Do y’all wanna hear about some absolutely crazy shit going down in the birding world right now
Okay I warned y’all this would be a lot but here we go. As background you should know that for many birders, the hobby is a lot more than just going outside and watching birds. There is a competitive angle where the goal is to spot as many bird species as possible and record these sightings on your personal “life list”. As some bird species can only be spotted in remote locations across the globe, it takes a decent amount of time, dedication, skill, and money to fill out life lists that number in the thousands. As can be expected, many of the individuals with these mega life lists become quasi celebrities in the birding world. Chief among them is Peter Kaestner, a lifelong birder who has been meticulously recording his life list over decades as the de facto top birder. As he has added to his list bird by bird, thousands of interested avian enthusiasts have been following along and celebrating his milestones. Most exciting in recent months is his intrepid journey towards becoming the first birder to ever record seeing 10,000 different species. The entire birding community has been watching him creep towards 10k with growing excitement. Kaestner is deeply respected in the birding community and there is great trust for his well-documented list.
So now the twist. Just as Kaestner was getting closer and closer to 10k, a previously unknown birder named Jason Mann suddenly joined an app called iGoTerra (not the most common app for birding records) and all at once added observations of close to 10,000 birds. Suddenly, Kaestner being the first birder to reach this milestone isn’t such a sure thing, and both he and mysterious newcomer Mann seem to be scrambling to count as many birds as possible as the race narrows.
On February 9th Kaestner announces he’s hit the milestone and seen his ten thousandth bird, the Orange-tufted spider hunter. The birding world rejoices! As a ~crazy~ coincidence, Jason Mann just so happens to announce on the same day that he has also hit the milestone and he actually did it before Kaestner. He writes an article about himself that is somehow both shamelessly masturbatory and also has that weirdly impersonal AI generated article feel.
Well obviously the birding world is a little skeptical of this random ass dude suddenly swooping in to snag this milestone that has been years in making. Naturally, people started looking a little closer at Mann’s list, and it has some… let’s say interesting observations. It appears from his own reports that Mann has casually rediscovered several species of birds and not bothered to tell anyone. Some of the most ludicrous observations include:
New Caledonian Nightjar- has not been seen since 1939
Manipur Bush Quail- only one suspected sighting since 1932
Zapata rail- Unbelievably rare, and largely inaccessible due to environment
Taiga bean goose- Not the rarest goose in the world but Mann’s reported sighting was from North Korea. And it was apparently the only bird recorded there. So he just went to NK, saw this goose, and that’s it? Weird.
These are just a few examples of many, many fishy recordings. The issue here is nobody knows who Mann actually is, and the only places providing information about him (such as his LinkedIn) are really bizarre in a way I don’t have time to dig into here. Mann (or someone claiming to be him) actually took to BirdForum.net to defend himself, where he offered a long-winded and somewhat fumbling explanation for his life list. He claims that all of these mythical bird sightings were erroneously counted by the iGoTerra app, and he hadn’t meant to include them at all. He assures us that the rest of the recordings are entirely legitimate. Mann said in his post that in light of these mistakes he is ceding his victory to Kaestner, but was quick to say he has still totally seen more than 10k birds- even if they’re not all recorded correctly. He sent Kaestner a vaguely condescending email that Kaestner responded to with, in my opinion, far too much grace.
So now the birding community is left trying to figure out this bizarre and unexpected outcome. Is Peter Kaestner in fact the first birder to record ten thousand birds? A shadow of doubt has been cast on a title that everyone has expected to be his for years. Some birders are sincerely congratulating Jason Mann for his accomplishment in the field, and others are suggesting he isn’t even a real person but in fact some kind of artificial intelligence birding psy op. It is absolute chaos, and nobody in my life wants to hear me rant about this
dont let people tell u ur attraction to fire is “abnormal” or “hazardous” prometheus doesnt have his liver eaten every day for u to ignore the allure of arson
there is no immortality quite like childhood memories— the places that are frozen golden amber in the mind. we hope we will return there, we know we never will, but always they are constant and unchanging, and renowned.
As a fanfic writer I live in fear of the AO3 Author curse. I have a dog, is he going to die? Am I going to get into a sudden car accident? Is my entire family going to die in between publishing chapters? Will my non-existent beta reader go to prison? Will I become pregnant through an immaculate conception (I’m single and have never had a partner) and publish a chapter just after giving birth? I’m just really scared because my life’s been really normal so far but as my fics get more and more reads and kudos I feel a lurking sense of dread 😭.
I already had a stroke, nothing could harm me now
I got shingles and also there was a shooting at the school in the town right next to where my kid goes to school so I had a month long meltdown
A girl at my school tried to seduce one of our (super straight-laced) math professors. She ACTUALLY sat on his desk and had a super low-cut shirt on and everything and actually leaned over to him and according to eye-witnesses:
Girl: “Oh professor, I’m really struggling but I would do ANYTHING to pass this class.”
The professor leans in until his face is just inches from hers and whispers in the same seductive tone:
“Study”
Before promptly getting up and walking away just leaving her on the desk.
Not people saying “Fandom has always been like this” in that vent post I made. No. It hasn’t always been like this. Fandom has NEVER been like this until recently and if you were in fandom pre-tumblr purge, pre-twitter, pre-netflix boom, pre-tiktok….then you would fucking know it was nothing like this.
We still had the drive to create. We still sold prints and charms and made zines…but it was never like this.
The introduction of streaming, binge shows that drop all at once, tiktok and vine RIP i still love u vine but you were the beginning of a particularly ugly era) creating this bite sized, quick paced ‘content’ era of creation and it bled out into fucking everything else.
Fandoms didn’t die down when the show ended or the season was over. You didn’t mass unfollow artist, writers or moots just because they changed fandoms. There wasn’t this need to please the algorithm in order for your posts to get seen by people and enjoyed.
Fandoms used to last YEARS. Star Trek is literally the oldest running fandom out there and you got people in there that could care less about the new stuff and still have been happily prancing through their fucking fifty year old fandom today. Hell, even SPN after all it’s fuckups and shitshows has a dedicated fanbase STILL creating tons of art and fic.
There is no patience anymore. No calm feeling of taking in fandom and friends at a pace that which doesn’t make you stressed and is still fun.
Do I blame fandom for this? Of course not, but people are complacent with it and start changing their vocab to accommodate and end up making the situation so deep it cant be fixed.
We call Art & Fic Content now, completely stripping the value of what it is to a level of consumerism instead of personal entertainment & community bonding.
I usually view February as having no holidays and it’s always a surprise to remember that to many many people, February is one of the most holiday-filled months, containing both Valentines Day and Football Day
and that one holiday with the rodent that determines the weather
and that one holiday with the rodent that determines the weather
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