What is The Swipe Up?
The Swipe Up was born from the annoyance in not being able to share links easily on Instagram. It has since transformed to the internet equivalent to finding a bonus fry in your Chick-fil-a bag, realizing you have a few bucks left on an old Starbucks card, or canceled plans that result in pajama pants and ice cream on your couch. It has been hyperbolically called the best newsletter on the internet, usually by my mom. If you are a reader of The Swipe Up, you are automatically a Lil Swipe. That’s just how this works.
It’s written by Erin Moon, who is writing this bio, but also wants to be a professional, so she’ll do it in the third person and you’ll pretend to think someone else wrote it for her. Erin has been referred to as spiritual seven-layer dip. She’s not sure it was meant as a compliment, but she’s taking it as one. She spins many plates and thinks a lot about which ones she should drop so her kids don’t have to go to TOO much therapy. They will definitely have to go to therapy.
Erin is the Resident Bible Scholar on the Faith Adjacent podcast, all of which you can find if you subscribe to the Faith Adjacent feed. She also creates digital resources to help you walk through life with Jesus, if that’s something that interests you. Erin is mainly on Instagram, where she has a following mainly because she once peed on $300 worth of Spanx in a department store.
What’s…like…going on here?
Every week, Erin sends out an email called Lil Treasures, and then collectively, everyone in the comments shares their own lil treasures for the week, thus creating a weekly repository of good things, both on the internet and in real life. Some commentators have been around for a long time, and some are new. Some people lurk and that’s okay too. But Lil Treasures is where we share all our favorites and happies, so we don’t drown in the dark abyss of the world’s climate (both metaphorical and literal). We also share turds, because we don’t photoshop grief here.
There’s also a paid portion called The Swipe Up+ that includes some really fun stuff like:
Guides in community: Together we will walk through several studies throughout the year, starting with dis/entangle, which is the “weird project” so many of you helped me formulate and work through a few months ago. We will also do guided Advent, Lent, and maybe one more depending on how we feel. We will do these guides and studies in private community with one another, and you can pop in and pop out as you see fit in your own life.
Tendie Tuesdays: Every Tuesday, you’ll get an essay from me. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s recommendations, sometimes it’s me raging against the White American Evangelical Complex, you really just never know.
The whole archive: You also get access to the entire archive of past writing, which is pretty robust, if I do say so myself.
What do we care about?
We are a community of kind and curious people. We have radical empathy, we love a good mock/cocktail, and we make room for compassionate hospitality for God’s creatures. This newsletter is a little like stumbling into a private garden party where everyone is two drinks in and some people are already in the pool, singing an Ariana Grande song, but in a dumb way, like an opera singer, for the lols. Some people are huddled around the fire, discussing theology like a smidge too loudly. OMG Fred Rogers just walked in and he is also just a little tipsy and now he’s playing the (outdoor?) piano and we’re all singing “Say It Ain’t So” at the top of our lungs and none of our neighbors are mad. In fact, they open their shutters and sing it with us.
Do I have to pay?
Lil Treasures is always free, but The Swipe Up+ is just $6/American Dollhairs a month, or $5/month when you purchase a year at a time.
