Karen Zerby Leak: Unmasking a Cult Leader Who’d Remained Faceless for Nearly 30 Years πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ

Zaren Kerby drawing: eyes

It was 2005, and cult leader Karen Zerby was in hiding, as she had been for decades. Zerby was the head of the Family International (also known as the Children of God), a Christan cult that was paranoid in general, but leaders took secrecy to another level. No one knew where Zerby lived, and her… Continue reading Karen Zerby Leak: Unmasking a Cult Leader Who’d Remained Faceless for Nearly 30 Years πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ

Persecution Music of the Children of God: The Songs of the Gaslighters & the Counter-Resistance πŸ–•πŸ»

Liberty Leading the People

Music played an important role in the cult of my youth (known as the Children of God or The Family). It was very effectively used for recruitment, it was a mainstay of fundraising (since members weren't allowed to get regular jobs), and it was a source of shared culture. But on the inside, they banned… Continue reading Persecution Music of the Children of God: The Songs of the Gaslighters & the Counter-Resistance πŸ–•πŸ»

20 Years Later, Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” is a Personal Anthem of… Defiance? ✊🏻

Vanessa Carlton, from the music video for A Thousand Miles

"Is she the flavor of the week?" The question caught me off guard. I was 17 and I'd just shared Vanessa Carlton's song A Thousand Miles with a musician dude who was a few years older than me and who was visiting the sort-of halfway home for ex-cult young adults I lived in at the… Continue reading 20 Years Later, Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” is a Personal Anthem of… Defiance? ✊🏻

Lecture at SAE Belgrade: Lessons from Facebook 🏫

While staying in Belgrade over the summer, my friend Dragan introduced me to his former computer science professor from SAE Institute Belgrade. SAE is an international private college that, at least in Belgrade, focuses primarily on audio engineering, filmmaking, and VFX animation, but their Belgrade campus also includes a smaller group of programming and web… Continue reading Lecture at SAE Belgrade: Lessons from Facebook 🏫

Happiness Is a Personality 😊

Happy woman

Recently, I listened to the audiobook Why You Are Who You Are by Mark Leary with my girlfriend. It’s a lecture series about the roots of human personality, covering things like personality differences between people, where the differences come from (spoiler: it’s the usual mix of nature and nurture), and how they alter our lives.… Continue reading Happiness Is a Personality 😊