Help Me I'm Falling

I met Paul in a chat room and the Protein Gang was off and rolling. It was only a gang of two at that time. More would join, we knew that from the start. We didn’t seek out recruits, just posted and waited. This was 2011 social media; patience was required. Our posts got likes and we got followers. Eventually DMs came: Anna’s first, then Marcus’s. We were a gang of four. Our eventual two million followers started calling themselves “gang members." The media found out about us some months later, first just Philly, then state, regional, and before we knew it, we were national news. I knew we’d succeeded when BuzzFeed started dropping listicles about us (this was back when people gave a crap about BuzzFeed).

As you might expect, the crew of cutting-edge carnivores didn’t make it long without someone fighting back. We expected the vegan groups, maybe Quackwatch or its kind, but when the NIH gets name-dropped and you haven’t said shit about shots, you’re in deep. Marcus was the last to join and the first to leave. Anna followed suit; it was going in reverse order. That’d make me next, because it was Paul who first floated the idea. For a while, Paul and I kept the gang afloat, but things got real bad when we started losing followers. Social accounts stall all the time, but when people are going out of their way to ditch you, that’s a special sort of effort. So I bailed. I did it because I thought Paul would be fine as a lone wolf.

Work wasn’t hard to get, but once I got it, I never heard the end of it. You’re the guy from that protein thing, right? My dad swears by your beef regimen. And the bad ones, too: You’re like the cowardly Alex Jones. Donald Trump looks honest compared to you. At first, I relished the good ones and ignored the bad. As more time passed, deeper into Trump’s first term, I studied the criticisms. Some were grudgy and fake, but some held water. Science was never Paul’s strong suit (he skipped college after realizing too many of the required classes focused on STEM). It made me want to flip the script, to become, if not a vegan, at least a flexitarian, and if not a skeptic, at least a supporter of evidence-based medicine, vaccines, and so on. I went on a few Instagram mini-crusades, which turned to weekly uploads, which turned to as many followers as the Protein Gang had at its peak, which turned to 2020.

If I was big before, COVID turned me stratospheric. Quarantine doomscrolling was a made-to-order suit for my social account’s rapidly expanding follower base. The videos were easy to make in the confines of my house. The minimalist nutrition approach I was peddling fit the lockdown shortages to a T. I checked Paul’s account sometimes to find him stalled at best, even during the height of the pandemic. Even though I hadn’t talked to him in over five years, I felt his displeased look, a look I knew well. In 2022, as the COVID boom wound down to a trickle, he called me.

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I can’t say I was surprised. I didn’t think we’d live the rest of our lives ignoring each other. But it was sudden, with no warning, no DMs, no fanfare. And I liked it that way, because we were once very close and I still respected him, if not his views. “Paul, it’s been so long. How are you doing?"

He was never a smooth talker, but now his voice was gruff and uncouth. “I hope you understand what you did.”

“I’ve not attacked you, or the Protein Gang. I took the call with an open mind.”

“Can’t imagine why you’d have an open mind. Is it because you want me to join your movement,” he said, “or is it just that you’re too afraid to say how you truly feel?”

I was about to say something when he hung up cold. That surprised me. Back in our heyday, he’d respond to DMs begging for debate. And he’d win, even when he should’ve been on the losing side. For a second I thought it was an accidental disconnect. Then I remembered his vicious tone and put the pieces together. He was a new man, and none the better for it.

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2023 was a better year. My socials did well, and I put Paul’s call behind me. That summer, Anna called me about her wish to join my pro-science venture. I had only one question: “You really believe the mission?” It would be all too easy for someone with no college degree and little employment history to think weaselling her way into an old friend’s inner circle is her ticket out of government assistance. The question was cynical and a touch classist, but I spoke it with a humble certainty that hopefully neutralized those connotations. The way she said it sold me. Dramatic in the wrong hands, genuine in hers. “More than you could know.”

SomewhatSkeptical remained a perfect name no matter the number of faces behind the tag. Anna’s online reappearance led to the biggest boom since COVID. The DEI spotlight of the moment helped. A woman of color as one of the faces of our movement led to more appearances on pro-science websites and in publications. By that fall, we were on top of the world. I checked Paul’s account for the first time since the call and found he’d slowed posts to one a week, down from three or four.

At the end of the year, Marcus sent a DM asking to talk. I expected it sooner. Marcus always liked Anna, you could see it in their first interaction. I didn’t know if she felt the same. I thought about the contrast to a fair extent: Paul’s call so sudden and short, brusque, angry. Marcus’s prearranged, longwinded, calm, collected. Paul hostile to my new endeavor, Marcus chomping at the bit to get a piece of the action. The more I chewed on it, the more I thought Anna reciprocated Marcus’s feelings, because she said yes to him faster than I’d said yes to her.

Marcus helped towards a strong start to 2024, though it paled in comparison to Anna’s homecoming. The two of them started dating while I got a fancy car, a modern house, a purebred dog. Interviews with top anti-quackery figures came fast, and the profits were rock-solid. I checked Paul’s account maybe twice the whole year. By New Year’s 2025, he was posting once a month, tops.

I got a DM from him when I least expected it. I didn’t think I’d ever hear from him again. It was terse and desperate: Help me I’m falling. Back when the Protein Gang was the envy of all Instagram, falling was the word he’d use when he was struggling. Sometimes the reasons were petty: a troll comment, getting skimped at a fast-food place. Sometimes they were big: doubts relating to his true success, good-faith concerns about the scientific merit of our project. I asked him what I could do to stop the fall, as we used to say. He said to come to his place. I didn’t recognize the address, but I could ascertain from the unit number that he didn’t live in a house anymore.

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The apartment was less spiffy than I expected. On the third floor of four in a suburban apartment complex in need of a fresh coat of paint, the unit’s exterior faced a recycling facility and smelled like cardboard. Inside wasn’t much better, with few windows, smelling of cigarettes and beer, hot and humid. Nothing had been said when he let me in, so I stood near the TV and said, “Hey.”

Paul took a seat on the couch, and resumed (of all things) The Bachelorette. He wore a tank top and shorts tight from sweat. He fanned his tank and said, “Hey. Long time no see. You know something?”

I was used to the sudden approach. Appreciated it, even, after dealing with bloated interviewers for so long. “No, what?”

“I haven’t had any animal products in a week.”

“And? How’s it going?”

“Great. I love it. I want to do it forever. But I’m broke,” he said.

A shocking revelation, but with Paul I’d learned to brace myself for anything. “Maybe I can help you out, I’ll talk with Anna and Marcus.”

“I don’t want your money. I want you to understand what you’ve done to me. You’ve ruined my fucking life. This apartment doesn’t get cool, barely in the winter is it cool, the heat’s cranked up 24/7 and I can’t change it. I’m drinking, smoking, you name it. Don’t post anymore. Don’t want to post anymore, given the shit I post. I like what you’ve done, in theory. But you guys up and ran from me. We could’ve had a conversation, saved the movement together, saved each other. You let me rot. All of you guys, but you were the last one to leave, Thom, and the first to go on without me. I worked my ass off at Burger King. It sucked. You could’ve stopped it, and you didn’t.”

I didn’t have good words. Not right then, at least. I said, “I’m sorry.” That was true, I guess, but only in a cursory sense. He told me to go so I did. I wanted to anyway. As I got in my Cabriolet, air-conditioned, I thought so hard I pulled over; I didn’t trust my driving. The thought that really stuck was of a pledge Anna and Marcus and I made when they joined my team: any one of us could post something without the others’ consent. Some of our top videos came from this pact and the culture of trust it created.

In a deserted parking lot maybe 10 minutes from Paul’s apartment, I logged into Instagram for the first time in what felt like an eternity. I went to the Accounts Center and thought about the pledge and about Paul. My finger wavered before tapping the button. The button to delete our account permanently, all the videos, all the followers, everything. On the way home I drove with the heat on in the middle of July.