So, how did you all find Free Jinger?

[melk]

Yes here's the extensive list of fundie blogs:

http://freejinger.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12

Thank you. :)

[Cordelia]

I think it may have been mentioned a long time ago on an activeboard site I used to frequent. At least I think that is how I found the old Yuku site...

[lilwriter85]

I saw it mentioned on IMDB and TWOP. I found the Yuku FJ. I lurked for a couple of weeks and then registered.

[BelieveinScience]

Through the great Zsusanna.

[pixydust]

Hmmm, I'm trying to remember the trail. I googled something to do with "quiverful" and ended up at NLQ, DWOP, and The Readheaded Skeptic (among other little stuff that I visited once).....but I don't remember what order and what site eventually got me here.

[melk]

I see a bunch of you who lurked for a while before joining. Am I weird in that I found this place, registered right away, and jumped right in? :?

[pomology]

I see a bunch of you who lurked for a while before joining. Am I weird in that I found this place, registered right away, and jumped right in? :?

Kinda. I think on the internet in general it's accepted that if you don't want to risk getting ripped to shreds in an online community you should lurk and get the feel of the community before jumping in.

Also, I'm a cautious person in general in new situations (both online and IRL) and don't speak until I feel comfortable. Which means I'm pretty much silent around strangers for awhile, but once I know people you can't get me to shut up.

Anyway, I heard about the Duggars around the time that Jennifer (I think) was born. I read about them, thought they seemed like crazy evangelicals (back in those days I thought the craziest you got was believing in creationism, hating teh gays, and being anti-choice). They caught my eye because they were weird, but I didn't, uh, see how deep the rabbit hole went. Growing up in a very liberal religious environment, I've always been been fascinated by conservative Christians (I remember have a brief obsession with the Liberty University 2011 facebook groups. But again, my conception of absolutely the worst back then was still people who our fundies would consider pretty damn wordly.

During spring break my sophomore year of college I saw that a facebook friend (a girl I went to Jewish day school with and have never really liked) was a member of the group "I want to marry John David Duggar" or something like that on facebook. So, I was like "WTF, why would she want to marry a right-wing evangelical Christian?" So I started googling the Duggars hard core and found various forums about them (including FJ) and some of their episodes online (TLC actually did used to post some episodes). I was also going through a really terrible time in my life then where I felt like a different person then myself and just couldn't enjoy the things I've always enjoyed, so I had plenty of spare time to occupy my mind and not think about the things going on in my life, so I started reading FJ and other Duggar forums pretty regularly.

As I healed over that summer, I continued to read FJ almost every night and really just loved hearing the perspectives of smart, funny women, so I stuck around. I finally delurked in, like, November, because something Lina said that pissed me the fuck off.

I still stick around for the smart, funny women. And I'm glad I read here. I've never been in danger of becoming fundie and I've always been liberal and considered myself a feminist, but this board has really caused me to think more about what feminism really is and feel a lot more strongly about feminist issues. Also, I'm pretty sure reading about crazy fundies just makes me immensely more appreciative of my own life, even when I get upset about my tons of #firstworldproblems.

So thanks, FJ, for helping pull myself out of heart-broken depression and for really making me proud to be a feminist.

[saraelise]

I honestly don't remember but it was probably NLQ because I'd been reading that blog for a while. I became familiar with Razing Ruth from there. Before I found FJ, the fundies I was most familiar with were Anna T and Stacy McDonald and daughters. I was so close to getting sucked into the craziness before I found NLQ

[Markie]

I watched 14 Kids and Pregnant, and was mesmerized by that strange fmaily. I googled the name and came across TWOP. I read and posted there on and off, although got a warning for posting something about Zach Bates. I went to Razing Ruth, was not so into NLQ. DWOP was often too pro-Duggar, but it was interesting to try to figure out how fundies think. When Howard closed TWOP for another time I searched around and came to FJ. I liked the variety of posts and posters. I had never heard of the Maxwells, Phillips or Botkins, and certainly not ZsuZsu. Btw, can anyone tell me why her husband is called PP?

OT: When I go visit my 'Snowbird" parents, who live in Florida for the the winter, I find myself looking at all the churches and wondering which ones are fundie and which ones are more mainstream Christian. Also, I noticed that several of the Florida churches have little motel-like rooms built to one or two sides of the churches. Were these hospitality rooms for missionaries, Sunday school rooms, storage?... I think someone mentioned that most churches in Florida do not have basements so the additions were in lieu of basement spaces.

Anyway, that's the Readers' Digest version of my journey to FJ.

[pixydust]

I see a bunch of you who lurked for a while before joining. Am I weird in that I found this place, registered right away, and jumped right in? :?

I lurked for months before I registered! It seemed like every time I decided to register and intorduce myself, some new troll would pop up, and that never seems like a good time to join a forum.

[Ruby]

A few years ago I was channel surfing, and found "A Very Duggar Wedding." I hand't watched the show more than once or twice because the Duggars irked me for reasons I couldn't quite name, but I like weddings, so I thought "what the heck."

When Dad Keller was explaining the transfer of authority, wine = grape juice, etc, I had a horrible moment of revelation ... (this is where in a movie, the director would use the backing-away-while-zooming-in-effect) ... they're ATI!!! That's what's been bothering me!!!!

I was in the middle of my divorce from my fundamentalist / patriarchal ex-husband and had a visceral reaction of disgust. I turned to the interwebs for solidarity, but everything I could find re: The Duggars, was glowing and gushy. Yuk. Finally, I Googled "can't stand Duggars" which led me to the yuku board. Happy days, folks. Happy days.

[JesusFightClub]

I watched 14 Kids and Pregnant, and was mesmerized by that strange fmaily. I googled the name and came across TWOP. I read and posted there on and off, although got a warning for posting something about Zach Bates. I went to Razing Ruth, was not so into NLQ. DWOP was often too pro-Duggar, but it was interesting to try to figure out how fundies think. When Howard closed TWOP for another time I searched around and came to FJ. I liked the variety of posts and posters. I had never heard of the Maxwells, Phillips or Botkins, and certainly not ZsuZsu. Btw, can anyone tell me why her husband is called PP?

OT: When I go visit my 'Snowbird" parents, who live in Florida for the the winter, I find myself looking at all the churches and wondering which ones are fundie and which ones are more mainstream Christian. Also, I noticed that several of the Florida churches have little motel-like rooms built to one or two sides of the churches. Were these hospitality rooms for missionaries, Sunday school rooms, storage?... I think someone mentioned that most churches in Florida do not have basements so the additions were in lieu of basement spaces.

Anyway, that's the Readers' Digest version of my journey to FJ.

Markie, I can explain about PP. It stands for Pissing Preacher because Zsu's hubby once gave a sermon about the "pisseth against the wall" verse in the OT and how it proves that real men pee standing up. It was comedy gold and I urge you to YouTube for it.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Pretty much exactly this. The Maxwells were my gateway fundies, can't remember how I stumbled across them tho.

I had been reading a variety of fundie things (Prairie Muffin and Vision Forum quite a bit, getting into the whole patriarchy thing and the perfect "never been kissed" weddings) and had noticed for a while the obsession with "Titus 2." I'm very interested in mentoring/tutoring issues generally, and this was a religious version (it has some good points!! but is also used as code for So Much Crazy) and so decided to google on it to find more examples of the crazy romanticizing of PhD-level homemaking/homesteading.

Well, if you google up "Titus 2" the Maxwells and their various businesses are the absolute top links, so I found the blog from there. They had some bus porn up when I found it, and as I'm also interested in remaking vehicles to be homey or camp-livable that caught and kept my interest. I read backward through the blog so I could find when/how they got the bus and what it looked like when they got it, and then just decided to read every post on the entire blog. I'm always interested in "how extreme can this go?" and they are pretty out there. Vision Forum is pretty damn wack but at least they have their own social circles to move in, somewhat.

[StacyW]

For some reason I think The Bloggess posted a link to Emily somehow, although I could be wrong because it was ages ago. From there I found Gizomla's under1000braincells, which led me to NLQ, which brought me to Yuku and finally here. I'm not a very active poster but I read here multiple times a day.

OT I love The Bloggess. Beyonce the Chicken made my day.

[HoneyBunny]

I started by watching the early Gosselin shows, but was very quickly turned off by Kate's witchiness. But by watching that show on TLC, I became familiar with the Duggars about the time they were doing either their specials or the first full season of their show. Went to their website, clicked on the link for Managers of their Homes ('cause I'll admit to a few OCD tendancies :? ), discovered the Maxwells and thought I had hit the motherlode of fundiness. Googling them led me to the Yuku site about the time it moved to here. I'll admit to being most fascinated by the Maxwells and Duggars, slightly more tolerant of the Bates (don't know why), and most unbelieving of the Seven Sisters.

And I mostly love this site, although sometimes I think some of y'all can be bullies. The thread about newbies? Good grief, get over yourselves!

[knitwit]

I've always found these kind of extreme beliefes fascinating--like train-wreck fascinating--so after seeing a couple episodes of the Duggars, I checked out the TWOP board. Occasionally when I find a huge thread/forum I'll go back to the beginning and start reading, just reading posts when I have time, and after a while I was finding the discussion of the larger Quiverfull/fundie movement more interesting than the Duggars themselves. Of course the mods over there didn't allow that kind of discussion, so after seeing the name "Free Jinger" crop up a couple times, I googled and found the old board, I think...early last year? From there I, well...started at the beginning and read whatever threads caught my eye. Which was amazing, by the way--it's like finding a really good new author then discovering they have 20 books in their backlist, except this is a backlist of delicious, delicious crazy. :D

I've been lurking and occasionally piping up ever since. :D

[Shirley MacLaine]

I can't exactly remember how I stumbled upon Free Jinger. I know I was reading Domestic Felicity, LAF and Gen Cedar before joining the yuku board...

Huh! I can't remember at all. But I'm so glad I did stumble upon FJ, however it happened. You people make me feel way less weird about my fundie obsession, and reading here helps me not bother all my friends about it at bars :P

[PBrooke]

I used to snark on the Gosselins on TWOP, but that thread was forever getting closed (this was long ago, long before the divorce). I had never watched 17 Kids, but it kept getting mentioned on J&K message boards, so somehow I watched an ep and started reading the Duggar thread on TWOP. I think maybe I wound up on FJ when someone linked Kristina and her Arby's proposal, maybe? And since TWOP just kept getting worse and worse, I stuck with FJ (in the middle of the yuku days) and never left.

[dawn9476]

I want to say I saw someone mention it at TWOP and so I googled it but I am not 100 percent sure.

[GrapeSlushie]

I lurked on the TWOP thread for years and kept seeing people reference FJ. Then I lurked on the old Yuku site until finally registering on this one. I mostly hang out in the FJ Facebook group though, because I'm lazy and don't have to log in and stuff. :D

[spragger]

I see a bunch of you who lurked for a while before joining. Am I weird in that I found this place, registered right away, and jumped right in? :?

Not weird, just brave!

I think what made me finally register what that everybody seemed to really be just as disgusted with Josh as much as I was. I always thought he was sort of creepy, but nobody I know agrees. Also, people seem pretty open-minded to at least letting people say their opinions even if they totally disagree. I can deal with online argument as long as it stay civil as long as it doesn't deteriorate into personal attacks.

The more I saw of regular posters, the more I liked them. The weird part about lurking is that you sort of feel like you've gotten to "know" certain people by reading their comments--maybe you always laugh at their witty posts, but to them you are a total newbie, so they might lash out and be rude to you. It can be weird. You were probably smart registering right away!

[tacky]

I see a bunch of you who lurked for a while before joining. Am I weird in that I found this place, registered right away, and jumped right in? :?

I always lurk for a while in a new community to get a feel for the place and see if it's a good fit for me. When I first lurked at FJ on Yuku I was really entertained by the posters here but didn't feel like I had much to add so I was content to just read and enjoy.

[Bethella]

Hi everyone, I'm newly registered but like many others I've been lurking off and on for a while. My path to FJ has been rather circuitous. From watching J&K+8 to Gosselins Without Pity to DWOP to TWOP to NLQ to FJ. I didn't become a regular reader until the current election cycle began to scare me.

[nimerha]

Purely by chance. I found Zsu Zsu via a feminist site called heartless-bitches.com (the site is now largely abandoned but has some excellent articles on emotional manipulation and dysfunctional relationship; it's discussion boards are still going and are pretty excellent, but you need to apply to join) that snarked her, and from there Jessica/Latisha; also by a random related google found kimc LiaS. Read all three for years, unable to really explain my sick fascination to anyone in "real life".

And then Jessica, bless her heart, mentioned "FreeJingers" in a post. It was like Christmas coming early. You guys, I can't even explain my glee over this board's existence.

So Jessica, if by chance you're reading this (although you're not in the title so perhaps not)... thank you so, so much, dear heart. Bless you for bringing me (and others, undoubtedly) here :D

[Lillian]

I think I was googling 'sin in the camp' and Fj came up. I'd read a bit over at NLQ, and the TLC Duggars forum, which sparked my interest.