Before you watch that read this…
So I picked up another online stray and let him write a story for SCREW. At the time, I thought he was what he claimed to be — an activist, a journalist, whatever — even though I was immediately flooded with messages from people telling me to stay the fuck away from him.
Despite the warnings, I still gave him a chance. I always do. Like I always say, never judge a book by the cover or the page you opened to. And because, you know, it’s SCREW, and it’ll be funny, right? That’s kind of our lane.
Train wrecks are always funny.
Until you meet one in real life.
And sure enough, from my end, it played out exactly the way I knew it would, and the way the warnings said it would. But I had no idea how much baggage came with this fucking guy until it was already in the room.
To be fair, it didn’t end as spectacularly bad as some of the other schmucks we’ve (ok, ME) handed a SCREW byline to. And it still doesn’t top The Outlaw Poet (God rest his soul, I did love him dearly) who literally got ALL of our social media wiped out (including this Facebook account) after live-streaming himself smoking meth with Christy Canyon’s panties on his head! True story.
But this guy?
Different flavor of bad.
Not the funny kind.
No style, even the meth poet had more class.
Turns out there’s a whole documentary about him. Not because he’s important, but because it’s a warning, because watching someone turn self-inflicted online chaos into a personality is far better to consume on-screen than deal with firsthand.
There’s even a dedicated online group of people who describe themselves as his “victims” — who were literally throwing red flags and shooting flares at me before I ever hit publish.
What I encountered felt less like a writer and more like manifesto energy, just in a tent instead of a cabin, fueled by Wi-Fi, a grievance addiction, and a compulsive need to center himself in every conflict. Sprinkle in some performative narcissism and you’ve got the full picture.
Speaking of pictures, if you want to see how all that plays out on screen, and you haven’t figured it out yet, the film is Social Media Monster.
—P.
