This probably comes as no surprise to you, but life is about choices. The ones you make, the ones you don’t make, and all the different paths each choice takes you down. They say choices define you as a person. Make Good Life Choices, right? Well, we can try, anyway. But there’s no guarantee that what seems like a good choice at the time will have a positive payoff in the end. To wind up in federal prison, specifically in the punishment unit known as the SHU, one would assume you’ve made a hell of a lot of bad decisions. Rather than look at it this way, I choose to believe that I’ve been given a rare opportunity to experience something that most people spend their entire lives trying to avoid. My life choices led me to spend 75 days locked in a cell with someone the world has come to know as PrisonBirkin.

On April 2, 2020, the Special Investigation Service—commonly referred to as SIS by inmates—came into my dorm, pulled me out of bed, strip-searched me in the bathroom, and took me to the Special Housing Unit. SIS had come across a post I’d made on a federal inmate support group Facebook page, a post informing the families of inmates what was currently being told to us regarding COVID-19. While searching my room, they found my cellphone and charger. I knew I was caught, knew that a choice had landed me in this situation. I knew the risk. I knew what choice I was making the second I had a cellphone in my possession. But if your choice is between a cellphone and one book, no paper, no pen, no addresses to send letters to? A cellphone seems like a pretty good choice, if you ask me, because that was exactly what my first week in federal prison was like. You try reading a single book three times through and tell me you wouldn’t jump at the chance to scroll through Instagram for five minutes.

So there you have it: a choice and its consequence. And as much as I don’t wish the SHU on anyone, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to getting a cellmate. As luck would have it, exactly one week after I entered the SHU, I heard them bringing in someone new. I got out of bed and saw a tall, slender, curly-haired sketch comedy awkward sort of dude coming down the hallway. It’s prison, so you’re always a little nervous about who you’re going to end up locked in a cell with, but I could already tell that Mitch was going to be someone I’d be able to get along with.

Mitch wasn’t, at the point we became cellmates in the SHU, unknown to me. We’d known of each other on the yard during recreation, but we were in different units and our only common interest was yoga. Spending the next 75 days talking, showering, farting, and shitting in front of each other left us, as you can imagine, a little better acquainted. They called him Hula-Hoop as a prison nickname because of his innate Flow Arts abilities. Think you’ve never heard of Flow Arts? It’s a catch-all term that encompasses hula-hooping, juggling, fire-spinning, and so on. Close your eyes and picture a skinny 6’3” guy hula hooping for hours in front of prison inmates. That’s Mitch. You can’t tell me that’s not impressive.

The first question I asked him was the obvious one. “So, how’d you end up in the SHU?” Mitch told me that he got caught with a phone after his TikTok went viral. Imagine that, going viral on TikTok from within federal prison. There truly are no bounds to the power of social media. Now, I have a novice knowledge of TikTok—I have one and have posted exactly one video—but as Mitch explained the content of his videos, I could see how he reached viral fame so quickly.

The next question after the obvious one was whether it was worth it. Was the prize worth the pain? The choice worth the consequence? The risk worth the biscuit? This is where we both found common ground, because his answer was a resounding “hell yes.” See, the prison system is designed to take away our voices, to make us think that we don’t matter not just to ourselves, but to society. The symbolism of taking away our voting rights shows you that they want us to be silenced for the rest of our lives. They want our desires, our say in matters, to be irrelevant so that the stereotype that inmates are uneducated, dangerous, menaces to society is easier to believe. If we have access to the Internet and social media, if we have a way to showcase our true voices, then we can show the world that many of us simply don’t fit the inmate stereotype. So Mitch and I both made the choice to show everyone who we are at the risk of extreme punishment. And, for Mitch, going viral on TikTok opened a door he has been actively trying to open since he was a young teenager.

While it might seem like Mitch skyrocketed from obscurity to millions of views overnight, the persona behind PrisonBirkin is actually the culmination of years spent studying the algorithms of social media platforms, creating YouTube channels, and learning about the success stories of well-known social media influencers like James Charles and Emma Chamberlain (and some of whom I’ve never heard of, but his attention to the details of how these people grew into household names are impressive). Not to mention hours watching TikTok videos every night from within the confines of federal prison. Mitch’s depth of knowledge on the subject eventually led to him teaching an inmate class on how to best use social media to grow a business. His overall grasp of social media, along with his ideas about collaborating with social media influencers, is nothing less than astounding. Throughout our discussions on the subject, I often felt as if I should take out a legal pad and start taking notes. Maybe I should have. Living with him was like being in the presence of a social media professor, one that people were interested in finding out more about before SIS threw a wrench in his plans. Before he was locked up in the SHU with me, Mitch had news outlets and celebrities in his inbox, all dying to know more about PrisonBirkin. He’d sent a message to Slayyyter, the pop star whose music he used in one of the TikToks that went viral (he even wrote her name on our cell’s door), but he never had a chance to respond before he landed in here.

So this puts me in a unique position. I have an opportunity to introduce PrisonBirkin, in his own words, to the world. So, world, meet the man behind PrisonBirkin:

Mitch is unequivocally unique in a lot of ways. There is plenty about him that is distinctly masculine, but there’s also a delineated set of feminine personality traits. He is openly bisexual, which is something that takes a lot of courage to admit in prison. Social perceptions here are at least 60 years behind those of the regular world, and it’s hard to imagine a place on the outside that is more behind the times in terms of racism, sexism, and homophobia. It’s 2020. Anyone who doesn’t agree that Black Lives Matter, that women deserve equal pay for equal work, and that LGTBQIA+ rights are human rights… it’s time to wake the fuck up.

Despite all of this, Mitch has never wavered from who he is at his core. I know one guy in my dorm who actually quit going to Mitch’s social media class after Mitch made a comment referring to himself as bisexual. His sexuality also made his life incredibly difficult when it came to him receiving equal treatment by his counselor and case manager. Mitch tried to get a job the entire time he was at the camp, but his counselor refused to get him one. While other guys were given six to eight months of halfway house on sentences similar to his, he received only two months while his case manager openly made negative remarks about Mitch’s sexuality.

To me, the most glaring oppression that came as a direct result of Mitch’s openness about his sexuality was reflected on his point sheet. Every inmate is scored on things such as their living skills, family interactions, program participation, and prison conduct. Let’s make one thing very clear: Mitch is the cleanest person I have ever met. He cleaned our floor daily, reorganized the few things we had almost obsessively, and kept his bed in pristine condition. I know he was like this as the camp as well, yet he received a zero, which considered “very poor,” for his living skills. In comparison, I basically shoved everything into places that ensured I wouldn’t get yelled at and still somehow received an “average” score for my living skills. He also attended virtually every program offered, taught classes, and helped others with their work and still received a zero for program participation. He wrote his mother six pages, front and back, every single night, but guess what? He also received a zero for family interaction. He received a shot for hugging his girlfriend during visitation. Hugs are allowed. And a shot for having a sweatshirt hung up on his clothes hook, which is a technical violation, but one that every prisoner would be guilty of if enforced. These two disciplinary shots in addition to his cellphone shot gave him a very bad score for prison conduct. I normally try not to accuse people of bias, but it is abundantly clear that both Mitch’s counselor and case manager did everything they could to punish him for his sexuality. Mitch knew what was going on, and while it bothered him, it left him with even more resolve to be who he is.

You knew this next part was coming.

One of the things nearly everyone in prison has in common is a love for drugs. Even in the SHU, people spend all day sending food and stamps under their doors to other inmates to trade for drugs. Mitch and I don’t participate in the market other than to acquire envelopes, stamps, and ham sandwiches. That isn’t to say that we both don’t love drugs—we do—we just prefer ones that aren’t chemicals from China sprayed on paper. We both have a deep and enduring love for cannabis. Mitch went to a boarding school in Colorado for high school and began smoking while out there.

We would spend hours in the SHU talking about different strains, solventless dabs, and glass pieces he had gotten to smoke out of. One of his passions is borosilicate glass pipes. Mitch talked about the colors in the glass, the skill and technique needed to make the pieces, and the people he knew in the cannabis and glass industry in Colorado with wistful enthusiasm. While he wasn’t in prison for marijuana charges, he agrees his favorite substance is cannabis. While I have taken mushrooms quite a few times and taken molly a couple of times, I do not consider myself to be an expert on hallucinogens or party drugs, but Mitch knows a lot about LSD, DMT, ketamine, ecstasy, molly, and drugs I have never even heard of. I know many people have probably been dying to know why PrisonBirkin is in prison. Simply put, he is a man who loves to enjoy his life. That said, Mitch’s charge came from being set up to offer molly off the dark web.

Choices. What you choose, what you don’t, and what the consequences are. Mitch made a choice, and he received a 24-month sentence for importing a controlled substance.

We used to spend hours discussing our futures and plans for what we’ll do when we make it out of prison. Mitch has a loving mother who owns a bunch of Subway franchises in their hometown, and while he definitely sounded hopeful about helping his mom with the burden of that, how it would be his safest option for the future, I know that operating a Subway empire isn’t where Mitch’s heart truly lies. Mitch wants to Make It. PrisonBirkin is just the beginning of what he wants to become. He wants to break into the fashion industry; his obsession with Louis Vuitton, Alexander Wang, and Supreme bring out the artistic, creative side of his personality. He’s also interested in makeup. One of my first introductions to his makeup aptitude was when I asked him what his Instagram handle was. If you haven’t already followed t3rpslut on Insta, go ahead and do it now. He worked as a makeup artist for a while, and he dreams of formulating, marketing, and releasing his own makeup line in the future.

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You’d think having social media, fashion design, and makeup artistry under his belt would be enough, but no. I used to joke with Mitch that I was cellies with a one-man circus sideshow, and I mean that in the best way possible. Mitch would spend hours learning how to juggle four oranges at once. He made a balanced pen that he would twist and spin on his fingers for hours. It isn’t only hula hooping that he has a talent for; he can do flow art with fire and fans, too. He goes to festivals constantly and is well-known in the Bassnectar community.

One day I’ll get out of here, I’ll turn on the T.V., and it’ll be Mitch guest-starring on Saturday Night Live. Social media is just the beginning for him, just the pathway that will showcase his passions and enable him to follow his dreams.

As I’ve been writing this post, more and more of our conversations have come to mind. It’s hard to write an introduction to someone you’ve gotten to know so deeply. It doesn’t do him—in all his complexity and all his ecstatic joy—justice. There’s more to Mitch than what you’re reading here, than what you’ve seen on TikTok.

Mitch was moved to be transferred to another prison two weeks ago, and I likely won’t see or hear from him again until I get out of prison in 2023. He’ll be out before I am, so this part is for you, PrisonBirkin.

Mitch,

You may or may not know this, but you helped me endure one of the darkest times of my life. Our conversations about our pasts, the girls we’ve loved, and the food we wished we were eating helped me keep my mind above water. Without your good spirits and hopeful mentality, I would’ve drowned in the darkness of my own suffering. I’m beyond happy for you that you now have a platform to help you achieve everything you want out of life. I need you to know that I believe in your ability to succeed regardless of which path you take on the road to your version of a happy, fulfilling life. There is no single road to happiness, and only you know which one is best for you. The people who have the joy of following you are lucky, just as I was lucky to have fate stick you in a cell with me for two and a half months.

On September 10th of this year, you will be back on the Internet making the content you spent hours in our cell planning. I know your life will become a whirlwind of dreams come true and good fortune. Just make sure you save a day in 2023 for me so I can meet Yarah. No matter how many articles are written about your life, this will always be the first. From someone who knew you at the birth of your fame until we meet again, my fellow inmate, cellmate, and friend: enjoy your life and never stop believing in the incredible power of your spirit.