Hi, I’m Stepfanie—welcome to WILD BARE THOUGHTS ッ
I started this Substack because I needed a space that wasn’t dictated by algorithms or outrage cycles. I wanted something slower. Something truer. A place to think out loud. To feel out loud. A place to share the more raw and vulnerable sides of myself: the things that make me pause, ache, laugh out loud, and honestly just feel human again.
You’ll still find me shitposting on 𝕏, but this is where the real thinking happens. This is where the real work lives. The thoughts that linger, the ones that keep me up at night or make me pull over to *add to Notes*. These aren’t just passing thoughts—they’re the ones that build quietly and take root. This is where I write about joy, meaning, memory, awe. About what I notice on walks. Feelings I don’t want to forget. This is where I follow my curiosity wherever it leads, then try to make sense of what I find.
WILD BARE THOUGHTS has become so much more than just my digital diary. It’s a lens, a portal, a moodboard of thoughts I don’t want to lose, and place to trace what’s shifting—inside me, and in the world.
Nothing is off limits for me and I remain niche-less on purpose. Sometimes I write about tech or AI, other times I’m writing about the way a movie made me feel or how a book shifted my outlook on the world. I don’t follow a “content schedule” (I explain more on this below), I simply write whatever feels interesting to me at any given moment—many times, dictated by my mood.
A few times a week I share my adventures from down the rabbit hole. Random things that caught my attention and made me drop whatever I was doing because I thought “wait, what? how? why? what in the world?” They’re not polished essays, per se—they’re truly just things that made me think. Things that sparked my curiosity. Things like:
Calvin Coolidge had a pet raccoon named Rebecca? or
How was Vincent van Gogh’s life so utterly tragic? or
What can we learn about ourselves from ants?
You know, totally normal things like that ツ
I also recently started a series called pretty little things where I share simple musings like poetry, photos I loved, things I happened upon that made me smile—sometimes entries from my diary, or other mental aesthetics.
a few examples of pretty little things:
Good question. I’m nobody, really. Just a girl with a MacBook and a knack for noticing things. I moved from the California coast to the Vegas desert in my mid-twenties and have been desert dwelling ever since. I have 2 gigantic mastiffs. I collect books and have curated quite the little library at home—which I’m a bit obsessed with if I’m being honest. I currently own over 650 books. (But we need MOAR)
I’ve worn quite a few hats in my day. I’ve dabbled in everything from retail management, to e-commerce operations, to owning and operating my own boutique marketing agency. I shut my agency down in 2020 due to Covid—all my clients were mainly in the hospitality industry and, due to lockdowns, didn’t need any marketing services, as you can imagine.
So I pivoted from marketing for others to marketing for myself. I grew an audience of around 40k on Instagram, but by late 2021, I knew the inauthenticity would kill me. It’s not my style to be peddling skincare products I don’t truly believe in, or wearing some outfit for photos that I’d never step foot outside my house in irl. The act of “content creation” became the bane of my existence. Every experience was about the content and things quickly became unenjoyable. So I pivoted again.
I ditched my Instagram account completely, stopped taking paid collaborations and doing brand consulting for content. I’ve always loved writing so I figured I’d shoot my shot somewhere thoughts were more appreciated—and just in the knick of time, Elon bought twitter. With free speech making a comeback, I decided to give it a go on 𝕏 as @wildbarestepf. As of May 2025, I have a little over 95k followers and I’ve built a community I love. However, my THOUGHTS still didn’t have a place to live. A place to shine. The dialogue is rooted in outrage and the algorithm rewards the madness.
Which brings me back to Substack. Here I am. In all my messy glory. Just a girl with a MacBook who’s trying to write her way through all the world has to offer—in a way that feels natural, authentic and true to who I am. No paid collabs, no sponsored posts, and no content creation. Just me, myself, and my wild, bare, thoughts.
And you, if you decide to stick around.
If not, that’s okay too—I really appreciate you stopping by.
Oh by the way, I also love writing lyrics! I released an album earlier this year called speedrunning love, which is available wherever you stream music. It’s basically my diary from the last decade, in song-form. I hope you’ll give it a listen.
