[CW: child porn mention and for some reason people aren't just RAINING BLOOD about this]

Liz Ryerson on Twitter

Randy "Emperor Nero" Pitchford loses a USB stick containing his collection of child pornography and whines about it

lol it's horrifying

i think what gets me the most is pitchford fucking outright stated, in his own words, that he did it, too, in a podcast episode that went live the day after this ex employee's countersuit was made but was recorded well before that

we have recorded proof of him admitting to it

and i suppose, like luc besson, it's the fact that people have preemptively confessed proof from the monster himself that means people just don't want to bother being performatively outraged about it, because there's no "good fight" there, only the grim horror of a man who gets away with it to talk about.

that's a good way of putting it. yeah.

Liz pointed out the story is really similar to the Comet Ping-Pong conspiracy theories, only for real, only mundane

just another story about a rich guy getting away with everything. no satanic rituals

so all the right-wing paedo hunters who are obsessed with underground tunnels and "cheese pizza" are silent about it because they don't actually want this stuff to be real. they want it to be unreal so they can enjoy the outrage without actually having to confront the horrific power imbalances that let this happen

my brain is just still kinda going "why would you put that on a flash drive," and also "why would you admit to it on a podcast like that," and just there is a lot to unpack

it was a power thing

a lot of people like that, they get more and more outspoken about their predation because they get off on not being stoppable

Jimmy Savile did the same thing

when you know you can't be touched you start getting confident.