

The rides were all bright colors and flashing lights and quick movements. Lexie didn't even know where to focus and let Sophie lead the way, finishing her ice cream and chattering away about how cool every ride was.

And then she saw the swings.

It had always been her dream to ride that one. It was always more pastel than neon and it looked like fun. Just like spinning on the playground swings but MORE. She had wanted to last year but got too scared at the last minute, even though Papa promised to go with her.

"Sit here and hold my purse. I'll be back." She barely glanced to make sure Sophie obeyed before skipping to wait in line. It seemed very soon that a teenager with a green mohawk took her ticket and motioned her up the metal step. Up close, the ride seemed much bigger, but no one else was hesitating to strap themselves in. Swallowing, she grabbed the chains on the closest chair and pulled herself up into it.

She was still pretty sure it was a good idea, right up until a different teenager came by and pulled the metal bar down on her lap. All of a sudden, she kind of wanted to go back to fishing for ducks. She glanced through the crowd to find Sophie, who was still on the bench and completely ignoring her, her favorite otter in one hand and the other covered in melted ice cream.

Lexie gasped and grabbed the chains with both hands at the first jerk of movement. Several people around her giggled, and she heard at least one "Oh!" of surprise. Very slowly, the ride began to spin and rise into the air. She was torn between stomach-dropping anxiety at being so high and absolute delight at all she could see. The rows of booths looked like brightly colored handkerchief squares. The people swarmed like ants—at least, she thought, there were no crowds up here. She soon lost track of Sophie. And then she could see beyond the fair, to the tiny houses of the city itself. The taller buildings downtown looked like shiny metal twigs. She forgot to be worried.

They were spinning faster. And faster. It wasn't scary up here, really, it was wonderful. It was like everything she'd always wanted to feel when she spun herself until she fell down or kicked her legs to swing as high as possible. It was impossible to describe. Like everything that was always too loud and too bright just stopped. Like there was no such thing as feeling trapped and panicked in a crowd. Like nothing existed but her and the seat and spinning. Like she could stay up here forever. She kicked her legs, making her chair wiggle.

It couldn't actually last forever, of course, and almost before she knew it they were slowing. Her stomach dropped again, this time with disappointment, and her legs nearly collapsed beneath her when she first stumbled out of the chair and through the metal gate.

She found Sophie on the same bench where she'd left her, the remainder of her ice cream staining her hands, face, and overalls, but miraculously not Elliot the Otter. Lexie briefly considered telling her to go wash up, then decided it wasn't worth it.

"Hi! I'm gonna go ride the rollercoaster!"

"Ok."

Sophie hopped up and stuffed Elliot back into her pocket. "What are you gonna ride next?"

"The swings."

"Again?" Sophie looked at her like riding the same ride twice was the weirdest thing she'd heard that day.

But Lexie couldn't help grinning at the thought of freedom and flight. "Yeah."