Hey…
First, thanks for taking a leap of faith. This is cookoo pants, and I know it. You probably know it too. Shit, I rearranged my site to make the link work and to keep the page hidden.
Second, truth time. The other Sturgill account (the one pushing the tour dates via DMs: @sturgilJsimpson) also has the link to this page.
I’m sorry. I’ll lead with that. Social media is a mind fuck, and I’ll admit I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. But I am trying to do something, and X is a means to an end for me. It’s the seedy gas station bathroom of the internet, but it’s a critical component of my mission, so I try to enjoy the good when it shows itself. Sturgill and Mutiny After Midnight were some of that good.
Bots, scammers, and marketers are too common on X. Even predatory sometimes. I get that there’s a persona to maintain on the account you manage. I’m 99% sure it’s not actually Sturgill at the helm, and I want to believe there is a human involved. Looking back at our exchange, I came out guns blazing for you to admit something there was no way in hell you could admit to without opening yourself up to backlash or negative press. Or worse.
You don’t know me or what I could do had you been honest. Yeah, Morris, I’m a dupe. Please keep my secret. But here, away from the platform in a space I control, you can. You did all the things™ to keep up the charade, including attempting to gaslight me and acting all butt ass hurt when I made light of the fact I might have been talking to an AI agent. Boohoo. Poor celebrity not getting to let his hair down and be real. Bad fan for acting like a nutjob. As the Monkees sing, it's a little bit me, and it's a little bit you, too.
But since you’re here, let’s drop the pretense and be humans. My name’s Maria, BTW. The person behind the Sturgill account is interesting to me. I don’t need or expect you to be him. Please remember you DM’d me. It’s not like I did anything more than a fan would—follow. You had an agenda to push on the boss-man’s behalf. Or maybe he’s a client. I don’t know how it all works.
Let me tell you about my agenda and the reasons I’m slinkin’ around on X and putting myself in uncomfortable situations. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Well, the situation fucked with my head and self-esteem so much that I wrote a book. That book didn’t suck, and I thought it would help other women in similar circumstances, so I tried to get a literary agent, which is step one to traditional publishing. It didn’t pan out, so I wrote a second book and am trying again.
Well, literary agents and traditional publishers want numbers, followers, and possible sales avenues. As you are probably aware, we don’t own our platform followers. Musk and Zuckerberg can shut our accounts down on a whim. So, I’m building my own email list. Had you signed up, you’d be my 62nd subscriber and my 2nd stranger. Yup. My list is all family, friends, and colleagues. Pitiful, I know.
The article I shared was an example of how I weave my everyday life with the ups and downs on my path to publishing. In what world would someone like me have access to someone like you—a person who may actually give a fuck about a Mutiny After Midnight review, even one as homespun as mine. Social media can make worlds collide.
The kind of cancer I had has the highest rates of recurrence. I feel as if I’m living on borrowed time. My art, the two books, and my classic car are about all I can leave my kids if something happens to me—a legacy they can monetize if they lose their mother and their mother’s income. At least the art can increase in value after I’m dead, but the books are just files in a computer unless I keep hustling, keep growing. And do the darn thing.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. Let’s start over. Consider being my 62nd subscriber. Consider being yourself. I’m not fancy or famous like Sturgill, but I’m a pretty interesting person, trying to do cool things.
Best,
Morris the Spider
