e-KNOW editorial

Adrian Chen, you deserve a beer, a pat on the head and a weekend off.

Who is Adrian Chen, you ask?

He is an editor with Gawker (for more check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker_Media), who a few days ago outed a notorious Internet troll named ‘Violentacrez’ (pronounced ‘Violent-acres’).

In case you are new to the Internet world, a troll is a sickening weasel who anonymously attacks peoples’ views and beliefs, as shared on blog sites, web sites and in comments sections of online newspapers and magazines. Their sad and sorry presence is why e-KNOW has a ‘must approve’ policy when it comes to readers’ comments following stories.

We do not have the time in any day for cowards who like to throw darts from the dark and then run and hide behind their anonymous shields. For centuries, newspapers have forced readers to sign their real names and provide contact information before publishing letters to the editor.

When the Internet and its myriad of blogs came along, with even more ‘chat sites’ dedicated to every possible thing going, anonymity became a norm for ‘posters.’

Before you could say “ink-stained wretch” these blogs and chat sites became flooded with creeps and assholes taking great delights in slagging everyone and everything – usually always behind an anonymous screen. They are people who would never have the stones to say what they write in person to anyone because they are the classic bully coward. Hit and run sucker punchers who propagate all the worst aspects of our society, made all the seedier, scarier and more disgusting because of the Wild West Show that is the mostly un-policed Internet, lousy with images and videos of every base form and, worse, extreme forays into invasions of privacy.

The Internet has become an immediate doorway for losers to seek their 15 minutes of fame through the sheer audacity of abhorrent posts that show no mores or class and simply showcase themselves as big mouthed buffoons.

So it was with great elation that I read Adrian Chen’s Gawker piece on Violentacrez, AKA Michael Brutsch, a regular poster on and moderator of Reddit, an ugly looking blogger site calling itself the ‘front page of the Internet.’

According to Wikipedia, “Reddit – stylized as reddit, is a social news website where the registered users submit content, in the form of either a link or a text ‘self’ post. Other users then vote the submission ‘up’ or ‘down’, which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site’s pages and front page.”

Violentacrez/Brutsch has become mildly famous (mentioned once on CNN) for being a sick puke with apparently no morals, courage or empathy.

Up until a few days ago, Brutsch was considered Reddit’s biggest troll and the creator of some of its foulest ‘forums’ such as ‘creepshots,’ a space where ‘people’ can share pictures of women who don’t know their photographs have been taken.

Among some of Brutsch’s other Reddit sites are: Chokeabitch; Niggerjailbait; Rapebait; Hitler; Jewmerica; Misogyny and Incest.

Truly, he’s just a misunderstood beat off as he is now suggesting.

Chen tracked this 49-year-old ghoul down in Arlington, Texas, and In his Oct. 12 piece in Gawker titled ‘The man behind the troll: Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web, Chen wrote, “If you are capable of being offended, Brutsch has almost certainly done something that would offend you, then did his best to rub your face in it. His speciality (sic) is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, but as Violentacrez he also issued an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed, all on the sprawling online community Reddit. At the time I called Brutsch, his latest project was moderating a new section of Reddit where users posted covert photos they had taken of women in public, usually close-ups of their asses or breasts, for a voyeuristic sexual thrill. It was called “Creepshots.” Now Brutsch was the one feeling exposed and it didn’t suit him very well.”

Naturally, being a sniveling coward, Brutsch pleaded with Chen to not out him because he feared he would lose his job – which he has.

“My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment,” he told Gawker. “I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like riling people up in my spare time,” he said.

Think about that for a second, because his final sentence speaks volumes about the character of a troll. “I just like riling people up in my spare time.”

In the ‘good old days,’ the only way one could rile people up was to pen a piece in the local paper or gain some television media coverage for saying or doing something – all under no guise whatsoever. The person doing the riling had to do so with their name and image leading the show. A lack of anonymity does wonders in terms of keeping things civil and calm.

“People take things way too seriously around here,” Brutsch also stated, referring to people not appreciating his immoral and cowardly behaviour.

Now that he’s been exposed, life has hit the skids for poor ole Michael Brutsch, from losing his employment and anonymity to becoming the poster pig for, hopefully, a renewed push by Internet newspaper/magazine sites and blogs and bloggers to demand accountability from their participants, just like all forms of media have done for centuries.

Anonymity equals sweeping cowardice in the media world. If you’ve got something to say – say it. But stand behind your views by telling people who you really are. Of course, this will result in a savage beating to the troll community, which believes ‘freedom of speech’ should cover their asses already hiding in the shadows.

And kudos to Adrian Chen for starting what we hope will be a steady diet of troll munching and stomping.

We don’t believe our parents, grandparents and great grandparents won the freedoms we enjoy and, apparently misunderstand and take for granted, so demented losers like Michael Brutsch can insult and attack people, and worse, spread hatred and spur on other sick bastards to perform illegal and damaging deeds, which simply adds to the growing anger in our ever-more confused and antagonized world.

And just because trolls enjoy having the last word, even if they have to try and force them over and over and over again, let’s give Brutsch one final moment in the ‘limelight.’

He has already posted a link to his Paypal account, under his real name, so that fellow ‘Redditors’ can donate money to him now that he is unemployed. Sadly, there are no doubt people out there who will rush to his rescue and this is surely not the last we’ve seen of him. He will become some form of ‘free speech’ hero to those who don’t understand what free speech really means and some shit sniff with too much money will produce a television show or movie, or fund a book, to showcase America’s latest anti-hero – the enormous piece of crap who sucker punches and kicks from the darkness, who swims in the ooze of societal wrongs and adds to them – all in the anonymous name of being able to do it because there are no repercussions such as immediate reprisal.

In the ‘good old days’ one could just punch someone in the face if they insulted their family, or showed naked pictures of a sister/ mother/daughter or spread lies and hatred en masse. And because of the potential of immediate reprisal, those in our society who are prone to such feeble and ill character traits, lingered in the shadows, silent and unfulfilled.

The Internet has given them a voice. It’s time the Internet forced them to provide a name and verifiable contact information before giving them a voice.

Adrian Chen, you may just have forced the Internet to grow up.

Good on you.

See the full Gawker story at: http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web .

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

---

Article Share

---