We get ourselves into trouble sometimes over here at Echoplex. By trouble I mean we troll dumb people. And by get ourselves into I mean intentionally stir the pot. Social engineering by means of interjecting ourselves into other people's drama to instigate a barrage of angerry videos is one of the Producers and mines favorite pastimes. We don't always have success like we did the other night on MalibuSky Music Heals YouTube channel.
Malibu is someone we found through Betty Washam. There's a whole den of wannabe cougar trailer park drama that spins itself into a fury over on YouTube that's super hilarious to dip a toe in every so often. Usually we just get blocked. Thus time Malibu was taking video calls and I couldn't resist remoting in. A few months ago we had a little communication with her where she offered to dump all the Betty content she had to us, but we let it fizzle out because we decided that Malibu was just as crazy as Betty and it wasn't worth the effort to keep up the conversation.
A few weeks ago Betty had a great meltdown. We played it on stream and later cut that segment out to post on our YouTube channel. Lots of people in the Betty/Malibu orbit left us comments. A few asked us permission to use some short clips. Later when those were posted by other channels we left some appreciative comments and chatted with them and the rest of their community. Malibu saw that connection, then immediately assumed we've always been in on the interactions she's had online. No dude. We just think y'all are crazy. We've been watching Betty meltdown for like 3 years and so have you. I'm amazed at how that point completely misses you.
Fast forward to Monday the 5th of October. I walk in the door after driving home from work. My phone connects to the WiFi and I instantly get a notification that Malibu is live and the stream title says she's taking all calls. Obviously I hit up The Producer asking if I should remote in. To which the obvious answer is hell yes.
I ran to my little fortune-telling den of a home studio and booted up my Linux machine with the full studio setup. Cause, gotta have the soundboard for this. Also, I try and never miss an opportunity to show off Producer Dave's kung-fu. I flipped on her stream and waited for her to post a link to remote in.
Didn't take long. Maybe five minutes. She's obviously fishing for a conflict so I'm happy to oblige. I clicked her link that led to a StreamYard video conference, announced myself as The Media Wench and waited for her to bring me up from the backroom to the live stream. So its myself, Malibu, and some other Malibu hanger-onner named Skotte. I'll paraphrase the conversation as follows. She asked me why we're hating on her, I explained she's in the Betty orbit so we checked everyone out in that circle. She tried to explain how she's a victim of hers and her friends, I interpreted that she's bat shit crazy and so are the people who take her seriously. So maybe feeding into the narrative it's only fueling the fire. She tried to defend the 10's of videos she makes about her and everyone else is in her own defense and she's trying to help people. I tell her she's not helping people and neither are we. Then she cut me off and blocked me. If you want to see the full interaction you can check it out on our YouTube channel (toss us a sub while you're there. We're close to being partnered and getting our check mark) We trolled her a bit more in chat until we were all inevitably blocked. You can watch our version of events via the embed below or just click here.
For the next few hours more people jumped in and out of her stream. One dude named Yaxley was particularly disturbed by my appearance. At least 45 minutes he spent berating my appearance and backdrop in my studio. Then everyone did exactly what they've been complaining about others doing to them. They threatened us as a whole, they said they were going to take things offline and doxx us, they threatened us individually with violence. Do I believe they're capable of any of that? Nah. Fuck no. Do I think they'll make a barrage of crazy videos about us? Definitely yes. Will I try and remote in again? Absolutely.
Self aware is the name of the game here. We're 100% aware of who and what we are. We come in hot with an attitude, after all we are solely stirring the pot for our own entertainment. But also, to maybe draw a little attention to their lack of self awareness that causes them to create and perpetuate their own problems, and by problems we mean useless internet drama. During the conversation Skotte was with me for a minute when I tried to explain that. But then when it applied to Malibu he turned on me because he didn't want to offend her I assume. Those sensitive ass folks get easily butt-hurt and are quick to turn on people they call their friends.
Another point I tried, and have tried multiple times in the past with other people, to explain was that these people on the internet are not your friends. You may like them, but they're not a real relationship. Dave and I are friends. We have an offline, real life friendship. There are people we interact with online that are super awesome, but few and very very far between are anyone in our community circle that would affect us if they suddenly turned on us and went into opposition. But also. Notice how that rarely ever happens to us? Honey Badger Radio did doxx the Producer. They dug up a bunch of old addresses and tried to scare him I guess. But that really didn't do anything. Another part of being self aware would insist that observing your own actions and the community or anti-community it creates would leave one to think "Maybe it's me?" It amazes me how often this isn't the case.
So now we'll have a new soundboard and a new angry person who just doesn't get it to make videos about us. Stay tuned to see more fallout. There's always something else in the works. Make sure to follow us on Twitch and YouTube to stay afoot of all the shenanigans.
Media Wench out.
