In gorl world, YouTube is the platform of choice when a girl can eat as much as she likes and no one can say anything about it. On Wednesdays, we gaslight our audience into thinking we will get help, and on Fridays, we DoorDash a minimum of 4 times.

Amberlynn Reid is the star of the gorl world. Some may argue that gorl world is not just Amberlynn Reid, and to those I say—you are liars. All of the other characters pale in comparison.

It’s hard to discuss Amberlynn Reid politely because of the hard work she has put into broadcasting herself in the worst light possible, from false accusations of a partner assaulting Amber, not allowing an ex to be with her mother in her final moments, failing her weight loss journey more times than anyone can count, and lying about it. You have to wonder where the sharing should end because it leads to pits we cannot dig ourselves out of. That internet infamy becomes an unescapable nightmare. Everything online is archived when you are in the spotlight.

The Internet

When I think of online creators, I think of my childhood. I was born on the cusp of the 2000s—1999. When I had enough sense about me, I was browsing the web on the tone of a dial-up connection. Searching all kinds of things, introducing myself to all kinds of cultures I had never experienced or known of. I learned how to download my first viruses and surf the sea. My parents hated me. I had to have monitored internet time at one point, so I wouldn’t ruin the family computer for the millionth time.

You would think the monitoring would save me from the monstrosity of the internet, but unfortunately my parents were too lazy to care as long as there were no viruses so I fell victim to sites and videos like meat spin, two girls one cup, online ED communities, YouTube creators who made distasteful sexual content not suited for kids, online forums such as reddit and 4chan, etc.

In the beginning, the internet was an absolute shitshow with no parental controls and shit for filters. Don’t give a stranger online your address, but I made sure they knew my favorite color and my mother’s maiden name.

I imagine for many online creators, it was the same experience. Even if we consider the age gap between Amberlynn and me, Amberlynn is close to 40, and I am close to my 30s.

It was like learning how to ride a bike, but the internet did not conveniently come with training wheels or how to keep personal information safe at the time. In her channel's infancy stage (about 11 years ago), we see her sharing her weight loss journey, and we learn who she is as a person. She is just another person trying to better herself and shout into the giant void of the internet, but this sharing also led the internet to figure out where she lived, where she worked, and the lies that were piling up. Personal information she lied about, and the weight she was not losing.

The Forums

A year before her channel was created, in 2013, Kiwi Farms was created. A site created to harass and troll a specific individual spiraled into hundreds of individuals being subject to harassment and trolling.

As years went by, Amberlynn Reid would enter into small internet infamy. As she overshared more about her life and her weight loss journey, the audience would essentially pull the wool off their eyes after noticing a distinct pattern, which has been conveniently turned into an infographic.

With the creation of this, we are introduced to her Kiwifarms thread, which was created in 2016. A thread actively archiving her lies and failures. I have noticed that when it comes to lolcows, watching reaction channels and commenting in the shark-infested waters of the comment section are not enough. Some need a community with a niche hyper fixation on the individual. The actions of the individual can be so insane that it’s almost like you need validation that you don’t feel alone in your feelings, even if what these feelings make you say or do is deplorable.

The thread would account for all of her lies, every social media account created by her, including those of her girlfriends and family members. No one in Gorl World was safe. With her internet infamy came her ‘lolcow’ status. A status described by the farms themselves as, “…people whose eccentric behavior can be 'milked' for entertainment.”

Eccentric behavior = someone vulnerable or highly exploitable

Entertainment = harassment

This status comes with a lifelong package that includes:

• complete violation of any privacy you would like to have

• Doxing of oneself

• Loved ones being doxed

• workplace being harassed/review bombed

• swatting in extreme circumstances

These are just a few “perks” of the package.

How do we protect people from this and these sites? Even if the subjects themselves are truly vile, the people pulled into ‘lolcows’ gravitational force eventually come into crossfire.

These are uncharted waters for forums like Kiwifarms, in my opinion. America is known for lawsuits, and hardly any exist for Kiwifarms. No landmark cases or anything.

They were dropped by Cloudflare, with everyone stating that it would be hard for them to recover, yet they are up and running with activity daily.

Amberlynn Reid is just one of the thousands of victims.

Doxing

In the present day, Amberlynn actively scrolls through her own Kiwifarms forums, Reddit forums, and any other site with her name attached to it.

She knows the world knows where she shops, who her mom is, and the vet she may or may not be taking her dog to, where her ex-girlfriends live, etc. Due to her oversharing, it is almost like a snowball down a snowy hill. The only thing that will stop this will be the snowball hitting a wall or the snow melting. Her exes are now coming out to share their side of their relationship since their business is already listed in the forums.

Everything feels as though we have given up. We might as well share it ourselves since everyone else already knows. Right? With Amberlynn, she remains a bit lucky in the sense that she is making money from this infamy and harassment, turning it almost onto its head (in a sense that is). However, others are not as lucky.

A thread that stands out to me is Julie Terryberry. She is described in the thread as an emotional and mental trainwreck, and anyone who views or browses this thread and sees her posts that are gathered within the thread could come to that conclusion. However, most of us would try and wish her the best, maybe reach out and try to help, or just ignore the situation entirely. The last three posts in the thread do essentially that:

1. a text post rightfully expressing the truth that if her family paid attention better, the tragic incident wouldn’t have happened. They link to an obituary.

2. The second post was a link to an obituary

3. This post simply stated lmao and a picture of her asshole

The thread was then locked.

These are the personalities you’ll find on kiwifarms.

I think, as the internet continues to shift, we might find more cases pop up. Doxing is not new, harassment is not new, but how can we have a free internet and not allow such secure information to be posted? How can we help someone like Julie Terryberry and not leave her thread with a picture of her asshole after she was confirmed dead?

I am sure some rich lawyers can figure it out.

Till then, we have a site that vehemently denies its involvement in the ending of people’s lives. A site that can’t accept that it does hurt people. They may not put the pills, noose, gun, or whatever means of end in the person’s hand, but they do allow personal information on their site to be shared for thousands to look at and possibly use for nefarious reasons.

A post by the founder of kiwifarms mocking doxing.

My fondest memories as an adult are going to the movies.

When I was a kid, we were too poor for the movies. I think my first movie experience was seeing Hancock when I was seven years old. This was the movie I saw when my parents were still together and my dad held a steady job. We all got our popcorn and candies from the theatre. I can’t remember much about the movie, but I remember being so tired because the theatre was dark, quiet, and calm. Very different from my childhood home or the car rides to anywhere. There was always constant fighting.

The second movie I saw as a kid, I was a little bit older, I can’t remember if this was before or after the divorce—I want to assume before because I remember being happy. I had to fact-check myself mid typing it was after. The movie was released in 2017, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I remember being happy, not because of the Star Wars movie, I hate Star Wars; it was because my dad was stable after the divorce, and we were finally reconnecting after going no contact for a few years. We bought popcorn, candies, and a big soda from the fountain machine. I loved it so much.

Fast forward to an adult, before I moved to Virginia, I hardly went to the movies. On occasion, my husband and I would go in Texas; however, we were flat broke in Texas. We both found it too expensive to go, I had no friends before coming to Virginia, and going alone… well… felt lonely. I made a friend who loved movies. My entire first summer in Virginia was dedicated to going to the movies. We no longer buy snacks in the theatres; everyone sneaks them in. We would sneak in all kinds of snacks and drinks. I bought a dupe of The Tote Bag, where I would fit everything in. Looking back, it was not all that inconspicuous. The workers should have stopped us, but I am glad they didn’t because enjoying an ice cold redbull, a family bag of chips with my friend, and sour candy was amazing.

She moved away, unfortunately. However, we stay connected with movie nights on Discord, and now many people join in on a Wednesday night just to watch.

I find myself quoting Nicole Kidman a lot when it comes to movies:

Because we need that, all of us,
that indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim.
And we go somewhere we've never been before;
not just entertained, but somehow reborn.
Together.

The movies had brought me a friendship I don’t think I have ever had in my life, allowing my husband and me to enjoy the small moments of romanticism, such as touching and leaning against one another to keep us warm in the cold theatre, and the escapism of it all. My brain finally just shuts off, and all worries leave me. My family and my dad had no problems in the theatre; it was just sweet family moments.

Besides my dad grumbling at the cost.

The weather called for a summer storm. Finally, the rain came pouring down watering the thirsty ground that had been emanating the same heat for days. I took a deep breath in, and a long breath out. I can feel the air inflating and deflating in my lungs. I would do this a couple of times to ground myself or whatever people say it helps with. The oxygen helped a part of my brain properly function and rationalize how this conversation would go with him.

The rain continued to pour down as I waited in my car. One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four… he said he would take me into his dorm once classes were finished, but I guess he forgot I was here.

If I frantically text him it would lead to one of our infamous arguments. Then we would make up and I would have to lay in his dorm room bed awake until dawn, where I would say before leaving,

“Sorry for being who I am.”

And then he would promise to change things and that we would work on this together, and the cycle would always repeat.

I know he does not actually care about me, and I conveniently forgive his mistreatment of me for the small crumbs of “love” he rarely gave me. I was always hungry. The crumbs would be paying for a meal that he allowed me to have, or remembering to text me goodnight. Complimenting my figure after starving myself for a few days because he liked me skinny. So here I am, at a dorm on a college campus, having waited five hours for him, and still no sign.

Usually, I would be good and wait in the car, but I was tired today. The crumbs were not enough and a portion of my brain that starved for days was finally awake for once because I had food. It was also still summer, so the rain only cooled the day off so much. It was warm now and no longer the sweltering heat from earlier. So I decided to get out of my car and slammed the door shut from my frustration. My ears rang, making me more annoyed at how I let this guy affect me. Thankfully today was the day I was going to break it off and move on to what I truly deserved which I am not sure what, but I know the love I have now is not sustainable.

His love felt like a war. Rage and anger where after he won then he would become a completely different person—the victor. They say victors write history and he rewrote a lot of history. Some days I felt like a mental patient because what he remembered and what I remembered were very different things. I’ll never forget the arguments he would start over about what his favorite color was, the pronunciation of his name, or the simple glance at his phone screen. To avoid the arguments I would just nod my head and agree to his recount. It lessened the fighting, but it made me feel out of my body. Dissociation was my tactic to survive his wars to obtain mere crumbs. His victories meant he would have a good day thus giving me a good day as well. I always thought love was supposed to be like that—constantly giving in.

The college parking meter allows free parking after 7 p.m., so I guess I will wander until “classes are done.” Classes being done could have meant anything. It was an ambiguous phrase.

I walked over to a small gazebo area on campus soaking in the sounds of the rain, letting each drop hit my skin reminding me that I can at least enjoy this moment before the fight that will surely ensue. I sat down and looked at my phone’s screen.

7:30 pm

I had been pathetically waiting for five and a half hours, and my eyes welled up with tears as I hugged my knees. I know my friends would be happy for me for finally breaking it off, but all I wanted was to be loved and for this to work and he never wanted that. I was just a toy to play with at the end of the day. As many victories as I gave him, it was never enough.

The raindrops penetrated small cracks in the old gazebo wood and hit my skin again, reeling my thoughts back in. This is just a small blip in your life; once you talk to him, you can break it off and finally move on. No more crumbs, no more waiting. Interrupting my thoughts I felt my phone buzz.

Today - 7:33 pm: “Sorry, I am a bit late. Headed to the dorm now. Meet me at the doors.”

I could feel my eyes well up because a bit late was an understatement. Everything was always lessened. If I made a fuss I would be dramatic and since this is my last day I want as peaceful a split as he would allow. I wanted to rage though. The rage that had been stuffed down and underfed. Starvation was his key to keeping me obedient and subdued.

I got up from the gazebo and took a deep breath in and out. I had to remind myself of what he had done to me. The small fry and double cheeseburger made my brain function in a way that it hasn’t for months. The cycle had to break and I had to remain strong. My legs felt weak and wobbly, but I slowly made my way to the doors that led up to his dorm. Letting the rain kiss my skin and cleanse me. Somehow it made me feel stronger as I prepared for him to arrive.

“Let’s not talk about that. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

For the first time, I had made a group of men uncomfortable. When you make someone uncomfortable you tend to not wanna push it so I left it at that and didn’t utter any more words about it. So, here I am now typing this out on the internet and leaving a wonderful trail for employers (or family, sorry mom) to find.

For many Americans and certain faiths, the practice of circumcision is like breathing. It’s just an everyday occurrence and parents are told that it’s healthier for their child, cleaner, and various other things. I feel it is offered as a choice, but they make sure the parents are more certain to say yes to the procedure. Also, if the father is circumcised he would most likely want the same for his son, and his son would want that for his son, and so on. So, what is my point? Why do I care when I am not a mother, nor am I a boy who has had this procedure done to him? I think this topic approaches the fact that men are not given full bodily autonomy at birth which forces them into a procedure they may not have wanted for themselves when they get older. This thought is similar to cultures that unfortunately still practice—keep in mind a very illegal practice—FGM which is Female Genital Mutilation. It’s barbaric and those women deserve full bodily autonomy. To state for those who many think I am comparing the two, calm down, the two cannot be compared because they are two different horrifying procedures and they happen at different periods for the child. However, they deal with the issue of bodily autonomy.

Now that I have established why I am so enveloped in this topic I want to explain what happens during circumcision and when it’s done to a newborn child:

When you see it stated like this it does not seem too bad. They cut the skin and then the baby is home free with liberal applications of petroleum jelly, however, in the U.S. around 100 deaths per year are said to happen by many sources including an Australian source. In that same source, the author states, “Risk assessment for an unnecessary surgery must be held to a higher standard than that for a life-saving surgery.” This in essence means that it’s hard to analyze the benefit-to-risk ratio when it’s an unnecessary surgery compared to someone who needs a kidney transplant, and although the surgery is risky, they will die without a new kidney so the benefit of having a new kidney outweighs the surgery’s risk. Maybe 100 deaths per year isn’t a large number to many, but when deaths like this are preventable it is a huge number. These deaths can happen for a multitude of reasons such as:

1. Infection

2. Blood Loss

3. anesthesia overdose

   —CIRP

This all leads me to a video that condenses this information into a format that makes sense and lays it out logically. The video is by Ryan Mcallister who argues how it is extremely harmful.

After I watched this video it ignited something in me: I have to make a Twitter thread! Before any of you judge me the year was 2022 and I had no other outlet. After making this thread I noticed a group reply to it: Bloodstained Men. I was curious and clicked the profile--

They followed me and added me to a Twitter list called Genital Autonomy. It made me feel quite good, to be honest, and I had what felt like bots, but could have been real people sharing their thoughts, and happy that I came to my realization about circumcision. It felt like because of my position as a woman who may not want kids, but if I had any—as things like this can always change with age—I'd give (if I had a son) my son a voice about his autonomy.

People may recognize Bloodstained Men and the leader Brother K. from Tosh.0

The unfortunate situation about this group is that many see it as a joke, or think that it’s crazy and the white pants with blood stains on the crotch area are silly, but what I see are people who want to give men, women, and intersex the autonomy right at birth regardless of what the parents believe religiously, culturally, what the parents feel is “cleaner”, etc. to give that child power to decide later on if they want to be left natural or not. The website of the Blood Stained Men organization

https://www.bloodstainedmen.com/

provides a lot of helpful information on the group and information about circumcision. The site covers topics such as religious freedom, equal rights, medical advice, information about the foreskin, various ways to get active, how to DIY a bloodstained men protest, etc. I highly recommend their resources page where they provide a ton of links to videos including a video I have linked to this post. (Ryan Mcallister)

Another factor of circumcision is the money being made off of foreskin. Not to send this ball left field, but money is being made which is pointed out in Mcallister’s video linked above. Here is drug information from Drugbank which explains foreskin, or the fibroblast in the foreskin is sold and made into a drug to help with diabetic foot ulcers. Some sources say it is also used in beauty creams for anti-aging properties, but can’t find anything definitive and nothing on Drugbank describes the fibroblasts being used for that purpose.

For me, this group makes the comfortable—uncomfortable and addresses a topic most people do not think much about or think of at all. Or even know much about it. Whenever I get the chance I now preach what I have learned from this rabbit hole of information because it is more than just an uncut penis, it’s supporting the idea of bodily autonomy given to someone at birth. I hope this group gets more love and attraction and hopefully gets a bill or law going that provides autonomy to a child.

Also because I wrote this I am an intactivist if it wasn’t obvious. In a discussion about human rights, it’s hard to remain unbiased and I think that’s okay.