How One Tight-Knit Circle of Internet Troublemakers Convinced Professional Journalists They Were “Abortion Bounty Hunters”

And other misadventures

One of many variants of Marsey the cat, rDrama’s favorite icon
A typical reaction to the news of /r/TXBountyHunters’ existence
The master plan
“She makes a very meager salary”
Patriots.win notices a new opponent

Let me tell you this — rdrama.net is one of the most malevolent, cruel, coldhearted online communities you’ll ever find, and even as a supporter of free speech it appalls me that the internet would allow such a vile, festering hub of bigotry and sadism to exist. …

rDrama is and always was a trash sub. It’s users enjoy it the same way an junkie enjoys heroin or an Australian beetle enjoys f — -ing a Beer Bottle. Gratifications plus a rush of endorphins at the expense of your soul.

“It may be a lie, but the fact I believed it speaks volumes about my enemies, and not me”

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

--

--

Passionate about learning, expertise, education, and the strength of narratives and deliberate restrictions. Rarely original, occasionally accurate.

Get the Medium app

A button that says 'Download on the App Store', and if clicked it will lead you to the iOS App store
A button that says 'Get it on, Google Play', and if clicked it will lead you to the Google Play store
Trace Underwood

Passionate about learning, expertise, education, and the strength of narratives and deliberate restrictions. Rarely original, occasionally accurate.