I’m Back!

Hi everyone! Several months ago, I decided to take a hiatus from social media and Medium. Initially, I thought it would be for a few months, at most. It wound up stretching to closer to eight months. That’s a long time for someone who is in the “content creation” game. Even so, I found it highly beneficial — particularly, being off Twitter, which I came to realize had become my assignment editor. Twitter only allows users to deactivate their accounts for 30 days before they’re deleted, so I no longer have an account. I don’t think I’ll be going back to the site. I didn’t have any particularly bad or toxic experiences, but I was addicted to it, so I think it’s better for me to use other social media platforms. Near the start of my hiatus, I deleted all my Instagram posts to deliberately create a clean slate if I decided to start microblogging on the site again. I intend to, so you can follow me there, if you haven’t already.

I’ll also be back to posting essays on Medium regularly. Cultural criticism has been my wheelhouse, so I’ll delve into sharing my thoughts on popular culture and current events, but with less of a “this is trending on Twitter!” approach. My favorite essays are the ones I took time with. I also never liked the feeling of needing to have an opinion about so much. I don’t always have something valuable to add to the conversation, and I’ll be limiting myself to speaking up when I think I’m making a genuine contribution.

I created the Medium publication Narc Alarms to create an archive for my Instagram microblogs on narcissism, and I’ll be continuing the process of moving all those posts over as well as sharing new material discussing the topic.

My major new project will be a deep dive over the next several months to learn more about cults and sharing my thoughts. Every cult leader is an extreme narcissist, so it’s a natural progression from some of my content. In addition, the group dynamics of narcissistic abuse can never be given too much attention. (TW: murder/death) The impetus for starting this project was the story of Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries — a religious cult based just outside of Montego Bay, Jamaica, whose leader ordered a ritual human sacrifice last October. One cult member murdered another, and police shot and killed another when they raided the compound. The story left me and most other Jamaicans reeling when we learned the news. I’ll be documenting my journey to understand what happened on my Patreon and sharing some of that content on Medium and elsewhere.

I recently watched the HBO documentary series, The Vow, about the NXIVM multi-level marketing cult, and I thought it did a good job of showing how people get sucked into these groups and how the manipulation and control escalates. I think The Vow is a good place for me to start my education, and I’ll be re-watching the series with a keener eye and sharing my thoughts.

I’m looking forward to starting this new phase, and I hope you’ll enjoy the new writing I share. Thanks for reading!