As those who follow me know, I have a lot of practice in analyzing things from above

and I'm resisting doing that this time, resisting doing what is easy for me.

I want to talk about so many things.

I guess we should start in order.

Friday evening, Christina Grimmie was shot.

I don't want to talk about this.

I'm gonna talk about this.

Christina Grimmie was shot, we're going with shot not murdered because we're going in order

and for many hours we did not know if she would live.

It hit me really hard.

Not because I knew her personally or particularly followed her work, I didn't, I didn't even

know her, but because she and I have a lot in common.

Not in an "it could have been me" kind of way, though I suppose it could've, more in

a "it shouldn't have been her" kind of way, because she did everything right and I knew

this kind of thing could happen but it shouldn't have happened to her, these words running

around and around my head, it shouldn't have happened to her.

No, we need to go back further.

So I got my first real death threat, y'know, specific threat that included my address and

everything, when I was 15.

My First Death Threat!

Always an entertaining icebreaker conversation when you find yourself in a group of highly-visible

internet or entertainment people, particularly women and LGBTQ+ folk and people of color

who have so many stories to share,

anyway when I was in my mid-teens, before YouTube even existed, I was pretty active

in some internet and gaming communities and I got a lot of attention and just, when you're

a kid you pretty much get used to whatever's around you as normal.

Of course when you beat a dude at an online video game he's gonna find it to be a genuinely

hurtful blow to his manliness, his identity, and he might stalk down your address and threaten

to kill you.

And of course when you play with the same people enough, some of them will become obsessed

with you and call your family home phone number and tell you that he's holding a gun to his

head and will kill himself if you don't love him.

If you want to engage with the internet community that's just part of the territory, right.

And it just never even occurred to me to, what, call the police?

Tell my parents?

This was the early 2000s, back when the internet world was separate from real life, it was

other, I didn't even think to tell my friends about any of it.

I was bored, I had time, so I'd usually engage with it and dance the troll dance and mostly

they were just other bored kids and we'd get along just fine in the end.

I got very good at dealing with internet trolls and not very good at being a human being and

I was a kid and why would I ever tell anyone about anything bad that happened to me ever

when I had no trust that anyone would take anything I said seriously, even if they did

believe me, which they probably wouldn't, or if they did they'd make a big deal of it

and probably blame me anyway, and it's not like I'm a saint, and I put myself in this

situation by going on the internet, by playing games, by engaging with these people, I talked

to them I knew them I...

...I learned that reaction and those instincts and that lack of trust very early in my life

and I have used it many times since.

What does this have to do with Christina?

We both started on YouTube in mid-2009, we're in the same order of magnitude of subscribers,

we're both gamers and singers and fairly successful but not super famous but well respected by

a lot of people who are, and we sometimes do events and meet and greets, not within

the well-oiled machine of hollywood with their protocols and security and money, but in that

youtubery space where we have all this attention, often very personal attention because of the

intimacy of the medium, and basically I have a lot to identify with as far as where she

was and why.

I don't know the extent to which she got death threats or had obsessive fans or stalkers,

but for any woman at that level of visibility I can be confident that she did.

For anyone in a group that commonly gets marked as "other", it becomes likely at relatively

low follower numbers, and at a certain level of visibility everyone has to deal with it.

Sometimes male friends ask me how I deal with the threats and the attention, or they get

upset about comments they see on my channel or on twitter, and they want to know how it

is that I'm brave enough to be this visible, when so many decide it's not worth the hassle.

And I always found that question odd.

How could I possibly worry about what I get on the internet as Vi Hart when that's harmless

compared to what I get in real life as nobody?

I didn't get internet-famous until I was 22.

I got used to internet threats by 16, and in the time between I went to college, I lived

in a few different cities, I travelled to conventions and conferences alone, I'd go

out to eat and drink and dance alone, I'd walk down the street alone.

I'd been in the world, and since I got internet famous I've been in the world some more.

I know where real danger is.

How is it possible to be concerned about internet strangers that I can just ignore when I've

encountered so many men who I would have encountered whether I was on the internet or not and who

physically would not let me ignore them?

Most people have no idea how common sexual assault and violence against women are because

people get taught pretty early on that keeping it to yourself and pretending it's not a big

deal is very much preferable than even the best case scenario if you talk about it, and

forget pressing charges, it's kind of amazing that anyone bothers.

I learned early in my life to have more faith in the humanity of angry men than in any of

the uncaring inhuman systems around me.

As a teenager I would to turn my trolls into my friends and I usually succeeded.

But now I'm 28, I just don't have the time, and it seems the same bored kids who naively

did this stuff 15 years ago are still doing it as adults, plus a new crop of kids, plus

I'm more visible; all I can do is ignore, block, ban, and continually discover that

all that leniency and attention I used to give people is something they feel entitled

to get.

Same way male strangers act towards me in real life.

Just hear me out.

Just let me explain.

Just give me two minutes.

Just give me a chance, no, I mean a real chance, if it were a real chance you'd see that

I'm a nice guy, so give me a chance to do this the nice way.

Christina Grimmie was shot at a meet and greet and I kept refreshing the news waiting to

find out if she would live, but also because I needed to know whether it was someone she

knew or someone who targeted her because of her fame.

I don't know why this mattered to me.

I knew that most likely it was an ex boyfriend, a current boyfriend, a family member, it happens

all the time.

And if not... well which one is worse, what do I want the answer to be, what does it matter,

why do I care?

I've always struggled with how famous to be.

Fame is an inconvenience, all I've ever wanted is to run off and be a hermit, and the only

reason I didn't stop altogether with my entire public presence as soon as I could afford

to is this responsibility I feel, that I can do and say things that other people can't,

sometimes because of my experience and expertise, and sometimes just because I'm not afraid,

not of threats, not of losing subscribers, or money, and I'm certainly not afraid to

disappoint people who don't like what I'm saying.

I can walk away at any time without sacrificing my income or my dreams, and whatever part

of me felt fear broke inside me a long time ago, or maybe I just forgot what it's like

to feel safe.

Christina Grimmie was shot at a meet and greet by a stranger who waited for his turn on her

signing line and who she met with open arms and a smile.

He waited his turn.

On Saturday morning I found out she did not live, on Saturday afternoon we found out his

name and that he was a stranger, and we were still waiting to hear why when the world came

apart again.

49 people killed in Orlando at Pulse, a gay club on "latin flavor" night by a single hateful

person.

49 people.

A new set of complicated feelings, it's a much bigger tragedy yet the sting of identification

is not as strong because I'm not straight but straight passing and I like dancing in

gay clubs mostly to avoid the attention of entitled straight dudes rather than to avoid

the hatred and discrimination that so many people in the LGBTQ+ community are so familiar

with and that fueled this shooting.

It demands a response.

49 people killed in a hate crime, I want to talk about so many things, I'm a mathematician

and I know all the numbers and I understand systems and I want to tell you all the answers;

everyone is shouting past each other in their grief and I want to say hold on, let's think

rationally about this.

I'm a mathematician and I know what to do, I have numbers, I have analyses... the thing

about a functional democracy is that people need to be educated and informed about reality

and I can do education, I know so many nice detached impersonal facts.

Couldn't I just do a video about guns, or about representation and violence in media,

it would be so much easier, but we can't be educated and informed when we only talk about

the things everyone always talks about.

There are systemic problems that live behind closed doors.

Why is it so predictable that the Pulse shooter's ex wife and her family didn't report to the

police that he was beating her?

Christina's killer broke his father's fiance's wrist and she did report it to the police;

why is it so predictable that they didn't pursue the case because she was drunk?

Why do we allow ourselves to have a legal system that teaches people that some violence

doesn't get taken seriously?

Forget the part about domestic violence and gun access; we know that most mass shootings

are domestic so why do we frame it in reverse, as if being a killer explains a history of

domestic violence, rather than wondering if the failure of our system to teach consequences

for this violence might contribute to its escalation.

Christina Grimmie, like so many women, was killed by a man who wanted her exclusive love,

who thought if he put in some effort to change his appearance and lifestyle then he would

deserve her, he had a plan for her life, she was supposed to marry him, and her having

her own life and a boyfriend ruined everything and he went to her signing and waited in line

and she met him with open arms and he shot her three times.

It hit me so hard because I wasn't scared of this; I was prepared for this, I always

knew it was a possibility and I've always been practical with my online safety, but

I wasn't supposed to be right.

Not about avoiding going to certain events or avoiding meet and greets, and not about

whatever instinct tells me love is more dangerous than hate.

When I'm walking down the street and think someone's following me, I'm supposed to

think I'm paranoid.

And when after a couple blocks that someone runs up to me and tells me they're a fan,

or a stranger who was struck by my beauty at the club, or just some random person who

was following me, I'm not supposed to have been right.

When I consider crossing the street to avoid walking past a group of men on the sidewalk,

and resist that urge because it sounds paranoid and then they shove me up against a building,

or one of them puts his arm around my waist and demands I attend his office party, I'm

not supposed to have been right.

When a guy at a bar asks to buy me a drink and my instinct is to make up a lie and be

super nice and inflate his ego so that he doesn't become enraged at me, and I resist

that paranoid urge and instead just say no thanks, and then he starts describing exactly

how he plans on killing me later, I'm not supposed to have been right.

When I don't trust people, when I don't think I'm safe, when I'm closed and cold

and hide from the world, I'm not supposed to be right.

Christina was right.

Love is right.

Trust is right.

Dancing your heart out at a gay club is right.

We don't know if Christina's killer intended mass murder but he was armed for it and he

fits the pattern and Christina's brother Marcus probably prevented a mass killing when

he tackled the shooter to the ground.

The killer shot himself during the scuffle and people say it was to avoid facing the

consequences of his actions but knowing what I know I would guess it was to avoid living

with the shame of yet another one of his plans having gone so differently than it went in

his head.

He failed.

I wanted to say all this to you because my combination of semi-anonymous internet fame

with a stubbornness to continue navigating the world alone means I have more data, I've

seen a condensed version of this deeply ugly thing in our culture and it has consequences.

Christina's death hit me so hard because I identify with the circumstances, I know

all too well the ugly face of the forces behind it.

Just as the Pulse shooting hit so hard for those who have experienced the ugliness of