So, yeah, as the headline says, We Hunted the Mammoth is going on an indefinite hiatus. For the last few months, I have been trying to make this work, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it won’t. As you know, I have been struggling to raise enough money to keep the blog financially stable, and that has been weighing on me.
But there’s a bigger factor: I’m simply burned out. I’ve spent the last thirteen years writing about some of the worst people in the world, and, well, it’s wearing me down. I’m deeply tired of these people and their endless hateful nonsense; it’s time to move on. (I am putting My AI Obsession on hold for now as well.)
I’m deeply grateful for all of the support you all have given me over the years. Some of you have been so generous with your donations that I don’t know what to say. I want to thank everyone who has donated to or otherwise offered assistance to the blog over the years.
I’m not shutting the blog down entirely. One of the things I have enjoyed the most about this blog over the years has been reading the comment section, and I don’t want to leave the regular commenters in the lurch. I’ll continue to post Open Threads and possibly even a few real posts from time to time, and I hope some of you decide to stick around.
I may return at some point to launch We Hunted the Mammoth 2.0, likely with a somewhat different focus, but right now, I don’t know for sure if or when that will be.
As many of you know, I have started up a new venture, hanging out my shingle as a writing coach; you can read more about this here. If you’re feeling stuck with your writing, I can help to unstick you. I am focusing most on academics but all nonfiction writers are welcome!
If you have thoughts you’d like to share, please post them in the comments below, or send them to me directly at dfutrelle at gmail.com.
Late to the party, but thank you from me as well.
If I hadn’t been reading this blog I would have not been able to recognise certain talking points when I saw them surface here in Finland, and having some sort of background knowledge really helped me navigate stuff.
Thanks for running it for so long. Good luck recovering from it all and doing new cooler more fun stuff.
Thanks for the memories
I know this is belated; but thanks for keeping us appraised for s long as you have David; I hope you will be able to recharge from your hiatus and you will return to give us the word of things going on in the world
Stay Frosty
To borrow from Pride & Prejudice let us not say goodbye, but as the French would have it, au revoir!
Thanks you! Good luck with your new endeavor.
Thank you for having stuck with this disheartening mission as long as you did, and I’m hoping to see you back eventually.
To keep this classic farewell song from having an air of finality, here’s a rendition by living performers Michael Martin Murphy and Suzy Boggus:
Talk about a great run. How many other teenage blogs are there? Only a tiny handful that I know of. At this point I think the archives pretty thoroughly serve the blog’s stated function as a detailed (and to a degree real-time) examination of the MRA phenomenon and its evolving context over the course of the 2010s.
Whether or not you ever pick up this thread again with a WHTM v.2, congratulations on a major achievement. I hope that whatever you do next is more financially remunerative.
Thanks for helping us all collectively lift the rock of hate, insecurity, and horribleness and allowing us to study, catalogue, and laugh at the horrors uncovered and writhing in the daylight of truth.
Thank you, David, for all of your work on this one-of-a-kind blog. It will be missed. I hope you have much success with your current and future endeavors. You deserve it.
I’ll miss the comments and conversations with all the Mammothteers, too. If anyone can point me to a similar online place, I’d be grateful.
I’ve been a regular lurker, occasional commenter for many years and I thank you for this blog. I’m sorry to see the end of it and I wish you the best in the future David. But I do look forward to the next Open Thread where us commenters can gather.
I know I haven’t been commenting much lately, but if anyone does want to keep in touch, I’m still on Twitter (not calling it X) for the time being at @weirwoodtreehug and I just recently opened a Bluesky account with the same name, but I’ve been recovering from breast reduction surgery and haven’t been motivated to finish setting everything up and am not active yet. I’ll follow back anyone whose username I recognize, or if you let me know who you are/were on here!
Thank you for your invaluable work on this blog, David.
And good luck on your future paths.
Fantastic site. I will miss it. Great work. Get well soon.
My username/handle on Twitter is the same as here. I rarely post anything on my own page, because I almost never get any reactions for that. I do reply to people a lot.
I’ve been reading this blog for over ten years and it played a a large part in my early teenage years. I would sometimes check multiple times a day when the world weighed too much and I just had to escape to that place where making fun of shitty politics was okay.
Thanks for all you’ve done over the years.
Old time reader/sporadic lurker. Discovered your blog during Gamergate as an informative breath of fresh air. You did your bit at a time it was needed. It’s perfectly reasonable to move on.
The MRA/incel/MGTOW phenomena was/is as fork in the general RWNJ wacko-jacko sphere. As a movement they were always small potatoes, yet another path to radicalization cynically exploited by GQP types.
David Neiwert’s “The Age of Insurrection” is a good read covering how these radicalized factions coalesced into the Q movement and lead to January 6th.
You did a good thing. Good luck on your future endeavors.
FYI: anyone on Blue Sky trying to escape the Muskrat? It’s a con:
https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/jack-dorsey-bluesky-twitter-future-proofing.html
Do what you have to, just do it with open eyes. Something, something, like the partition of Poland, something….
As a long time lurker and someone who usually never comments on blogs I wanna thank you in the name of the many people who stay silent but have been reading your blog for years. Never underestimate the impact your work had.
I can’t begin to say how much I’ve appreciated the information, and the snark.