How To (Get Free Stuff) With Holly Dunsworth

This post (about real life events that transpired some years ago) is dedicated to everyone who loved How to With John Wilson (2020-2023) and, especially, to everyone who just googled to see if there will be more seasons of it.  

First, drive your car at a high rate of speed over something hard, pull over to the shoulder, walk back, see what it is, and take it home. It’s Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel with a cracked spine. It just needs some duct tape.

You just happen to be on the road “finding yourself” while freaking out about college over winter break. This scientifically rigorous, prehistoric porno is the sign you need to change your major to anthropology. You’ve never had a class in the field, but you’re one hundred percent sure that it’s going to be better than the semester you’re facing: Poultry Science 101, and a bunch of other useful, lucrative coursework.

Next, get your Ph.D. in fossil ape feet. That takes about 7 years. Then get a professor job, which means teaching a lot of courses to a lot of students who take your courses because they fit their schedules. But don’t let your job get in the way of your dream: writing an anthropology-themed bestseller which could become someone else’s magic roadkill.

An editor calls. Recite your book’s preface which is your manifesto, your soul laid bare, sweaty, alive. Her response is, “you can’t curse that early in the book. You have to wait until the second half to say [bleep].”  You don’t even mention the teleportation parts.

Disenchanted with the industry, you decide to finish writing the thing before talking to them again. In the meantime, build your followers on Twitter. It’s called a “platform” and you’ve concluded, based on no evidence, that you need at least 5,000 followers to impress a publisher.

Gaining followers is pretty easy. Tweet about anthropology and science, yours and others’. Tweet the book review that you made all about you. Tweet something that John Hodgman, Katie Hinde, or Neko Case likes. Tweet a feminist pun. Tweet all your naughty little prayers. Tweet your weird syllabus. Tweet a picture of yourself 40 weeks pregnant in a cowboy hat and a bikini. Tweet your dog’s eulogy. Tweet your dog’s skeleton’s excavation. Tweet your c-section. Tweet your lactation. Tweet your melanoma. Tweet about the time you were on the BBC, Netflix, YouTube, that podcast, and larium. Tweet stuff that gets Ben Shapiro to compare you to Insane Clown Posse. Tweet stuff that gets Jerry Coyne to call you a bad writer. Tweet stuff that gets Curt Schilling to yell at you. Tweet stuff that gets Ben Roethlisberger, who you weren’t even talking to, to block you. Question Charles Darwin’s intelligence, in a tweet. All your tweets are authentic and sincere, but you might not stick your neck out in public if not for the need to collect 5,000 followers. This is a superior path to realizing your book dream compared to the typical ways, like, by choosing a manly pen name, knowing something icky about somebody who’s famous, or having talent. 

Once you have all the followers you need, all that’s left to do is write the book.

So, put your kid to bed, eat a special brownie, curl up on the sofa, and click on the television. There are those rich people HBO sounds. A new show is starting. Watch it. It’s lovely and heartachey and hilarious and nerdy. It’s wonderful. Too wonderful. Why isn’t everything this wonderful? you wonder. Your mind flashes to the mountain of footage John Wilson has shot and stockpiled, and combs through to weave his wonderful stories; you know the answer to your question. 

When the show’s over, head to Twitter to scroll its followers. These are your people. Retweet the show’s tweets. But you’re trying to stay off Twitter so that you can write your book. Still, make sure to log in at least eighteen times a day. When you do, there’s a DM from @HowToJohnWilson. They want to send you a special gift from HBO and they need your address. About two weeks later, the free stuff arrives. Now you have free stuff.