"Delusional, self-serving c*nt"

Ruminations on hate mail and how to handle it

Yesterday I received a message through LinkedIn. I pretty much never go on LinkedIn, but I get notified through email when I receive a message. The subject was “Hi love,” and the message said: “You self-serving, DELUSIONAL cunt.…I think you know what the answer is. Save everyone from your nastiness Take the easy way out.” It was signed with the sender’s full name, with his photo and employer information. How strange, I thought. Does he not know how to send me an anonymous email through my website like most people who threaten and attack me? Or make a dummy account on Instagram? The sad reality is that I wasn’t shocked by the message. I get this type of vitriol in my inbox regularly. I was surprised by the forum and the blatant association with his identity (assuming it’s real).

The only action I’ve ever taken against online harassment is to block the person, and I rarely even do that. I ignored the message at first, but when I got home later, I read it again and there was something both dark and comedic about it coming through LinkedIn from a guy named Colby who looked like he belonged to Yale’s Young Republicans Club (aside from the pronouns in his bio). I took a screenshot, blacked out his last name, and shared it on Twitter with the caption, “Telling someone to kill themselves through LinkedIn is… something special.” It got immediate attention. Mostly with responses like, “Wtf?!” and then it started to become an investigation. It didn’t take long for someone to find his profile and post his last name, his place of work, and their contact information. The replies started to get a bit intense. I got a text from a friend saying things seemed to be getting out of hand. I agreed. I deleted my tweet and wrote this: 

I received a few replies and DMs from people who said they respected the way I handled it, and fewer saying I should have left it, that he deserved whatever backlash he got. I felt good about my decision to de-escalate and found it to be a valuable learning experience. When I checked back for the original message, it had been deleted, so I figured Colby had learned his lesson, too, and we could all go on our way. 

I learned that I have people online who want to protect me, and I’ll be honest, that feels nice. I also learned that people are quick to go on the attack when they feel someone they care for is in danger or has been hurt and, while that may come from a good place or, at worst, a survival-based place, it can be dangerous. As we’ve seen so many times, mob mentality can be destructive in irreparable ways. It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of “righting a wrong” and before you know it, you are engaging in the same type of violence from which you’re wanting others to be safe. The line between self-defense and being a perpetrator online is even more blurred than in real life. The question I’m left with is, am I really in danger? 

The hardest part is, I really can’t know. The only way to be certain that a threat is serious is once it’s too late, and I’m not interested in finding out. My general view is that most of the people who send me awful messages are miserable and/or susceptible to propaganda, and it permits them some type of emotional release to send a mean message to someone they deem unworthy of kindness. If that’s how they go through life, looking to alleviate their own pain by inflicting pain on others, I’m genuinely sad for them. I don’t consider them dangerous and they’ll likely move on to the next person or thing that triggers them before long. 

What concerns me, and the people close to me, is that it only takes one person to be unhinged enough to take it to another level for my life to be in danger. I don’t think about this a lot because I’m not going to live my life in fear, but it’s obviously a worthy concern. 

Plot twist.

I woke up to another message on LinkedIn. This time, it was essentially the same message from the same person, just a little shorter and with fewer capital letters. It has not yet been deleted. I feel as if I should do something, say something, but I’m not looking to create or escalate a conflict. I looked up the contact information for the employer listed on his profile. I couldn’t find any direct lines to managers, so I sent a quick message through the website’s contact form. I doubt I’ll get a response, but it’s something. 

I’m left now pondering something a bit deeper than how I protect myself from Colby. Unless his messages continue, I’m not too worried about him. Maybe I’m underestimating him based on his photo, but that’s my instinct. I am, however, worried about how to live my life as a public person. It took my supporters less than 15 minutes to find a bunch of information on a random person on the internet. How long would it take a savvy person to find information on me? In no way have I ever hidden. In fact, I love being able to connect with fans and like-minded people through social media. I never post my locations in real-time, but sometimes they are apparent after the fact. 

I feel strongly about letting people know who I am and what I stand for. I have been put in this surreal situation where I’m accused of things I would never support, and have never supported. I feel I have the opportunity to shine a light on how media distorts our perception of reality, not for the better, and bring awareness to the flaws in our justice system. But at what price? So far, I’ve sacrificed a lot. I’ve risked my reputation, my relationships, and more. Am I willing to risk my physical safety? Well, if I want to ever leave my house, I don’t really have a choice.

In an existential sense, to be alive is to risk your physical safety. There’s no way around it. Safety itself is something of an illusion, but there are certainly ways to mitigate harm. Perhaps the only way to settle this is to become comfortable with feeling unsettled. Uncertainty is part of life and all we can do is do our best to predict outcomes and learn from our mistakes, while not letting ourselves get too comfortable. Easier said than done.

There’s a scene in Battlestar Galactica where my character, Cally, is severely beaten by her husband when she tries to wake him from a nightmare. It was a difficult scene to film, both technically and emotionally. However, I think it was even more difficult for the people watching. Each time we cut, the hair and makeup people would come over to us with the color drained from their faces. I was acting. I was “in it,” so in a way, I didn’t have to experience the pain of watching something like that happen and doing nothing. I imagine it’s similar for my family, friends, and fans who care about my well-being and must bear witness to the toxic attacks waged at me on a regular basis. I know it’s not easy to watch and for that, I’m sorry. 

The reason I’m choosing to talk about it, as ugly as it is, is that this isn’t something that will go away by ignoring it. I have a folder on my desktop labeled “harassment.” It has thousands of files in it and I don’t even capture everything. I went to the police once after receiving a death threat, but they couldn’t do anything unless something actually happened. I left with a business card for when that time came. 

I don’t have the solution. This problem is much bigger than me. It has to do with how we feel about each other and ourselves. It has to do with how we process information we don’t like or don’t understand. It has to do with how we’re parented, how we’re taught, and what behavior is rewarded in society. It’s bigger than any one of us, but the solution also starts with each one of us by looking at how we contribute, or don’t, to a culture of violence and objectification. 

*Steps off soapbox*

Thank you to everyone who supports me. It means a lot. My most immediate takeaway is that as much as I may have a lot of supporters and people who believe in me, I need to stay vigilant in protecting myself from the people who don’t. 

Take care of yourselves, and I’ll do my best to do the same.