Vocabulary in Context: Exotic Pets

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This week's quiz comes from an article published on June 18, 2021.

Fill in the Blanks in "The Internet’s Exotic Pets, and the People Who Love Them."

Choose the word or phrase that BEST completes each blank in the following paragraphs.

Tomas Pasiecznik lives in New Jersey with his parents, his dog and 26 other species of animals, including a reticulated python, a Chilean rose hair tarantula, a colony of Central American giant cave cockroaches and an African pygmy hedgehog named Chloe. That count does not include all the animals that Pasiecznik acquires to feed to his other animals. When we spoke on a recent afternoon, over Zoom, Pasiecznik dipped out of view for a moment and returned with two electric blue hornwormsin his palm — dinner for his scorpions and tarantulas. “They’re super cool,” he said. “I have a hard time feeding these. I’d rather just, like, watch them turn into moths and stuff.”

Pasiecznik is 22, with a slight frame and a confusingly appealing fashion sense. He can wear a voluminous logo T-shirt and tight checkered pants — basically what I wore in middle school in the 1990s, except I looked like a freak and he looks incredible. He is the kind of young person who speaks earnestly about his passions: “My two main passions are animals and technology,” he said. On Instagram and YouTube, he posts as Tomas Pasie, and he is aof an internet niche known as Pet Tube: a community of people who film their numerous and exotic animals.

There are several reasons a person might come to own a large number of unusual pets. For instance, because they are passionate about animals. But also, because YouTube is passionate about animals — the more, the better. “A large number of pets is not my goal, but a large number of pets gets views on YouTube,” Pasiecznik said.

At the moment, Pasiecznik has 31 animals (his cockroach and powder orange isopod colonies are too unwieldy to calculate as individuals, so he counts each colony as one pet). This is a relativelynumber for him. His most popular videos of all time include “Feeding my 31 tarantulas (GONE WRONG)” (3.7 million views), “FEEDING ALL MY ANIMALS (100+ PETS) [INSANE]” (1.6 million views) and the Spanish-language version of that video, “ALIMENTANDO A TODOS MIS ANIMALES (+100 MASCOTAS) INCREÍBLE” (1.8 million views).

Pasiecznik grew up watching YouTube (“I’ve been passionate about YouTube since I was literally a kid”), and his content is attuned to satisfy the platform’s impulses: It marries the demands foroddities and hyper-practical how-tos. In a typical video, he speaks to the camera over synthesized stock music, projecting perfunctory competence as he instructs his viewers in the details of raising spiders, preparing sausages for lizards and properly humidifying a chameleon enclosure. He promotes his work with colorful photographic collages featuring a central image of his face flanked by a bunch of weird animals. The titles of his videos emphasize the “insane” nature of his animal “collection.” In 2018, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not featured him as a “prolific collector” of “crazy pets.” But Pasiecznik resists that characterization.

“I don’t like using the term ‘collection,’” he said. He used to amass stacks and stacks of Monster energy drink cans — that was a collection. His pets are individuals whom he cares for and loves. Pasiecznikhis mother for his empathy toward strange creatures. “She really taught me to love every animal,” he said. “Even the tiniest ones.”

...Pet Tube is a funny little scene. Its personalities include Emzotic, a British former zookeeper turned YouTuber; Taylor Nicole Dean, a gothy reptile enthusiast who just returned to YouTube after pausing her channel for more than a year to focus on her sobriety; Marlene Mc’Cohen, an actress and bird person who crafts little personas for each of her dozen parrots; and Thmpsn, a classical violinist and influencer who surrounds himself with a/anof snakes, one enormous rabbit and various women with enormous breast implants.

Reading Comprehension

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Now that you've read the first several paragraphs of this article, which short summary below would you say BEST captures what the piece is about?