SPOTLIGHT: @TATERHOLE

🥛 A2 beta casein regenerative farmed milk, 📖 The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2001, ☮️ Seeking common ground, and more.

Welcome to the PI.FYI User Spotlight, a column where we shine the light on one of our users.

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Today we're featuring Dr. Tate R. Hole, PhD a.k.a @TATERHOLE, an iconic early user of the site. Since the very beginning of PI.FYI, we’ve been graced with her thoughtful and hilarious posts.

As a kid, when prompted to write about myself, I never knew what to say—I hated the idea of containing myself within just a few words. Even now, as often as I write about myself on PI.FYI and in my confessional writing on my Substack, Gory Stories, I find myself in the same place, but this should be enough: Professional monkey at a keyboard moonlighting as a know-it-all; Renaissance woman; flyover state champion.

🥛

A2 beta casein regenerative farmed milk as middle ground between factory farmed slop milk and freak raw milk

Listen, guys, I’m with you—I’m appalled by the mass-scale animal cruelty of factory-farmed dairy, not to mention the poor nutritional quality and foul taste of its resultant product. That said, I don’t have a dog in the raw milk fight; while I can’t muster outrage over it, I also can’t bring myself to care—much like many political issues I’m socially obligated to have a black-and-white opinion on. I find myself torn between my opposition to authoritarian nanny-state control and my inherent distrust of the Amish, the common purveyors of black-market raw milk (it’s fine, they can’t read this unless they’re on Rumspringa—I guess, in which case: welcome, Jebediah). Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that there’s a middle path between factory-farmed slop and forbidden milk straight from the cow’s teat: organic, grass-fed, regeneratively farmed A2 beta-casein milk from heritage cows. A2 beta-casein is easier to digest because it’s the primary protein in human breast milk; cow’s milk originally contained only A2 beta-casein until a sinister genetic mutation introduced A1 beta-casein, now dominant in nearly all commercially available milk. A1 beta-casein is much harder to digest because it doesn’t break down as easily in the body. I love Alexandre Family Farms and Origin; they have great animal welfare standards and their products taste amazing. You can even get A2 beta-casein ice cream from Alec’s brand! See—you can make a cool enlightened alternative choice without being an annoying contrarian about it.

@taterhole

Feb 23, 2025

📖

The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2001 by Gore Vidal

Vidal’s prescient, lucid, and cutting perspective is exactly what we need as the American Empire appears to enter its final death throes. This essay collection dissects the transformation of the American experiment into an imperialist power and foretells its impending collapse.

@taterhole

Feb 23, 2025

💸

Being a cheapskate and a hedonist

I have arbitrary amounts in my head for how much I think things should cost which become increasingly delusional as inflation continues to skyrocket. These dollar amounts are so low that you would think that I’m somebody’s grandfather from the Great Depression, but I do my best to hold the line. I like to buy items that are open-box returns, refurbished, or used, and sort low to high is my lifeline. I want to get a good value for the price that I pay and I’m always obsessed with finding a deal. That said, I indulge far too much in costly food, drink, and other earthly pleasures—it’s about finding balance in that tension between restraint and surrender.

@taterhole

Feb 23, 2025

☮️

Seeking common ground and connectivity

In an increasingly polarized and alienating world, I take pride in my ability to find common ground with almost anyone. My friends joke that I’m psychic—that I pick up on people’s emotions and inner lives with uncanny accuracy—but I think it’s just a result of deep listening and genuine curiosity. Ask people about themselves and really listen. Ask them follow-up questions. Find out what makes their hearts sing and what keeps them up at night. You’d be surprised how much you can relate to, even in those who seem fundamentally different from you. The human experience is universal, and at the end of the day, we only have each other.

@taterhole

Feb 23, 2025

❗

using perfectly imperfect as your only social media platform

I’ve always resented the expectation that I be placed in neat little categorized boxes—hashtag this, hashtag that—and it feels nearly impossible for me to curate my existence into a narrow niche with some kind of projected image in mind. I think I get this from my father, a brilliant fine art abstract wood and stone artist who, for better or worse, has never found commercial success or mainstream acclaim because of his stubborn refusal to market himself or package his work as a product. The words “content” and “influencer” send a chill down my spine. I’ve historically been unable to use TikTok because I break out into hives at the mere thought of it. Call me Holden Caulfield for this but I hate being told what to do by anyone—but especially by algorithms. I never thought there would be a place online for somebody like me until I found Perfectly Imperfect, a community of bright, creative, empathetic and open-minded people who also don’t seem to fit into a box and have grown tired of and morally opposed to legacy social media. It feels like what Tumblr felt like ten years ago. I am so happy to be able to express myself fully and share my idiosyncrasies. The minor demon that possesses me has now surpassed 3,000 recommendations in a little less than a year—I have a lot to say.

@taterhole

Feb 23, 2025

SPOTLIGHT: @TATERHOLE

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