Gorl World
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:
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.
The second post was a link to an obituary
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.