In Episode 4 of BTS: TBTS, Alli makes a big time jump—goodbye, early aughts religious curiosities; hello, 2020, pandemic scrolling, and a social media algorithm that changed everything.
What started as idle Instagram voyeurism during lockdown quickly turned into a deep dive into the world of Christian influencers: their language, their aesthetics, their confidence, and the very particular way they speak to (and shape) young women online. As Alli traces how this unexpected obsession became the creative spark for Too Blessed to Stress, she reflects on the strange intimacy of influencer culture, the power of branding, and what it means to study a belief system you don’t share—but can’t stop watching.
In this episode, we cover:
Next up: Alli goes deeper into the writing process itself—how she transformed this research into characters, scenes, and a story that early readers say feels uncomfortably authentic.