A very hard thing for me to talk about.

Sorry for abandoning the blog. I haven't updated really since the Us review/analysis of woke ableism. I have articles in the works, but they've largely been abandoned for a while.

I probably should've started the blog back up when the whole coronavirus thing started to kick into high gear - I had a lot of free time, I had a lot of rambling I wanted other people to read. But I've been meaning to write this thing for a while that, alas, this has taken first priority.

I am scared to write this. You have no idea how scared I am to even relate these events to you. I want to leave them long behind me, but the moment has come where inaction has become too much. Too many people not giving a shit about the situation at hand here.

From 2012 up to 2016, popular ex-YouTube Pooper/Soundclown artist/DJ/Weird Twitter pioneer Radock abused and gaslit me. Not physically, Lord no - I live nowhere close to her - but all throughout the Internet, she and several of her friends would constantly harass me via any means of communication, through Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and even e-mail. It got to the point where, when I was working on Office Christmas Party in May 2016, Radock threatened to e-mail one of the stars of the movie some (admittedly fetishy) drawings of Giygas's Mother/Earthbound Beginnings form I did in 2012-13 just for fun while also sending me death threats and making jokes about my deceased mom. When confronted with this information throughout this period, both Radock and her friends would deny that they were doing these things to me despite referencing a particularly devastating raid on my artist page on last.fm all throughout their social media. And all throughout this, parties involved in the raid would receive all these accolades from fellow users (even going up to an endorsement from Oneohtrix Point Never for a compilation cassette).

I'm tired of having to hold all this in. I'm tired of this not being out there.

In 2010, I began contact with Radock on her Facebook page. Well, to be honest, I sent her a friend request and she accepted. For the next year and a half, she would comment and like some of my posts, I would do the same. I just thought of her as another YouChew acquaintance. Nobody harmful, just a bit eccentric when it came to her sense of humor. It wasn't until I took a look at her massive video library - which, at the time, consisted of "trap videos" (videos with misleading titles meant to fool unsuspecting viewers, only to give them a brief blip of absurdist comedy making fun of the premise) and super-condensed trollish edits of her own YouTube Poops (which she largely disowned at the time). Some of her trap videos - for example, "OH MY GOD DK WATCH OUT" (the one where an airplane crashes into Donkey Kong while he sings "Nobody's Hero" from that not-so-good animated show of his) - became "fads," or localized memes, on YouChew. Within the heat of that moment - and because of how the rest of the YTP scene was focusing largely on streamlining a lot of its anarchy into KISS-principle comedy videos with the occasionally odd edit - I began to refer to Radock as not just one of the best content creators within the scene, but on the Internet.

Starting from there, Radock's interactions with me became adversarial. At first, they popped up on alts she would make on Facebook - for example, I wrote a glowing review of Quicksilver Messenger Service's Happy Trails and published it in my notes. Within hours, an account by the name of "Animee Johnson" (I'm not making this up) spammed the comments with variations on "fuck you" and random letters in order for the comments section to be a pain to navigate. I didn't know it at the time, but I now suspect that account to be a Radock alt. Why did she allegedly do that? When I wrote reviews of albums I liked, people mostly read the review and moved on, gave me constructive criticism, or liked the post. Not so much Animee Johnson - whatever beef they had with me liking a near-avant-garde psych-rock part-live-part-studio album by an acid rock also-ran didn't necessitate spamming roughly 90-100 comments of "fuck you" and a bunch of random letters.

It was also at this time I had a falling out with sadly deceased YouChew moderator Rokto. They made a pithy post about how Apples were overpriced garbage and I butted in, saying that, I dunno, my iPod is pretty good for what it does. After rebutting by saying that they could get more enjoyment out of a portable hard drive connected to the USB port on a new car, they immediately blocked me. For a while, I thought that was the end of it. Another moderator I managed to piss off because of my own boneheadedness. Miss10 wouldn't talk to me because I was one of those idiots who perved on her because of her animated avatar - something I still regret to this very second - and NegroTed had a legendary adversarial relationship with me largely because I wanted YouChew's thread on Chris-chan to be reopened. Sometimes, I'd make an obtuse post and people would go "oh god why are you talking about how much you like Woody Allen films, he's an old stodgy director, shut up" or "look, another Malkmusian post." The moderators did not take too kindly to me. I wouldn't take too kindly to me from that time period. I was simultaneously arrogant, pseudointellectual, and a total social nimrod.

Then 2012 came. Radock's interactions grew to the point where they outright became antagonistic. It was also at this time that she was experimenting with Weird Twitter and shitposting. She called me out one day on a photo I commented on - said that I was lame or something along those terms - and unfriended me. I figured, after a misguided attempt at apologizing to her, that this was it. Radock was not a force in my life to be reckoned with anymore. What's done is done.

Then 2013 happened. Radock began posting on photo uploads and status updates on my Facebook again - which I had set to public because I didn't know how to play with audience/privacy settings on the website - but they were these antagonistic little things. Some posts would include links to her reuploading JPGs to the aforementioned Giygas fanart - maybe to get a rise out of people because something something "look, the YouChew weirdo drew feet, oooh." This was also around the time I began to develop a bit of a social conscience and openly supported the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. I have friends who are part of the LGBTQ community - I wanted to show that I was starting to be an ally, willing to become a better person. I even adopted that equals sign that was becoming prevalent on Facebook - turned that into my profile picture. And then a person by the name of Lincoln Park Meme (again, not making this up) messaged me on Facebook. At first it was the usual "shitpost, send Malk a small thumbnail of the Giygas art" approach, and then they closed out with this before blocking me (and I'm paraphrasing):

"Oh, cool, you changed your profile picture to an equals sign just to prove that you support the gays. I'm pretty sure you're doing this for social clout. Holy fuck, Malk, you're a tool."

 

That last line hit me hard - I was coming across to people as a jerk. It wasn't until a few months later I realized that Lincoln Park Meme was actually one of Rokto's alts. They had come back in a very caustic way, in some way trying to own the socially naive twentysomething on Facebook. Because of both Radock's increased verbal harassment of me on Facebook and Rokto's messages to me as Lincoln Park Meme, I messaged one of the moderators on YouChew. I chose the first active moderator, who just happened to be Miss10. That did not go as well as I thought it would - she not only refused to do anything, but insinuated throughout a bitter direct message that I was, you know, asking for it. I then vented about the situation on the then-new status update feature YouChew was testing out - a user by the name of Lavagev commented on it. I messaged her on Facebook - since she was mutuals with Radock and Rokto - in order to maybe get this stuff to stop. She shitposted in her responses, not taking me seriously, and when I offered to become friends with her in order to maybe broker some sort of truce, she took it less than seriously.

This sort of inaction - along with the introduction of another one of Radock, Rokto, and Lavagev's mutuals, DeutscheBagge/Doitch, who had a conversation about me regarding my musical taste before spamming a typo I made of Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets (Here come the warn jets) and stopped responding - took place throughout the summer. I figured that was going to be the worst of it - Internet shitlords harassing a person they barely know on the Internet whose only crime to them was acting like an idiot. They could talk about it to their kids in the future.

And then the raid happened. It started because of a couple of status updates I had made - one on my mom's birthday where I made a typo on "birthday" and instead typed it out as "happy day mother" and the other halfway through the month of August where, out of frustration from the constant harassment I had been receiving for the past year and a half, I made a public status update making fun of Lavagev and her and Doitch's collective shitposting of the cover of a Lil Romeo greatest hits album. Almost immediately everybody from that circle began to comment - and they not only commented general harassment (including more links/image uploads of the Giygas fanart), but badgoku14 (Twitter personality Shaliek Jenkins) reposted a message on behalf of Lavagev, calling me out for "being a creep" and that "I deserved it." I deleted the status update (and therefore the comments), blocked most of everybody who commented on that post, and went about my first week at college. Since I was waiting for a USB dongle that would grant me wired Internet access, I had very little access to YouChew and services I was perusing throughout the summer (very bad wifi in the dorm I was staying at).

When the USB dongle arrived and I logged on my last.fm account, hoping to do some editing to my artist page, I noticed that there were a lot of changes. Several different photos - most of which were blown-up copies of what I've called "Gangster Elmo" (Elmo holding two guns, wearing Soulja Boy's sunglasses) and one of which was a photo of a school shooter - along with a severely truncated edit of my artist biography ("The Ma") were added to my artist profile. Along with that were scrobbles of these very odd song titles that had been made over the two weeks of me not checking my last.fm page - the most notable of which came directly from a call out I made towards Radock, where I said that she "called me a twink, a child." That's not the definition of twink in the slightest, but still, any typo I made that they could get their hands on was free for the taking. And in the scrobbles were imgur links to, again, the Giygas fanart, which quickly became a trigger. I reversed the vandalism to the original images, only for the vandalism to pop up within hours (complete with message on one of the Gangster Elmos - "do not remove this image. do not remove this harmless photo of The Malkmusian"). I contacted last.fm admins and moderators about getting the vandalism to stop and they cleaned it up - within a day, the vandalism came back up, this time from increasingly fake accounts with names like negroteque posting in my comments that I come to Miami. It was at this time I noticed the names of those who uploaded the images and edited my artist biography and kept scrobbling those songs - all of them were the last.fm accounts of Radock, Lavagev, Doitch, and Rokto. Rokto's in particular was under the name r8x0 - which they had linked in their YouChew account.

 

I confronted Rokto with photographic evidence of the vandalism - one that denoted their editing history on the biography - and they immediately laughed it off, saying that they were just trying to edit my biography to add in this new album I was promoting but the thing just glitched. I thought, "that's funny, Rokto never expressed any interest in my music before" before realizing that Rokto was of course going to deny it to my face. And when I messaged the YouChew moderators about this, they said that they'd look into it, only to repeat Rokto's cover story to me. Why would Rokto happen to edit my biography in the middle of a scrobble-and-profile-image raid? Why would Rokto also scrobble some of the fake songs, which include such gems as "Perros Savajes and Dog (feat. Thom Yorke)" and "A Lest Go"? Why in the world was there a song in the scrobbles called "Happy Day Mother"? If their problem was that I acted too creepy towards Lavagev, why was Lavagev in the raid, why was she uploading the images, why was she scrobbling, and why was she making references to the raid (making fun of that weirdo) in voice chats she would post roughly around the same time as the raid?

Nothing was going to be done. I was scared. I wasn't sleeping well. I messaged the last.fm admins about the continued attacks on my last.fm artist profile - and they had to go as far as to lock my page down in order for the raid to stop. They even temporarily banned all people involved in the raid - Lavagev immediately switched to one of her burner accounts while Rokto and Radock had to wait months to regain access to theirs.

After a while, I just got used to their antagonism. Every new video I'd post on YouTube showing off a new song I wrote - they would immediately downvote it and post harassing comments. Other times, they'd use the contact-me form on my Bandcamp to make references to "Happy Day Mother" while sending me (again) more imgur links to the Giygas fanart. And then Doitch died. While everybody grieved, I felt relief. I don't know - I felt like this was going to be the moment that woke them up to how unproductive the raid was, how it was causing me all this lasting mental damage and PTSD. PTSD over stupid Internet stuff? "

 Why didn't you do what Tyler, the Creator says and shut off the computer?" you might ask. I couldn't - I had homework on there. I had to check e-mails. I couldn't just ignore everything, let Radock and her friends win this war. So I stayed on to spite them - one of my few moments of strength.

Coincidentally, at the same time Doitch died, the writing staff I was part of was accepting new submissions. I received a submission from a burner account - which largely consisted of a review of a kid's movie (mixed with images of porn) and closing with the phrase "Walt Mink blows." I sent this to my fellow staffers and the account was swiftly banned from YouChew. I realized I could never feel safe on that website, not while Radock and Rokto still had power. So I left it. I figured that I could remedy most of the problem if I just left.

And it was around this time I came up with my weakest moment, my worst action during this whole thing: I began to cyberstalk Lavagev. More specifically, I followed her on Twitter and Tumblr. She had made obvious allusions to the last.fm raid on Tumblr - I figured that she would deliver the smoking gun, I could screenshot it, and I'd catch her and Radock and Rokto owning up to the whole thing.

She found out when I made a call out post on Tumblr towards the three of them - this was around the time Doitch's two EPs he made under the name DBGE got a recommendation from Daniel Lopatin, otherwise known as Oneohtrix Point Never, and whose cassette release was being handled by Rokto, who had entirely switched over to the r8x0 moniker. I mentioned Lavagev's posts on the matter, I mentioned how Daniel Lopatin gave a glowing endorsement to my abusers, and I mentioned that ultimately, Radock and Rokto are just pathetic. They're using the last.fm raid to their benefit - using that intense shitposting to gain more inroads on the Internet. That's what I thought at the moment. Lavagev vagueposted about me cyberstalking her and immediately blocked me from accessing her Tumblr and Twitter. Radock and Rokto threatened me with actual violence this time - Radock in particular told me to "cut off each of [your] fingers and never type again." Rokto kept goading me on Twitter, asking me to remove this "obviously fake and slanderous post" about them.

 

Rokto, if it's obviously fake, why did it happen to me? Why do I still have these memories in my head? Why did it happen to me?

The harassment soon went to a much smaller scale after that - the worst it got was Radock posting on a Reddit post I had made promoting one of my albums (which I mentioned that it was about some former "buds," who are just acquaintances), clarifying that "none of us were ever buds with you." This went on like that until 2016.

In April and May of 2016, I worked as a core background artist (fancy word for "extra that appears a lot") on the Paramount/DreamWorks production Office Christmas Party. You know - the raunchy Christmas ensemble film with TJ Miller and Jason Bateman. The subset of the core I was on - the IT crew - got invited to the wrap party. Also, I struck up a conversation with supporting actors Oliver Cooper, Andrew Leeds, and Rob Corddry about what I do as a hobby - I mentioned my music, quoted the first song off the top of my head ("The Point" from my demo album Schaeffermusic, which makes vague allusions to the last.fm raid and the way Radock would harass me while also being a song about THAT SCENE in Evangelion), and Rob listened to it during lunch. When we came back, he immediately said "I love your music, I'm not kidding" and I felt like I was on top of the world. Somebody famous liked my album! I mentioned to him I was in the middle of finishing up a new album - which would later become the releases Swish and Mercy Machine by Lesbian Concentrate on I Thought You Were a Marxist Records - and he said he would be on the lookout for those. That made my day a little less miserable, just that bit of support.

Anyhoo, at the wrap party, Rob and I talk further about my music - I had my second thoughts about what he really thought, if he was just acting nice - and he told me that "I'm not kidding. Your music reminds me of Robert Pollard. You're the digital-age Robert Pollard," which I took as a compliment. I liked Guided by Voices. I tried to get him to follow me on Twitter, but he mentioned that the last time he endorsed somebody, that ended up into that Shit My Dad Says TV show that nobody liked. So I got him to follow one of my friends - a friend who, the prior year, trolled the New York Times when she gave a fake interview to a journalist about how she vapes just to get Lil Ugly Mane's name into the paper. You know, the Mista Thug Isolation weirdo-rap dude that /mu/ loves. I don't think too much on Rob's endorsement - I'm just some rando who quoted some silly song lyric to him and he humored me for a few minutes - but I was amazed at how nice of a dude he was. So I edited my Bandcamp and Facebook fan pages to insert his glowing endorsement.

Within the next day, I get these threatening e-mails from Radock and Rokto - Rokto telling me that they were "going to kill me hahahahahaha." I posted about this in the General Chat thread on YouChew, which had been recently locked out to crawlbots and lurkers, and Rokto immediately mentioned that posting about the e-mails wasn't going to help much and that I was actually trying to become a professional victim because I mentioned that I was going to e-mail crash override. Radock would largely threaten to send Rob Corddry the imgur links while making jokes about how I was shit. Typical Radock super-obtuse-but-super-direct stuff. That's when I realized that they were doing this over the Rob Corddry endorsement update. Because the Twitter user I followed was one of their mutuals, they got mad when Weedhitler/LevarBurzum told them that I got Rob Corddry to follow her. And if Radock was going to Tweet/email the imgur links to Rob Corddry, who knows where she would've sent them to? Other members of the production? The submissions line for Tammy Smith Casting? Friends of mine on the production? I played around with the idea of filing a police report, but I realized that this had to be handled by one of their friends. I messaged both Weedhitler and other mutual Samanthuel Gillson (who you may remember from Hbomberguy's Donkey Kong 64 stream) copies of the e-mails, but of other threats both Radock and Rokto made towards me. They took my word seriously and within a day, not only did the e-mails stop, but all harassment ended. The past four years have had no harassment. I could finally leave this all behind.

 

And then a year later, around Christmas, people found out Rokto had committed suicide in September. I posted about it on Facebook and implied that I felt relieved. Outside of some of Rokto and Radock's mutuals mentioning that I was gloating over the death - I wasn't, I was sad but relieved - I didn't experience a ton of blowback. I also began correspondence with a current friend of mine over this. 

They 've been urging me for the past three years to talk about this. I've put it off for way too long. I had to let this off my chest. I could not hold it in forever.

Radock, Rokto, Lavagev, and Doitch abused me on the Internet, the first two over a period of four to five years. I did stupid things in response - i.e. incessantly checking Lavagev's Tumblr in order to get any shred of evidence - but I still feel the effects of the harassment. I don't trust people too easily anymore. I feel like I'm more depressed than ever, just from the fact that I have this feeling that people that I'm cordial with secretly hate me. I've become more paranoid over the past few years. Every time somebody stops talking to me or unfriends me or blocks me, I keep thinking to myself, "is it because Radock got to them? Is the harassment continuing?" I still feel the hurt.

I want closure.

I want Radock to own up to her sins. You hurt me, Radock. You hurt me. You can't gaslight that away from me. You can't deny that this happened. I have screenshots of the edit log for the last.fm page and the e-mails. I still remember the threats of physical bodily harm you sent me. All for what? To own the kid who acted like a dumbass around one of her friends?

You hurt me.

Sometimes I feel the briefest bit of joy knowing that two of my harassers are dead, but the thought comes in my mind: "wait, I'm no better than they are if they think that. Rokto wanted me dead - I'm just fulfilling their image of me. The cycle continues."

I need to get this off my chest.