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Garrison Davis
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
It's me, Brandon Kyle Goodman, but you can call me Messy mom, because on my podcast Tell Me Something Messy, my fantastic guests are bringing their mess like singer songwriter Duran Bernard, suggesting we reinstate adult sleepovers with friends.
Duran Bernard
Here's the thing. Get a group that's mature enough not to be putting your hand in warm water and tickling your. You know what I'm saying? I mean, granted, I might be dope, but you know, like, listen to Tell.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
Me Something Messy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple PODC, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Garrison Davis
Media welcome to it Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. Last Friday I teamed up with Lance from the Canadian based politics show the Serfs to talk about the tragic events of last week in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. On Tuesday, February 10, an 18 year old named Jesse Van Roetzlaer killed her mother and stepbrother in their home, then took two guns and went to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School where she killed five students, one teacher, and finally herself. Two other kids were critically injured with gunshot wounds but have survived. The shooter did attend Tumbler Ridge Secondary School years ago, but dropped out for the past three to five years. It's kind of unclear. Jesse identified as a transgender girl Tumblr Ridge is a very small town with just 2,400 residents in northeastern British Columbia. This was the worst school shooting in Canada since 1989. The sequence of events during this incident were very similar to the Lelouch shooting in Canada 10 years ago, where the gunman killed two family members at home before going to a school. During our conversation, Lance and I discuss the spread of misinformation, how the online right has tried to weaponize the deaths of these people for their own political agenda, and how the shooters online activity shows a growing fascination with mass shootings this past year. Here's that conversation.
Lance (from The Serfs)
I'm sure everyone knows that right now Canada's a nation in mourning. And I also did probably want to start this out by reading the names of the deceased because it's one of the things that the families have been asking for. So the victims from the Tumblr Ridge Secondary School shooting are Abel wanza, who was 12, Ezekiel Shofield, who was 13, Kylie Smith, who was 12, Zoe Benoit, who was 12, Tearia Lampert, who was 12, Shenda Evi Gwanda Duran, who's 39, Emmett Jacobs, who was 11, and Jennifer Jacobs, who was 39 years old. So I guess I'll start with Garrison. How have you been processing and or tracking the story since it happened?
Garrison Davis
Yeah, pretty horrifying incident that happened last Tuesday. Very soon after it happened, there was like right wing narratives trying to use the deaths of these children and family members for their own political agenda. And I started tracking that pretty soon and then also trying to like verify as much information about the actual circumstances of the shooting and who the shooter was, you know, around that same time. Things have gotten pretty clear now a few days later, but I mean, it's been a nightmare to sort through all this stuff, especially all of like the political opportunism being done by, you know, a variety of right wing influencers and you know, quote unquote, news agencies.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yeah, I was doing the same thing. Like right after the event happened, I noticed that there was a lot of, for people who don't know right wing online operatives like the PLEB Reporter and Juno News and Cat Canada. And these are all very popular right wing social media accounts on Twitter in Canada, or at least based in Canada for their origins. But then they usually get retweeted, quote tweeted and amplified eventually by the far right in the US which has a very corrosive effect. And I think. But like, by the time we're talking about this right now, I saw that like Donald Trump Jr. The son of the President of the United States, is doing an entire, I assume, blowed out of his mind rumble special on the shooting. Just uniquely going after trans people the entire time, like for, for a small little town of what, like just over 2,400 people. It has to be beyond like a shell shock to first have to go through something this horrifying and then deal with the international right wing apparatus.
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And they're going through the motions. Right. Like this is not the first time, this won't be the last time that they try to do something like this. It's not getting as much traction, I think, as it used to. There's a lot of other stuff happening in the States around the time, like news was breaking in the States about the shooting that happened. It was it was Wednesday during, you know, Pam Bondi's Epstein hearing. So there's been a lot of other stuff happening. So I don't think they've gotten as much like, concentrated attention on this as some of the online. Right. Has, like, wanted to or, you know, like the Matt Walsh types, lips of TikTok, that sort of thing. But they're, they're definitely giving it a go. It's gross, right? It's, it's gross to use the deaths of all these people.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yeah, absolutely not. Not to mention the way the entire thing's been framed is abhorrent. I mean, obviously, you know, we're, we're speaking from a perspective where we don't want to vilify an entire group based on one like, you know, horrifying monster's actions kind of thing. Right. Because that, it doesn't happen in the other direction for, for CIS people. And that's what you got to be quick to point out. But I feel like the Matt Walshes and the libs of TikTok have. And it's a horrifying thing to say, but like their perfect narrative. Right. It's, it's, it's kind of like in a twisted way, something they're actually quite pleased about. It almost seems like, yeah, they make.
Garrison Davis
A lot of money off this.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yes, yeah, exactly.
Garrison Davis
They profit off of human suffering and they try to spread as much of it as possible.
Lance (from The Serfs)
The first aspect I was trying to look at this story from was what it was early, what are the families themselves asking for? What does the, you know, town need in terms of support, that kind of stuff. And you move on from that. And then immediately it was, well, now there's just an overwhelming, very apparent right wing mechanism gearing up and it's going to be kind of devastating for a country like Canada that doesn't really have maybe or isn't as used to having the eyes of the world from the transphobic, you know, turf side of the Internet.
Garrison Davis
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about Jennifer Strang, the mother of the shooter. Despite being a self described conservative libertarian, Jesse's mother publicly supported her transition made posts in support of trans people. In July 2024, she shared a LGBTQ pride graphic reading good people don't spend their time harassing marginalized communities and wrote, quote, as a conservative leaning libertarian who lives in the north and loves living in a small town, I really hope the hate I see online is just bor old people and not true hatred. Do better and educate yourself before spewing bullshit online makes you look dumb. Evolve. I normally don't say anything. I normally don't go on Shitbook to see the keyboard warriors. And I know I can't control or shield my kids from everything, but please, for the love of fuck, can you get your shit together so we don't have to bring our kids up in a world full of hatred? Do you have any idea how many kids are killing themselves over this kind of hate? Please stop the bullshit. Unquote. So pretty soon after the shooting, based on an early active shooter report describing the shooter as a quote, unquote female in a dress with brown hair, online right wing accounts started trying to identify who this possible shooter was by looking at trans people in the area of Tumblr Ridge. They misidentified one person who is a relative of this shooter, but put out photographs of them claiming that she was the shooter. This person is now having to, like, lock down all of their accounts and is scared to go outside due to the horrific wave of harassment they're facing.
Lance (from The Serfs)
What is wild about that aspect of the story is I've seen. I've seen accounts like the pleb reporter who popularized, you know, publishing that photo, but I've. I think Rachel Gilmour is the one who also pointed out that there was the misuse of a photo in an actual CBC radio broadcast image thumbnail as well, which it's also kind of just shocking to hear because these are again, innocent people who might have targets now put on their back because they're being directly identified as some kind of a mass shooter or monster. And then in addition to that, like, now I'm wondering how much of this is going to be something that they're capable of containing, especially considering that it's been still proliferated. Like, I saw an account called Brics News, which I assumed would be about brics, you know, the economic lines between a number of different nations, and instead was publishing the false photo of, again, a completely innocent person. And this had, like, I think at the time, 17,000 likes, you know, hundreds of thousands of impressions. It's. It's really dangerous.
Garrison Davis
I mean, yeah, I mean, that's part of the intent here. You know, places like Kiwi Farms trailblaze a lot of this, quote, unquote, early research. And the point is to cast as large of it as possible to damage as many trans people as they can using horrific events like this. The cruelty is, is part of, part of the point. And, you know, blame gets laid at a, you know, a combination of like, trans enabled mental delusion, SSRIs and hormones saying that those things are causing the shooting. Well, before we have any evidence to determine what types of medications someone could be on, who they actually are, or any possible motive. One kind of crude thing that I've seen a lot is right wing accounts like, you know, end wokeness, allegedly Jack Posovic saying that, you know, the shooter, quote unquote, gunned down 35 kids to make it seem like, you know, massacre of such a, such a large magnitude. Right. The number of kids that have been killed and other people as well, obviously it's like horrific. 35 people were not shot in this shooting though. There was 25 people with non gunshot related injuries as a result of the incident. And that is the number that, that people are framing as being, you know, total number of people shot, which just isn't true. And then they also very quickly start sharing, you know, unsourced graphs. I'm sure you've seen stuff like this, right? Saying that, you know, trans girls make up the highest demographic of mass shooters per capita. You see, these things go all over.
Lance (from The Serfs)
The place by the world's richest man. He's, he's sharing that a lot online right now.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I mean, and this is, this has been a thing for the past three years, right? This is something they've been doing well before any, any actual incident can be even used to create data. They've, they've created fake graphs that show this. There's factors that get people to, you know, believe these sorts of things. Right. There is certainly a selection bias that determines which types of shootings gets like a lot of media attention. And the other issue that I've talked about a lot in previous shootings is there's a lot of different definitions of a mass shooting. You know, mass shooting versus a mass killing versus like a school shooting. Right. All these are different terms. Even the term school shooting can be used to refer to a variety of very different incidents revolving around gun violence. Right? There can be gang related violence at a school. There can be shots fired as an escalation of a physical fight, students bringing guns to school and accidentally firing them, which happens more often than what you would think, like as someone who just brings a gun in their backpack, not intending to do a shooting, but it accidentally fires in the school. This happens multiple times a year. There's, you know, shootings that. I didn't know that dormitories, right. Those get counted as mass shootings at like, you know, a college dormitory. It's interpersonal violence. There's, you know, neighborhood shootings that Affect, but aren't targeting the school like drive by shootings or even something like the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which some people have categorized as a school shooting because it was on a college campus. Right, but these are all very different types of violence. Right. These aren't like, you know, intentional, you know, mass shooting violence where someone who's trying to shoot as many people as possible and then usually kill themselves. Right. That's. That, that's. That's a different thing than a lot of these other, other things that I've mentioned. But they all get lumped under this one label of school shooting. And all these different, you know, data collection criteria could produce very different stats. And depending whether you're measuring your injuries versus deaths, you know, specific weapons like knives versus guns, and how many years are being sampled, or if there's connections to other violent activity, there could be very, very different results in how you categorize, you know, mass killings or mass shootings. The mass killing database has 631 incidents in the United States since 2006, of which about one to three. It's kind of unclear. One to three are done by people who have been reported as transgender, which is an underrepresented sample size. The violence project has one transgender mass shooter in their database of about 195 mass shootings. And according to the Gun Violence Archive, which also measures gunshot injuries, not just Deaths, fewer than 1 in 1,000 mass shooters over the past decade have been identified as transgender. According to a Gallup poll for 2023, about 2% of Gen Z identify as transgender. And if you also count, like, non binary people, it brings it up to 4%. But you can have all the stats on hand if that doesn't really do very much. Once you're arguing about statistics and, like, semantics of terms when kids have died, you're kind of already starting to lose the emotional battle. Right. Like, I can say all of that, but, like, that's not actually going to be helpful. Right. Like, fact checking doesn't work to dissuade disinformation. And when you're dealing with such an emotionally charged incident, like kids being murdered, having to read off a paragraph like that just doesn't doesn't really help. Right. Parents just want to know why this is happening and what can be done to stop it. And all they know is that since 2023, there, there has been a series of shootings done by young people who either attempted to or did transition genders. Right. That. That's what they know. And they want to know, you know, why is this happening and how to stop it? Yeah.
Lance (from The Serfs)
One of the things that I've tried to push up against, because you are getting a lot of Americans who are pushing that narrative right now, is to point out, because I' saying, like, this epidemic of trans mass violence is a scourge, and I think they're blending Canada and the US into one nation. Because I was like, just to be clear, this is the first mass shooting committed by a trans person in Canadian history ever.
Garrison Davis
And there's a lot of trans people in British Columbia.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yeah, well, across the country. I mean, it's one of those things from, like, this, this. This is not an epidemic of which, like, oh, my God, you. You have a high probability of being hurt by a trans person in your life. It couldn't be further from the truth. Right. Like, the stats are still overwhelmingly in the. You're more likely to be the victim of physical or sexual violence if you're a trans person than if you're a CIS person.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, that is another. Another problem here is, is, yeah, a lot of these, you know, data collection tools aren't counting violence in Canada. These are all stuff based in the States. But for, you know, the culture war, it's not that hard to, you know, move that border up 500 miles to include things that are happening in Canada in a rhetorical sense for, you know, your Matt Walshes, your end wokenesses, even, you know, your Fox News anchors. Right.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yeah.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
I'm Brandon Kyle Goodman, the host of the Tell Me Something Messy podcast. I wanted to create a safe, comfy place for all of us to talk about sex, relationships, and what it means to be human. And, baby, my fantastic guests are bringing their mess to share with the class, like singer, songwriter Duran Bernard, suggesting we reinstate adult sleepovers with friends.
Duran Bernard
Here's the thing. Get a group that's mature enough not to be putting your hand in warm water and tickling you. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean. I mean, granted, I might be doing, but, you know, like, and I think it's important for those examples of that, of us just being gentle with one another, because the world and the people in it already finding brand new ways to whip our ass every single day, 1,000%. So the least we could do is make strides to handle each other in a way that is. That's with care and a bit more mindful.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
Listen to Tell Me something Messy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Garrison Davis
This thing that people are talking about on the right about this, you know, epidemic of trans violence, what this has also done is created like a counter reaction from trans influencers to whenever something horrible happens like this, to blame these other groups like you know, 09A or 764, right? This has become something that's also now been very consistent. You know, there is a kernel of truth in this. This is based on a real thing that has happened before. But the invocation of this has often, you know, expanded greatly beyond its actual. Like.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Can you explain it for people who are completely unfamiliar? Because I remember like even a year ago I just started reading up, I'm like, what is, what, what is all this sat. Occult rituals with participation requirements of self harm and all this stuff like okay.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, so you see a lot of people now when there's news coverage, you know, a lot of trans people who have, you know, accounts online, you know, talking about how quote unquote, satanic Nazi pedophiles have groomed another vulnerable queer kid into doing a mass shooting. There's a viral tweet on a semi viral tweet on Twitter right now that reads, quote, fuck anyone talking about trans and not to Atomwaffen. This includes the cops and the media like the CBC and BBC, unquote. So yeah, what, what are they talking about here? You know, Atomwaffen. Satanic Nazi pedophile cults. I said, you know, 09A764, right. These are originally, you know, 09A is this older group. But as, as contemporary Internet lore, it is seen as this neo Nazi occultic organization that grooms people into sexual exploitation or into doing violence like mass shootings. 764 is a extortion ring that operated mainly on telegram and discord which tried to get kids to do self harm, produce black males, kill them.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Is that true?
Garrison Davis
Yeah, they're active across a lot of places. But like the organizing hubs were on discord and telegram and they, you know, attempted to get child sexual abuse material out of these kids and then use that to blackmail them to get even more material and then also encouraging self harm and acts of violence. These have been real groups historically, they are getting cracked down upon pretty heavily, at least in 764's case. 09A is not really a, a real group anymore, arguably, but it exists as like lore. And there, there has been no instances of 764 affiliated people doing public acts of violence. So in this case there's been people who have, you know, trans people online or you know, allies who have, have said that this shooting is another one of these instances where these online groups of, you know, Nazis and pedophiles have, you know, groomed someone into doing violence. And they, they have produced some evidence for this. There was a Twitter account that allegedly belonged to the shooter that had a profile picture of a Sonnenrad on top of a trans flag as well as the face of the Christchurch shooter. This account had posts glorifying white supremacist mass killers and promoting the idea of creating a white homeland in the Pacific North. This was a Canada based account, but in reality this was actually just another Nazis account who changed their username to match that of the Tumblr Ridge shooter. And this was an attempt to troll people and just spread disinformation. And this even fooled the ADL whose research standards have dropped dramatically the past three years. But a few days ago the ADL put out an article where they credited posts made by this Twitter account to the tumblrwood shooter and claimed that a quote unquote preliminary investigation showed that the shooter had showed interest in white supremacy. But this was, this was not their real account. This was just someone who also is a fan of mass shootings like the shooter was, as we'll soon discuss. But this was someone who was just trying to troll other, other, you know, researchers on, on Twitter and see how far their disinformation can spread. This is the consequence of an organization like the ADL doing preliminary research based on Kiwi Farms posts and not actually verifying the information.
Lance (from The Serfs)
I mean, the fact that I think they're actively pursuing Hasan Piker more than Elon Musk is pretty much all I need to know in terms of where they're prioritizing, you know, the search for racism.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I can get into the actual like online footprint of the shooter, which we, we do have a decent idea of actually before you get to that.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Because I think that's what everyone is kind of interested in. I just want wrap up that last part. So just to be clear, when you were mentioning those groups, you know, 764 etc, there is no actual history of the shooter having been into Nazi the occult, that kind of stuff.
Garrison Davis
Based on their presence, they, they have not been active in like specific 764 communities or have showed interest in like, you know, white supremacy, neo Nazism or you know, the, the occult pedophile Nazism of 09A. This is not observable in the online footprint that they have left. Which is, which is not to say the online footprint they have left is, you know, normal and good. If anything, it does point towards, you know, significant factors that are causing kids to do shootings like this. And we can trace it to a number of shootings that have happened. But the 09A764 thing is more so like a meme at this point that people similarly deploy the same way that, you know, the right deploys, you know, this epidemic of trans violence. This has become like a counter meme to say that every time a trans person does something bad, it's actually the fault of 099764. Right.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Because there has been incidences in the past that could point towards that.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, there could be, there could be suggestions in the past. And, and certainly when 764 was more active years ago, I mean a lot of the, the kids they were grooming for child sexual abuse material were a, a lot of queer kids because those kids are uniquely vulnerable and are looking for community. But I mean that is the majority of kids affected by 764 are people who have been groomed into self harm or producing child sexual abuse material to circulate among the organizers of these groups.
Lance (from The Serfs)
So it turns out that there isn't really a connection in those two directions. You're correct in pointing out there's a counter push. I did the same thing with Charlie Kirk. I remember when the first image of the Charlie Kirk shooter being in a groiper pipe, the frog style jumper, I was like, oh, this has to be a groiper.
Duran Bernard
Right.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Like it's immediately where my brain went because they do have a history of targeting that community. So, you know, you can understand why there's a pushback.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, and I think people feel like they understand ideological violence easier, like, like violence caused by political ideology and are uncomfortable with the increasing amount of horrific public violence that is seemingly linked to no political ideology. It's much more like, like nihilistic and scattershot. And that's like uncomfortable. It's harder to understand like the causal forces producing that rather than just saying, you know, oh, it's another Nazi. Right. That's, that's easy at this point, sadly. Easy thing for people to understand because of, you know, a very high number of neo Nazi mass shootings that happened in the past 10 years. But it is not 2017 anymore and the circumstances that are inducing shootings like this have, have changed.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Can you talk about that? Because like you said, it's a conversation that people don't want to have. Is it because we are uncomfortable with the conversation itself or because there's not enough information available yet to truly understand what is leading these super online shooter, slash nihilistic, you know, deep in the memes style stuff?
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I think a mix of both. It is both an emerging phenomenon so people have to observe it for a certain amount of time to see the pattern. And then also it's, it's uncomfortable and it's, it sucks. It sucks to be in these places and like, and like look at all this stuff, right? Like I've been, the past few days I've been looking at, you know, these horrible forum posts and reading about all kinds of like, you know, bad stuff and it sucks and no one wants to do that. So I think it's a mix of factors. But yeah, I do want to talk about that. That's the kind of the. I have kind of like two sections that get into that. The first one based on her actual online footprint. The second one on more like you know, base like societal forces that I think is getting people to go so far to the social like margins that pushes them to places like where the shooter hung out online. So in 2021 Jesse's mom shared a link to her kid's YouTube channel where quote he posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do, unquote. This YouTube account shared the username as Jesse's Reddit account. The earliest posts from 2019 were about like Roblox Gaming. Then in 2021 Jesse started posting about firearms and shared a photo of her Chinese SKS which is kind of like an AK47 style gun which she used for hunting. Around 2023 she started posting about quote unquote starting MTF transition soon and as well as her phobia of needles. The police say that she started transitioning before this but the earliest indication we have from her online activity posts this around 2023. On other posts on R Trans, she asked for advice on girls clothing, what to expect from HRT and talked about body dysmorphia. Her very last gender related post on Reddit still refers to herself as pre hrt. Jesse made a single post on R trans guns in October 2023 sharing a video of her firing a Desert Eagle handgun at a shooting range. At this point around like the end of 2023, almost all of her posts switch to being about psychedelic drug abuse, asking how to vape or smoke weed without leaving a smell in the house, being scammed by an online psychedelic seller in Canada, and asking if you can get high off drinking the urine from a drug addict. And asked on Reddit if it's safe to do 5 Meo DMT alone. After she returned from the quote unquote psych ward, she was admitted to a psychiatric facility after attempting to burn down her home with a count of aerosol while on 3 grams of mushrooms. Jesse also said that she was diagnosed with ADHD, autism, major depressive disorder and OCD, and was prescribed a mix of different SSRIs as well as an antipsychotic for sleep. In one comment on one of her multiple Reddit posts asking about trying 5 Meo DMT after being arrested for arson, she wrote quote, it is a wonder I'm still alive, yet I am. Speaks volumes about how much I've been trying to keep breathing when all my effort goes towards keeping alive. Unquote. Her Reddit activity drops off in April of 2024. This could mean that she just stopped using Reddit around then, or that she has deleted a whole bunch of posts. She did scrub some of her online activity prior to the shooting. Now in the aftermath of the shooting, the police have said that they made multiple mental health related visits to the shooter's home the past few years and had previously confiscated guns from the home. But the owner of the guns, it's unclear who exactly, successfully petitioned for their return. And Jesse did have a miner's firearms license, but that expired in 2024. It's unclear if the guns that were confiscated were the same ones used in the shooting. Jesse has posted a number of different photos of guns and we still don't know which exact ones were used. We just know that there was a long gun and a handgun recovered. So though the shooter's like Reddit activity ceases in early 2024, her online presence moved to darker corners of the Internet, which demonstrate a declining mental well being and a growing fascination with mass shootings. The past year Jesse was active on an Internet forum called Watch People Die, which is pretty much what it sounds like. It's a website to host footage of real life Gore.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yeah, I was like, is that what it sounds like? It is. Okay, all right.
Garrison Davis
You know, like snuff. Like real Gore is hosted there and shared as well. As a lot of, you know, like edits of mass shooter footage of people filming themselves doing mass shootings that then circulates. This forum is, is way more of like a social orbit around this recent wave of mass shootings than 764 is. And now there is, there is some crossover, you know, There is some 764 people who are also, you know, active on this forum. People who used to be 764, because that, that group is also, you know, not really what it used to be. But this form is its own thing rather than being linked to, you know, explicit Nazi groups, you know, the occultic 09A or the child's exploitation ring 6764. The shooter's verifiable online footprint suggests much more of a nexus of involvement with what I've been calling the school shooter fandom. They call it TCC or the true crime community. And the past two years we've seen an increase in shootings based on this, like neo Columbiner variety, right? People doing copycats of other school shootings. The Abundant Life Christian school shooting in December 2024 by Columbine cosplayer Natalie Samantha Ruppnow, who the right falsely labeled as trans. There was also the Catholic school shooting in August 2025 by Robin Westman, who did at one point attempt gender transition but later regretted it and originally planned to attack an LGBTQ music venue. Westman was similarly obsessed with mass killers and wrote the name of Rupnow on one of their rifles. Last April, a 22 year old man in Florida was arrested for threatening to commit a mass shooting on Discord. The FBI believes that he was in communication with Samantha Rupnow prior to her shooting and they both discussed with each other plans for their mass killing attacks. In September 2025, a 16 year old named Desmond Holly shot two kids before killing himself at Evergreen High School in Colorado. He also idolized Samantha Rupnow, replicated her selfies and was active on the same forum, Watch People Die, that Rupnow herself was active on. So Jesse was on this forum, but Jesse also displayed other traits similar of the TCC group. Jesse created a mass shooting simulator game on Roblox which was set in a mall where you, you know, act out a shooting, killing in the mall. I'll talk a little bit about this. This forum specifically. Now, right, like this forum essentially exists to desensitize people to extremely violent content that glorifies mass killings. Jesse's very first comment on Watch People Die was on a compilation video of mass shooter Footage and she wrote, quote, I appreciate this post. She also commented on another thread of mass shooting footage, quote, I love these first person perspective type videos. When a shooter records his or her own actions, it's always heat, unquote. The most worrying comment is something that, you know, if police were aware of, should have, should have been caused to prevent this from happening. Came about five months ago in a thread on Watch people Die about the psychology of watching gore. She wrote, quote, I find it addictive. It's hard not to watch violent content. I'm just drawn to it. I don't think much of it though. To say it doesn't affect me is likely naive. I'm sure maybe subconsciously it does. It just doesn't feel like a big deal. I'm drawn to substances too. It's easy to get high and just zone out into videos of this stuff. Does it impact my mental health? Eh, mine's probably already fucked. I tried to stay away from watching this type of thing before because it really sucks me in and it's a massive useless time dump, but I never really saw any benefit. I think the R words in the comment section are more bothersome mentally than the videos. So I try just not to interact with dorks. XD and these types of sentiments are not like uncommon among people who regularly engage with this type of content.
Lance (from The Serfs)
I think it's an unusual thing to ask you, but at this point it almost seems as if like the two biggest things that are often blamed for mass shooting that I have to push up against and I have been doing in my whole life, drugs and in the other case, hyper online radicalization. Right. The history that you're painting here kind of seems like someone who needed a variety of help.
Garrison Davis
100%. I'll reiterate that in like a sec.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Okay.
Garrison Davis
Yeah. I mean, as I was reading this, this reminded me a little bit. There was a shooting a few years ago at a fourth of July parade. The Highland park mass shooting. The sort of like writing that Jesse did in his post reminds me a bit of the writing done by this other mass shooter. Talking about getting sucked into violent content or this idea of it beckons you further into the concept. It's almost hypnotic. Very similar writing done by this other shooter. So one other post, a reference that she made on this forum was a video of a father hanging himself in front of his children. And she claimed that her stepdad attempted the same thing, trying to kill himself in front of her when, you know, she was just a little kid. And she wrote, quote, I wish his bitch ass would have died on the noose then and there. Probably better than beating your kids, unquote. So obviously, you know, this person had like long standing issues that at certain points seemed like, better, right? Like around 2021, they seem to be doing better, right? They were making, you know, YouTube content about, about guns and hunting and felt like they had some more of, like a, had more of a stable social outlet. And then around 2023, with, you know, this, this like abuse of psychedelic drugs leading to this mass shooter obsession, it's like a pretty, a pretty clear picture of like a mental spiral. Two months before Jesse's own shooting, she did visit the watch people die profile for Samantha Ruppenow. And if we're gonna talk about like causal factors, right? And especially like in reference to, you know, this, this idea that, you know, parents have where, you know, there, there has been a sequence of, of trans people doing shootings. You can argue about, you know, the per capita percent rates or like stats again, but that doesn't go so far. But at a certain point, I mean, we have to all be comfortable or maybe comfortable is the wrong word. But we have to like, you know, realize that like, as more people, you know, transition, right? Gender is not this like immutable thing. As more people attempt transitioning, there's going to be some trans people who do bad things. This happens with every social group of people. To borrow from sociologist Mark Worrell, who wrote about the social phenomenon of mass shootings, like destruction of others is the means towards another end. The desire for self destruction that the self was incapable of inflicting in isolation. A lot of mass shootings end with suicide or trying to get the police to kill you through suicide. Like public shootings like this have a very strong suicidal component. And some people might not be able to do that themselves. They need to create a social context in which they feel like they can. And at least in terms of the states and to a smaller degree in Canada, like these shootings like exist as like this like cultural ritual. This like ritual of destruction of the self. And destruction of the self can include the social apparatus that makes up the self. And for like a young person, that's what, that's, that's their family in school. The two things that were targeted in this shooting, right, this, this network that makes up like my sense of self as a 17 year old, 18 year old, it's going to be my family, which is, you know, for Jesse, that's, that's her mom, she's been separated from her father for for a while, as well as her stepbrother and then also this school that she used to, used to go to. Right? That, that's, that's like the sort of, that's the network that makes up your idea of the social. And like I said before, like, as the trans community grows, there's going to be some overlap between antisocial, you know, mentally unwell individuals who act out a mass killing as a suicide and disintegrated and socially under regulated people who try transitioning as a way to ease tensions both internally and externally. And if anything, I think transitioning can often be maybe one of the healthiest ways to, to attempt to relieve some of these tensions. But like, being trans is like a marginal position in society, right? And the people who commit school shootings and suicide through mass shootings are at like the very, very extreme end of social dysregulation and like marginal isolation. And some people in those latter categories will also try transitioning as a method of social regulation. And in Jesse's case, like, considering all their posts about like mental health and drugs, never once is being trans cited as like a point of their distress. Like, that's the thing that's causing them the distress. It is, it is a method of relief. At least according to like, their own writing on Reddit. Like, the cause of the distress are all, these are these other things. And like, people can blame mass shootings or mass killings on like any number of specific factors, right? Such as access to weapons, whether that's, you know, knives, firearms, bullying, substance abuse, mental health and lacking mental health services and like mental health oversight. But like the common base factor across, you know, most of those things is that there's like social disintegration and deregulation happening. That, that's like a failure to balance like egoism and altruism, right? A healthy individual sense of self as well as a place of belonging within a larger social group. Like, we need a mix of freedom and available, structured paths for social life. Ritualistic outbursts of suicidal violence against society happen when these things are extremely unregulated and someone falls out of the social fabric. And like marginal classes like trans people can be particularly affected by social disintegration and deregulation. And like, it's important to note here, like, this isn't caused by some like, vague medical condition like gender dysphoria like that, that's, that's not causing the violence, right? Prescribed estrogen is. It's not a causal force in this. We don't even know if Robin Westman or Jesse was even on estrogen. We don't know. But these things aren't causal. But you know, these are social positions that include, you know, these larger social factors that affect large populations. One of those populations can be trans people. There's a lot of social disintegration that affects CIS men currently. They do a lot of shootings and majority. Yeah, the overwhelming majority. You can also graph these things on class lines. Lots of people who go and do public shootings, either themselves or their families, are suffering from economic instability. Or people in like the middle class as well, which has this other problem in like Durkheim's methodology of suicide, which I'm kind of pulling from a little bit here, is like this sense of like overregulation can also produce an unhealthy balance. So it's either, you know, very overregulated people, you know, like, like Elon Musk has too much freedom, has too much, too much like, access to like money and possibilities that he's then a very dysfunctional person. This can happen, you know, with some probably like, you know, like middle class kids as well, that can produce violent outbursts. But a lot of the time it's, you know, lower middle class or lower class conditions that can lead to violence. And sometimes, sometimes it does not go to the extreme of doing, you know, a mass killing. It can often just result in like petty crimes, which is arguably a more healthy method of regulation compared to something like a mass shooting, which is like, you know, the most desperate, the most marginal, like, act of suicide that we could like envision as a society.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
I'm Brandon Kyle Goodman, the host of the Tell me something Messy podcast. I wanted to create a safe, comfy place for all of us to talk about sex, relationships and what it means to be human. And baby, my fantastic guests are bringing their mess to share with the class. Like singer songwriter Duran Bernard suggesting we reinstate adult sleepovers with friends.
Duran Bernard
Here's the thing. Get a group that's mature enough not to be putting your hand in warm water and tickling ya ya. You know what I'm saying? I mean, granted, I might be dope, but you know, and I think it's important for those examples of that, of us just being gentle with one another because the world and the people in it are already fine and bright new ways to whip our ass every single day, 1,000%. So the least we could do is make strides to handle each other in a way that is, yeah, with, that's, that's with care and a bit more mindful Listen to.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
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Lance (from The Serfs)
I just wanted to specifically say when it came to factors, you're distinctly not saying that video games were in any way responsible. I know you're not, but people should know that. When you mention Roblox, people, I had, I think my mom and someone else ask, oh, what's the storyline for Roblox? And I was like, it's like asking what's the story for Minecraft. Right. Yeah, I was like, these are world building. It's similar to seeing someone basically trying journal out their thoughts. I think in that she was building these, these mass shooting simulators. That wasn't her being influenced, I say, by some kind of like template that Roblox had. That was her showing. Yeah. Creating something to express something else.
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And that sort of like, like cosplayer replication. Very common among this, you know, growing community of, of the true crime community that the school shooter fandom, which, which attracts a lot of people in marginal populations. Right. Like the fact that Samantha Rupp now is like one of the first like, you know, assist female school shooters, like, is notable here. And like a lot of like the early like Columbine fandom on Tumblr was, was young girls. The fact that TCC is attracting like a wider net than just CIS males, I think is, is interesting. But it points to these other social forces. I think condensing it down to being like a certain mixture of SSRIs and HRT is what's causing this. Like there's or psychedelics for that. Yeah, or psychedelics. Right. I mean like anything, these things can exist within a healthy equilibrium. Right. Psychedelics can be a very healthy tool for people to deal with like mortality. Yeah, no, absolutely right. You know, whether that's, you know, mdma, Ketamine or like mushrooms, like mushrooms are being used to treat people who have cancer. Right. To help them get comfortable with this idea of their own mortality. These things can exist within a healthy equilibrium of the social, but they can also exist in an unhealthy non equilibrium. Right. And I think the types of ways that Jesse was writing about psychedelics online I think demonstrates a very unhealthy use of these drugs, especially as like you know, like a 16 year old.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Right. Like it's. Well, it sounds like self medication, it sounds like unsupervised medication and it also sounds like something that was most likely acting as an accelerant. Right. Like if you already have a host of other problems if you are introducing a very large amount of incredibly powerful, like, you know, psychostimulants into, you know, what you're ingesting every day, then it's going to have potentially very, very dangerous outcomes. Yeah.
Garrison Davis
Again, these are largely correlating factors. Not cause, not causal forces. Right. The causal forces is this, like, social disintegration and deregulation, of which, you know, abuse of psychedelics can do a lot of damage to your sense of self and your sense of self within, like a larger, a larger community. And the, the fact that I think, like, specifically, you know, the lacking mental health services, lacking, like, oversight of these things in terms of, like a policy outlook, like, these are things that we as a society should be putting more work into if we actually want to start solving this problem. I mean, you can get into, you know, larger, larger things about, you know, like the alienation of like, quote, unquote, late stage capitalism, which, you know, also can be a factor in this.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Another accelerant. Right. Like, I think a lot of these are accelerants. Right. Every other thing that you've been listing. And then it seems to me like, you know, this compounded upon this, which compounded upon this and, and eventually led, you know, someone to looking up more and more extreme content.
Garrison Davis
Yeah. One thing that I do want to mention, which I've kind of seen discussed, is like this term, like radicalization, saying that, you know, she was like, radicalized into this, like, violent content. This is more like a semantic note. I'm not sure how useful, like, the term radicalization is in this case. If anything, I think she was like, desensitized to horrific acts of violence through repeated viewing and was within communities that encouraged this sort of thing. I think that's the way that I'm framing it, as opposed to, you know, radicalization makes you think of like, politics and like, ideology.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Right, Right. Or not Nazism or white supremacy or something like that. Right, yeah.
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And it's like a higher call. It's not that they're getting, like, politically radical, it's that they're, they're dropping out of the social fabric and desensitizing themselves to this concept of like, you know, horrific, like, societally targeted violence.
Lance (from The Serfs)
I know now that like, obviously the right wing is decided that they're uniquely going to be attacking trans people. I'm not sure if you're aware of the shooter's father's statements that were just made recently. The father intentionally uses terms like I am. The biological father, refers to her with he, him pronouns, says, that he was allowed to raise her, that she was taken from him. Part of me is also really fearful that this is going to be maybe the future of the, the Matt Walsh Lives of Tick Tock circuit. Right here we have the, the case like the number one horror story that every right wing, you know, personality always talks about. Right. Or, or that the myth that Elon Musk perpetuates. Yeah, exactly. That this is somehow negatively impacting their children.
Garrison Davis
No, yeah, that is a good thing to keep an eye on. I haven't, have not seen that in.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Terms of like you know, your analysis and I, I appreciate it by the way a lot. I hadn't thought of it in the, in those terms in terms of like disconnecting from the social fabric itself. Is there things that can be done? Like is, is there recommendations beyond like obviously, you know, late stage capitalism, mass alienation. I'm not, not solving that tomorrow. So.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I mean I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to solve that on a stream.
Lance (from The Serfs)
No, you have to.
Garrison Davis
Friday the 13th isn't it called?
Lance (from The Serfs)
It could happen here. Let's let it happen. Come on.
Garrison Davis
I mean, yeah, like there's a lot of things that we can do like even just like increasing like social services. Right. Like the like fund funding social services can be a thing. Like what, what can we do to strengthen the, the social fabric. Right. Give people available paths for their life. You know, that's through you know, education, free college, make, make life actually feel like you have a way to exist within a social matrix. Canada already has, you know, compared to states, fairly restrictive gun laws. Those are a factor. But there's even mass killings like this that happen, you know, in Europe where people find other means of enacting them.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Besides guns or Japan, swords and knives oftentimes.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So like these things have some like based social, social aspects that are going to be the things that you know, solving is, is kind of more challenging rather than just you know, taking away guns, making drugs that are already illegal, harder to get. Right. These things aren't, aren't going to actually eliminate this problem. But I mean funding social services can be an aspect of this. Having more comprehensive mental health care, free health care check ins, you know, if that's a big thing in the States. Canada has that to some degree but still there's obviously room for improvement. But I mean, yes, solving these like larger social problems, that's like, that's the question of the 21st century.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Yeah. And, and I mean, you know, based on the story that you're telling and the research you did, it does really seem like this is one of those cases where this doesn't happen often. But when you see it get to that end, state this, this is pretty much right. The, the patterns become a lot more evident. The, the, the obsession with prior shootings, the mental health episodes, and now the combining that with, you know, a very, very prolific psychedelic drug use. And then here we are.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, I mean, this person should not have had guns, right? At a certain point, their guns were taken away or guns in the house were taken away. If police knew about their activity on these forums, I'm sure this wouldn't have been returned. So there's, there's, there's certain things like, you know, parents being more aware of these sorts of, like, online spaces, the, the school shooter fandom, you know, picking up signs of, you know, social isolation, how much, how much time your kid is just spending alone on the Internet and you might not be knowing what they're doing. Solving that's, you know, hard because, because the solution for a lot of, a lot of, you know, states is just like, increased surveillance on platforms like, you know, Discord, age verification. But those types of, you know, guardrails don't exist on a forum site like Watch People Die. Right? You can, you can have a very, you know, safe, regulated discord, which just pushes people to, you know, even more niche, even more dangerous parts of the Internet. You know, Watch People Die started as a Reddit page that was, you know, taken down like seven years ago. So now it's, you know, far a far less regulated, you know, thing that kids are spending a decent amount of time on. But, you know, being aware of, you know, the risks of this type of, like, social isolation, you know, is also a start. And ideally, we do not have a forum site, you know, dedicated to glorifying mass killings. But banning a website is not so simple. It's easier said than done, you know, figuring out a way to take that down. Right. Same problem with, you know, like 8 Kun or like you know, 8 Chan back in the day, 4 Chan and eventually Kiwi farms.
Lance (from The Serfs)
But this one seems blatant to the point of illegality. And I don't want to, I know you don't have time for me to start a whole topic, but like, I.
Garrison Davis
Mean, like, 8kun is also illegal, right? They host a lot of illegal content there. Finding a way to take it down is still tricky. You know, a lot of websites host illegal stuff just because it's, you know, illegal just does does not mean it's gonna, it's going to be solved. Like the legal pathway there is tricky.
Lance (from The Serfs)
But isn't the rule of thumb typically that if a lot of those companies that provide them with the necessary like DDoS security, they're like through line. Seems to be as long as it's not illegal. Right. Like if you're not running a child porn or sorry, child sexual abuse material website, if you're not running like an assassination or cryptocurrency like drug site, you're fine. Like. But that just does in practice, doesn't work.
Garrison Davis
I'm. I'm unsure of the current hosting situation of Watch People Die, but I wouldn't be surprised if they went through the same kind of loopholes by registering at like a certain foreign country with has. That's very loose guidelines. Like, you know, that was the thing with like 8 kun for a while. But yeah, I'm actually unsure of the current like setup that Watch People Die has. Yeah, I've been talking about, you know, TCC and the school shooter fandom increasingly the past two years and it's really tragic that it. That is something that I've. That is, you know, a pattern that is, that is continuing. Right. This is like the really the, the main, the main force across these shootings. Whether you're, you know, a CIS girl, CIS boy, trans girl, trans guy, whatever, whatever demographic, you know, racial. You know, there was the, the Antioch school shooting in January 2025 that was done by this like black, ironic neo Nazi similarly linked to TCC as well. Like whatever the demographic is. The through line that we're seeing is this, is this just like nihilistic obsession with like the act of school shooting and this like fandom that is developed around it.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Do you find the media picks up on that at all? Like, I know you've done a lot of research into it. Do they reach out to you? Like do they ever say every.
Garrison Davis
Every once in a while. But it takes them time. It took about three years after like the peak of 764 to start reporting on 764 and now these 764 articles all the time. But it took them about three years to catch up to it. I would not be surprised if in a year and a half we get tons of articles about tcc. But a lot of legacy media is very slow to this sort of thing. My own Internet presence also exists kind of in the margins. My monitoring is in the margins. But those margins can have very destabilizing social effects. But it does take a While, I mean, same thing with the FBI, right? It took them years to get on top of 7.64, even though people were like, like reporting this stuff in like 2019, 2020. But before 764 was even that organization, there was previous iterations called like cvlt. But like, you know, that, that, that style of thing was, was, was a problem for years and the FBI did not really get on it until much later and the media then followed suit.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Right. I do appreciate.
Garrison Davis
I just don't have trust in, you know, the current, the current American law enforcement apparatus to really be on it right now. You know, I can't. I, I'm unsure of how that works in Canada at this point, but certainly, certainly I don't think Catch Patel's FBI is going to be, you know, on this one, super, super. Well, even though they, you know, been trying, been trying to, you know, push some stuff like the nihilist violent extremism label, which does cover stuff like this.
Lance (from The Serfs)
But I know this is controversial, but in my opinion, it almost feels as if Kash Patel is actively trying to push narratives that will benefit this entire story that we're talking about in the opposite direction. Right. Like if you're trying to push a narrat, Charlie Kirk's shooter. And we're not going to change topics, but I'm just, you know, bringing this up because you mentioned Cash Patel. You're trying to push that narrative that he was in fact trans or inspired by trans ideology or inspired by furries or furry culture, etc. They've tried everything. And now, now we're at the point where it's like the loosest of connections. It's like, well, there may have been a lover who is or is not, may or may not be trans or non binary. We're not sure. But that's enough. We got it. Catch Patel will push the story.
Garrison Davis
I mean, yeah, this is, this administration comes out of the same kind of network of influencers who try to grossly use horrific events to their own ideological advantage, including to, you know, attack groups of people that they find to be bad.
Lance (from The Serfs)
It's wild because it turns out they're all pedophiles. They're all part of an elite group of insiders. And so let's start talking about the Epstein files for the next.
Garrison Davis
My brain is complete too.
Lance (from The Serfs)
My. I know. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. Where can everyone find you and your incredible work outside of listening to the amazing It Could Happen Here podcast?
Garrison Davis
Yeah, well, I mean, I, I occasionally post about Yaoi on. On X, the Everything app. I'm trying to post more about yaoi on Blue Sky. There's just not as much of it. But you know, maybe I should be the change I want to see.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Is it not friendly, the environment?
Garrison Davis
It's more so that there's just not as many yaoi artists on Blue Sky. A lot of yaoi artists are shockingly Japanese and this Japan has a very large presence on X, the Everything app, at least at the moment. I know some of their like AI image stuff is pushing, is pushing people to other platforms, but it's slow. But yeah, I'm on, I'm on, I'm on those two places. I also occasionally post photography at Instagram, also by Shonen type.
Lance (from The Serfs)
And I suppose if you enjoyed listening to me getting informed by the only information you heard here today, you should check out YouTube.com hesurf times where I post videos and this one too will be there.
Garrison Davis
Hey, you can look at. Yeah, me in a black turtleneck. Talk about sad things.
Lance (from The Serfs)
There you go. If you, if you enjoyed the audio version and you want to see the. The visual version of it, head on down to YouTube.com@thesurftimes. Thank you so much for joining us today. Okay. I appreciate it.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Lance (from The Serfs)
It was, it was a ton of fun. Well, actually it was sad, but it was, it was very informative.
Garrison Davis
Yeah, that's the, that's the needle I try to thread.
Lance (from The Serfs)
Absolutely.
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Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
It's me, Brandon Kyle Goodman, but you can call me Messy mom, because on my podcast, tell me something messy. My fantastic guests are bringing their mess like singer songwriter Duran Bernard, suggesting we reinstate adult sleepovers with friends.
Duran Bernard
Here's the thing. Get a group that's mature enough not to be putting your hand in warm water and tickling you. You know what I'm saying? Like, I, I don't like it. I mean, granted, I might be doing but you know, like listen to Tell.
Brandon Kyle Goodman
Me something Messy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Garrison Davis
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Podcast: It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Date: February 17, 2026
Host: Garrison Davis
Guest: Lance (from The Serfs)
This episode is a deep dive into the tragic February 10, 2026, school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia—Canada's deadliest such event since 1989. Host Garrison Davis and Lance from The Serfs examine the facts of the case, the aftermath in media and online spheres, the weaponization of identity and misinformation, and the broader patterns and social dynamics shaping incidents like these. The episode explores not only the narrative spun by far-right media but also counter-narratives, the online footprints and communities that attract or foster this kind of violence, and what systemic factors are at play.
Victims & Shooter:
Victim Names Read:
Canada's Mourning & Grief (02:49)
Immediate Online Reaction (03:30-05:15)
Deliberate Misidentification & Harassment (07:07-08:40)
“This person is now having to, like, lock down all of their accounts and is scared to go outside due to the horrific wave of harassment they're facing.”
— Garrison Davis, (08:14)
Data Manipulation & Disinformation (09:36-14:37)
“Once you’re arguing about statistics and semantics of terms when kids have died, you’re kind of already starting to lose the emotional battle.”
— Garrison Davis, (13:24)
Trans Counter-Reactions and Conspiracy Spread (17:26-23:00)
“The 09A/764 thing is more so like a meme at this point that people similarly deploy the same way that the right deploys... this epidemic of trans violence.”
— Garrison Davis, (22:03)
“It's much more like, like nihilistic and scattershot. And that's, like, uncomfortable. It's harder to understand... rather than just saying, you know, oh, it's another Nazi. Right? That's easy at this point, sadly.”
— Garrison Davis, (23:53)
Documented History & Online Activity (24:54-33:25)
“I find it addictive. It’s hard not to watch violent content. I’m just drawn to it... I never really saw any benefit. I think the R words in the comment section are more bothersome... than the videos.”
— Jesse (quoted by Garrison Davis), (30:00-32:00)
Rejecting Simple Explanations (33:25-41:18)
“Prescribed estrogen is... not a causal force in this. We don't even know if Robin Westman or Jesse was even on estrogen... The cause of the distress are all these other things.”
— Garrison Davis, (38:36)
“Being trans is like a marginal position in society, right? And the people who commit school shootings and suicide through mass shootings are at the very, very extreme end of social dysregulation and... isolation.”
— Garrison Davis, (39:30)
Societal-level Solutions & the Limits of Policing/Suppression (47:47-50:55)
“Funding social services can be an aspect of this. Having more comprehensive mental health care, free health care check-ins... But I mean, yes, solving these like larger social problems, that's like, that's the question of the 21st century.”
— Garrison Davis, (48:24)
Difficulties in Monitoring & Online Safety (49:30-51:38)
Slow Media & Law Enforcement Response (52:42-53:48)
Manipulation by Influencers and Political Figures (54:16-55:07)
"They profit off of human suffering and they try to spread as much of it as possible."
— Garrison Davis (06:33)
“This is not an epidemic of which like, oh my God, you. You have a high probability of being hurt by a trans person in your life. It couldn't be further from the truth.”
— Lance (15:02)
“Once you’re arguing about statistics and semantics of terms when kids have died, you’re already starting to lose the emotional battle.”
— Garrison Davis (13:24)
“I find it addictive. It’s hard not to watch violent content. I’m just drawn to it. I don’t think much of it...”
— Jesse’s forum comment, quoted by Garrison Davis (30:00-32:00)
“Public shootings like this have a very strong suicidal component. And some people might not be able to do that themselves. They need to create a social context in which they feel like they can. And at least in terms of the states and to a smaller degree in Canada, like these shootings like exist as like this like cultural ritual.”
— Garrison Davis (36:55)
“Parents being more aware of these sorts of like online spaces, the school shooter fandom, picking up signs of you know, social isolation, how much time your kid is just spending alone on the Internet and you might not be knowing what they're doing—solving that's, you know, hard...”
— Garrison Davis (49:30)
This episode provides an evidence-based, sensitive, and systemic exploration of a complex modern tragedy, emphasizing the dangers of scapegoating and the importance of understanding deeper societal currents at play.