| Every spring, shed hunters head to the woods looking for deer and elk antlers that may fetch thousands of dollars, or social-media fame.  Illustration by Lily Qian The world of hunting for antlers shed by animals—like all hobbies that become life styles and then become businesses—is full of words, phrases, and ways of seeing that can seem strange to the outsider. What is a “deadhead” or an “eight by eight”? Why would people sleep in their cars to be among the first to go rushing into the Wyoming wilderness to pick fallen elk antlers out among the sticks and other deadfall on the ground? And why would so many thousands of people watch other people do it on YouTube? As Abe Streep reports in his funny and illuminating new story, a lot of it has to do with money. Elk and deer antlers are big business: valuable as ornamentation (the desired “deadhead,” a skull with the antlers attached, can go for tens of thousands of dollars), for their use in homeopathic medicines, and as extremely durable chew toys for dogs. “The domestic antler business,” Streep writes, “is centered on an illusion of economic freedom derived from the land, and a reality in which performative masculinity caters to the whims of a flourishing pet-wellness industry.” And to this intertwined global industry comes the latest form of money-making: the rise of the antler influencer on social media. “The Internet’s ruined everything,” one hunter puts it. But maybe not quite—there’s still the joy of finding a prized “eight by eight,” a pair of antlers with eight points apiece. —Ian Crouch, newsletter editor | 
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