I’m a viral ‘Fossil Daddy’ — my rocks will knock your socks off
Followers need him to make their mattress rock — due to his rock-hard abs and his rock-solid information.
Meet Fossil Daddy — a 36-year-old, queer paleontologist from Massachusetts who’s utilizing his platform to coach individuals about science and the examine of fossils by utilizing popular culture to interrupt all of it down — with a wholesome quantity of thirst traps thrown in there, too.
Fossil Daddy, who prefers to go by his nickname attributable to security issues concerning his household, boasts greater than 195,000 followers throughout 4 social media platforms since he rebranded in 2020.
“I feel trendy audiences have very, little or no publicity to the examine of paleontology, and I really feel like lots of people don’t actually prefer to study it, as a result of it goes over their heads,” the TikTok creator instructed The Submit.
“So how will you deliver it again all the way down to Earth in a means that they’ll perceive?”
As a paleontological father determine, he may not be sufficiently old to be their father, however his followers wish to bone their Fossil Daddy. Hoards of fossil freaks are swooning over him and his attractive semantics.
On his TikTok account, he makes fossils enjoyable for adults by describing them in ways in which individuals can perceive. In one video, he brings the Pokémon character Kabutops to life, explaining what sort of fossils the creature is definitely primarily based on, and describing a number of the character’s traits — Fossil Daddy says they’re each “dom tops.”
In another, he tries to clarify what the persona of a Kosmoceratops dinosaur could be like right this moment, sharing that it was nicknamed “the horny-est dinosaur ever.” He even used an audio sound to make the animated dino say, “I bought banged!”
He has additionally taken the playful comparisons to YouTube, the place he titled a recent video, “Prehistoric Boss Babes: The Dinosaurs and Creatures That Would Have Recruited You to an MLM [multi-level marketing] Scheme!”
“It’s opened extra home windows and doorways for me than working in academia ever did,” Fossil Daddy admitted to The Submit about his social media platform.
Fossil Daddy began his science profession in marine biology in 2008, however after rising annoyed with the trade, he went again to highschool to review environmental geology shortly thereafter, which led him to a life in paleontology, one thing that he describes as his “very past love.”
His fondness for fossils and environmental science began when he was little, as a baby rising up in Brockton, Massachusetts. He defined that the road he lived on was fairly harmful, so he would escape to the close by woods to gather bugs, rocks and leaves, recording all of his findings in a journal.
His curiosity was additional catapulted when he found Pokémon.
“The Pokémon Omanyte, which is predicated off of very actual ammonite fossils, is what actually snowballed my profession, I’d say, in paleontology, as a result of as obsessed as I used to be with wild animals and vegetation and rocks, it was fossils that I at all times sort of got here again to,” Fossil Daddy defined.
And that zeal for Pokémon even interprets into his enterprise right this moment. On his website, he sells what he calls “Daddy’s Balls” — fossils that he has discovered throughout his hunts, neatly packed inside multicolored Pokémon balls.
“When you begin studying in regards to the historical past of different residing issues, you begin to worth residing issues,” Fossil Daddy mentioned.
Earlier than 2020, he had already been documenting his fossil findings on Instagram, however wasn’t actually expressing his true persona — he wasn’t even exhibiting his face. His following was principally older “rockhounds” — individuals who like to gather rocks — Daddy instructed us.
It wasn’t till he bought a disturbing remark that he needed to show issues round.
“The remark was like, ‘I really like this group, it’s one of many queer-free locations on the web, and I don’t have to fret about P.O.C’s [people of color] invading,’ ” he recalled. “And right here I’m, like a queer P.O.C., a faceless queer P.O.C. at the moment. I used to be identical to ‘Huh, I want to indicate individuals who I’m.’ “
In order that’s what he did — he determined to put up some extra risqué content material, together with an image the place he wasn’t sporting a high — nevertheless it backfired together with his group on the time.
He went from 2,100 followers to lower than 1,300 on Instagram virtually in a single day, as he described the rockhounding group as a spot that’s not at all times protected for queer individuals as a result of it’s historically been a male-dominated pastime.
Males account for 62% of these working within the environmental science area, in response to Zippia.
However as an alternative of taking the loss as successful to his system, he determined to rebrand as “Fossil Daddy” to be able to attain a extra area of interest viewers.
This ended up working for him, and when his buddy recommended that he get extra comfy making video content material, he joined TikTok in 2020, and the remaining is historical past.
He instructed The Submit that he needs to make his platform a protected house for each queer people and folks of colour to speak about paleontology.
Fossil Daddy has grown a following to the purpose the place he has been acknowledged within the wild. When he was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a member of the family’s wedding ceremony final summer time, someone spotted him sporting a maroon swimsuit, consuming Doritos and singing “The Spice Women” round city. It was only one cease on his nationwide fossil hunt.
In his thick Boston accent, he mentioned that this was the “craziest” expertise he’s had from the app up to now.
As with every social media platform, Daddy has confronted his fair proportion of trolls, particularly those that don’t consider in science or those that are creationists. Some have known as him a menace to their faith or beliefs. He’s made some response movies addressing them, however instructed us that he doesn’t go after simply anyone.
“I actually depart it to actually the dumbest feedback,” Fossil Daddy defined.
However trolls apart, he doesn’t let that cease him from going digging.
The paleontologist’s fossil hunts have taken him all around the globe, from England and Scotland to extra native websites in Colorado and Connecticut. He says he does loads of analysis earlier than he goes out on these hunts, which usually take him a few week.
“As quickly as I get to the spot, I look out for the rock that I do know is the fossil bearing rocks, resembling limestone, sandstone, shale,” he mentioned. “After which I take out my hammer and my instruments, and I simply begin splitting rock.”
When Fossil Daddy is in search of dinosaur footprints close by, like in Connecticut, he brings in a crowbar that he says is twice the size of him. He additionally brings noticed blades to be able to fastidiously extract the fossils that received’t come out of the rock so simply.
One in every of his greatest finds features a Plesiosaur paddle bone, which he got here throughout when searching on the Jurassic coast of England, proper after a cliff fall. It’s his favourite, as a result of he discovered it within the hometown of Mary Anning, an English paleontologist who’s his childhood hero.
“Her home, or what’s now the Lyme Regis Museum, was in plain view of that web site,” he described. “So I used to be like, actually, like inside viewing distance of her house when I discovered that. That’s only a reminiscence that I’m at all times going to treasure and that’s the fossil that I’m at all times going to treasure.”
When he doesn’t use the fossils for his personal private assortment or to promote on his web site, he donates them to institutes and universities to be studied additional.
However his final objective is to open up a museum of his personal that will be free for the general public to go to.
“I wish to create, like, a extremely wholesome studying atmosphere the place all people’s welcome,” Fossil Daddy mentioned of his future imaginative and prescient.
He plans to have a complete part of the museum devoted to fossils that impressed sure Pokémon, and presumably even an animation part.
Till then, he plans to maintain digging for fossils and making content material, in order that he can carry on being Fossil Daddy.