Phil Mason, better known online as Thunderf00t, is a scientific researcher and YouTube bloviater who’s turned his hate-crush on video game critic Anita Sarkeesian into a surprisingly lucrative part-time job; his seemingly unending stream of YouTube videos attacking Sarkeesian, many of which have drawn hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, have without a doubt contributed mightily to the harassment directed against her by the online mob known as #Gamergate.
Now Mason is trying to defend himself against charges that he has become the de facto leader of a vast hate mob that harasses Sarkeesian and other women … by encouraging his followers to harass a woman who charged him with exactly this.
And a good number of Mason’s 400,000 YouTube followers have taken him up on this challenge, flooding the Yelp page of the business the woman runs with her husband with fraudulent one-star reviews and besieging her and her family business with angry and harassing phone calls (at least one of which the perpetrator has put online).
The story of this particular debacle began this past January when the YouTuber who calls herself Laughing Witch sent a letter to Mason’s employer, accusing the YouTuber of harassing Sarkeesian and other women and repeatedly suggesting that he and his followers were a bunch of Nazis. Her email was part of a letter-writing campaign by a number of feminist Youtubers who hoped their letters would get Mason fired from his research job.
Mason, who apparently faced no repercussions from the letter-writing campaign, decided last week to retaliate against Laughing Witch — real name Jennifer Keller. He posted a video about Keller’s letter, following up with a second video posting her name as well as screenshots from the web page of Porcelain Tub Restoration, the company she runs with her husband.
While Tunderf00t didn’t explicitly command his army to harass Keller and her husband, he suggested to his supporters that they post their thoughts about her on the business’s Yelp page — and they did, cratering the company’s rating with literally hundreds of fake one-star reviews.
Yelp has been removing the most obviously fake ones, as well as those referencing her letter about Thunderf00t, but many remain up as “not recommended” (in other words, questionable) reviews, including a number of clearly trollish ones accusing Keller of being a Nazi.
These negative reviews, as ludicrous as many of them are, have apparently hit the business hard. Keller and her husband have set up a FundAnything page in an attempt, they say, to make payroll in the wake of the attacks on their and their company’s reputation online. On the FundAnything page Keller’s husband, Paul Burns, writes:
We are getting slanderous lies about our services and people posting deplorable images on review sites, as well desecrating our star ratings and customers calling. No one clicks to a service company with 1 star rating.
According to Burns, the 26-year-old “family based service business with 14 employees” may be forced to close “because of a brutal mob attack on our social review sites.”
Mason’s response to this campaign being waged in his name? Another video, in which he declares that “Karma [is] ONLY A BITCH, if you are one!”
Except that this isn’t “karma,” a supernatural force that Mason, a self-avowed “skeptic,’ presumably doesn’t believe in anyway.
This is an organized harassment campaign, instigated and encouraged by Mason himself.
While I’ve enjoyed Laughing Witch’s videos in the past, I think the letter writing campaign was wrong. Writing employers is a low blow. And despite Mason’s many flaws as a thinker and a human being, he’s no Nazi.
But the wave of harassment he’s brought down on Keller — and which he has not made even the slightest attempt to rein in — is indefensible.
And it’s getting worse by the day: 8chan’s Baphomet forum, a haven for malicious doxers and harassers, has now jumped aboard this harassment train, targeting not only Keller but her supporters as well. They’ve doxed one other YouTuber already, and are working on doxing others.
In a Baphomet thread, one anon happily reports that the attacks on Keller are causing her great distress:
While Mason at first suggested that he would call off the attack if Keller apologized to him, he has since refused to accept her apology, and seems positively gleeful about the pain he’s caused her and her allies.
The internet has officially hit another new low.
I’ll post more on this as it develops.
NOTE: Thanks to Daily Kos blogger idlediletante (Margaret Pless), who provided me with a number of tips on this story. She’s written three posts on the subject so far:
Family Business Brigaded on Yelp by MRA YouTube Stars
Phil Mason is Working With Baphomet to Ruin DC Business
How it Feels to Be Targeted By An Internet Hate Mob: One Man’s Story
Holy shit. Yeah, I don’t feel comfortable writing letters to someone’s employer to get them fired, but two wrongs in no way make a right. And this second, enormous wrong could lead to some very serious real world consequences. How can they be so gleeful about a possible suicide? It’s times like this I wish I believed in hell, because it would make me feel better if I thought people like that could burn for all eternity.
Oh, and for all the whining and crying these same people go on about their freeze peach, this is an example of people who are genuinely taking away someone’s right to free speech. She can’t be critical of them or they will DESTROY HER LIFE.
I know I’ve been around long enough that I shouldn’t be shocked by this kind of behavior, but somehow I still am.
Isn’t he the one who tried to argue that the holocaust was a good thing? Not that necessarily makes him a Nazi, I guess. Just a self-obsessed moron who thinks being a contrarian makes him look smart.
Either way, he’s a scumbag and he deserves to feel no happiness in life.
…And on AVfM they are clapping their Little hands…These people are total lowlifes. All of them. Hope a lot of people will support Ms. Keller.
Talk about irony. Mason apparently doesn’t realize that no matter how legitimate his problem with Keller, his massive retaliation against her will destroy any sympathy non-Manospherians might have had for him.
I think this article should be sent to Phil Mason’s employer. I think Sarkeesian has to start fighting back and that Laughing Witch should put her youtube channel back up and fight. LW was trying to defend Sarkeesian, who has the resources to fight for herself but has mistakenly not done so.
Agreed, LW did something wrong. She has publicly apologized so Mason’s reputation is cleared for anybody checking him out online. But now he is trashing his own reputation, revealing what a petty little tyrant he is. Women, you have got to fight. These twerps will continue to steamroll over you until you show your formidable selves and stand against attacks.
If Phil Mason didn’t deserve to be fired before, he does now.
@personalpest
Problem is he doesn’t really care that much about that because he gets PLENTY of support from people in the manosphere as well as in #GG, as evidence by just how large this attack is. He doesn’t want anyone’s sympathy because he already has an army with which to silence anyone who disagrees with him.
Everyone should go to Patreon and report his account. He is clearly breaking the rules there.
https://www.patreon.com/guidelines
“After creating a Patreon page, any Creator caught in the act or convicted of making credible violent threats, committing violent crimes, malicious doxing, coordinating nonviolent harm such as fraud, or encouraging others to do the aforementioned harmful activities may be banned from using Patreon.”
My theory about GG, MRAs, et al., is that they’re basically bullies that enjoy hurting people, but they also need to see themselves as righteous good guys. Their concern for “ethics in video games journalism,” men’s problems, white genocide, or whatever is just a shallow ideological cover that they use to justify flipping out on people they already hated anyway without feeling like they’re just being cruel. This sort of overreaction (to a real problem in this case–I would unsubscribe to TLW over the letter writing thing) is typical, both in its gleeful cruelty and its pointlessness for achieving purported aims.
personalpest, I think people in general have this perception that when acting in retaliation, one is forgiven for going overboard.
Annd unsuprisingly the daily kos article is being brigaded, whether or not it was the right thing the women did shouldnt be a factor, these asshats should not be threatening someones livliehood
In other news, a panel on dealing with online harassment that was scheduled for South by Southwest was canceled because of threats.
http://jezebel.com/citing-violent-threats-sxsw-cancels-both-pro-and-anti-1738793174
I kind of think this is bullshit. From what they said, it’s sounds more like they wanted to avoid controversy and less about actual safety. They had an opportunity to be a leader and instead pandered to the dudebro base who don’t want their delicate white boy sensibilities offended by having to hear about something other than how great freeze peach is.
Maybe I’m overreacting, but that’s the vibe I’m getting.
Phil Mason is a sadist.
Christ, does anyone still put any stock in Yelp reviews? The site seems like it was designed to encourage slander and economic sabotage.
Phil Mason is a bitter, twisted little man. Since being punted from FtB for being a twerp he’s forte has been reduced from “mocking creationist silliness” to “bitter complaining that feminism exists.” Now he’s levelled up to actively trying to destroy people’s lives. Sad, sad git.
My view probably isn’t popular but isn’t this proof that Laughingwitch was right to contact his employer?
I’d be really uncomfortable having someone work for me whose hobby is supporting hate mobs.
These “euphoric” atheist types makes no sense (and I’m saying that AS an atheist). They complain about the horror of religion – and then go on to adopt all the worst parts of it, while still rejecting many of the good parts.
I’ve sometimes wondered how some of these guys can actually be not anonymous and still stay employed.
Didn’t send a letter to VFX’s employer? And wasn’t VFX a teenager at the time?
So that’s what Thunderfart looks like? Well, ain’t he a pretty boy. [/sarcasm, in case needed]
So even when given the option to take the high road and present themselves as a victimized group, #Gators just can’t resist attacking a woman when given the opportunity. It’s a good thing nobody’s taking them seriously anymore.
Didn’t this guy mail VFX’s employer? And wasn’t VFX a teenager?
“While I’ve enjoyed Laughing Witch’s videos in the past, I think the letter writing campaign was wrong.”
Agreed. Unfortunately, Laughing Witch was more vulnerable to financial ruin when Thunderfoot hit back at her business. Seems like his employer is okay with employing a vocal sexist. Hopefully, those of us who can donate to her fundraising page will do so. What is happening to her and her husband is inexcusable.