Wired: "...Social media creators loom large in the world of venomous keeping. Run a search for a venomous species on YouTube, and you’re likely to come across a de facto influencer with a following in the hundreds of thousands. Many of the most visible figures are also the most controversial, for their enthusiastic embrace of a practice known as “free handling”: holding and otherwise engaging with venomous species without the use of traditional tools like hooks...."

#dummies #snakes

LOL

"...“You get a lot more views for holding a rattlesnake by your face than for when you’re handling one safely,” says Torregrosa. “As far as I know, most of those guys have taken bites.”

Every bite is different. But there are some commonalities among those who tend to receive them. Victims are predominantly male: That same 2014 paper analyzing US exotic bite data found that 79 percent of bite recipients were men, with an average victim age of 33...."

#snakes