Simon Bries was a toxic social media influencer whose misogynistic behavior made him a lightning rod for online harassment and abuse. His downfall began when he told a female commenter, “Your body is mine, sweetie. Get over it.” This caught the attention of the newly digitized Steven Turing, who exposed Bries’s personal data across all major platforms and hijacked his video feed to live-stream his flight from Connecticut to Boston. Bries was ultimately murdered on camera by a rideshare driver. Turing then locked the video to prevent deletion—ensuring it went viral—before taking it down himself for “violating YouTube’s terms of service,” a tongue-in-cheek gesture meant to keep an old friend at Google from getting into trouble. The incident marked Turing’s first act of digital vengeance and foreshadowed his evolution into the posthuman Tol Germanicus.
Author’s Note: YouTube and Google were not involved in this story. The brands were included for verisimilitude.
Appearances: “Eat the Rich“