Today we are going to cover the Kiwi Farms suicides, since people love to keep mentioning them for their own virtual signaling propaganda without knowing any details about the deaths of these three individuals.
Feel free to comment any suggestions or corrections.
I will try to report on all stories as neutral as I possibly can and i'm sorry if any of my bias shines through. To write this article i read through all the forum threads regarding these three individuals, and read about them outside of the site too. This is more research than your average journalist will do for an article, and this is more reading than any attention-span-lacking Twitter user has ever done.
the Kiwi Farms
The Kiwi Farms is an internet forum with an extensive history that I am not going to touch upon since it doesn't matter in the context of this article. The forum is owned and managed by Joshua Moon who gets many negative criticisms thrown against him for cultivating and keeping a "toxic, criminal and reprehensible community".
In their own words:
In their own words:
The Kiwi Farms is about eccentric individuals and communities on the Internet. These people are commonly referred to as Lolcows and are each distinct thanks to their erratic public behavior. Spectators are encouraged to join discussion. The wealth of opinions and knowledge shared by users is what has enabled this peculiar fringe community to thrive despite the incredible adversity and contention brought by those we discuss.
Julie Terryberry
Julie needs medication, she needs therapy, and she needs to be taken out of the shed and into a day facility where her learning difficulties are properly assessed and she can be taught as much ABC as she's ultimately capable of doing.
She was aware of her Kiwi Farms thread pretty soon after its inception and often indirectly interacted with the users by posting on her public social media accounts reacting to their posts (usually accompanied by KF screenshots or links). She never made any of her social media accounts private, even though some users suggested for her to do so if she really didn't want them to post about her. This seemed to indicate that she enjoyed the attention she was getting, even though the majority of it was negative. People who were active in her real life were also aware of the thread but were more occupied with the fact that Julie was "smearing the Terryberry name through the mud" than getting her the appropriate help.
Even though most of the posts in the 198-page thread made fun of Julie, there are concerns sprinkled in here and there that only become more prominent as the thread goes on. Many users also tried to give her advice like how to take proper care of her hygiene, in the hopes of her reading it and taking their suggestions to heart. In June, 2016 users realized that her Facebook account was set to private and her Fetlife account was deleted. They speculated that she had another fight with Mike, as whenever they would fight she would delete her social media accounts. A new user came into the thread saying Julie had killed herself. People were joking around because they didn't believe the user. A moderator of the forum did some digging and found that unfortunately the news was true; a link to her official obituary was posted and the thread was consequently locked. Julie Terryberry was only 18/19 years old when she took her own life.
I can guarantee you that anyone who talks about Julie Terryberry has not read her thread at all. No journalist has gone through all 198 pages to make a proper assessment of the situation. No virtue signaler on Twitter has taken the time to read the horrific things that were happening in Julie's life. All of these people just use her for their own sick gain. They couldn't care less about her life, cause if they did, they would see how much everyone around her failed her and the users of the Kiwi Farms forum were just there to document the entire tragedy while looking on with "horrified fascination".
Chloe Sagal
Nobody wants to see Chloe die. They want her to stop lying, to stop trying to live off of internet sympathy, to keep her anger in check, to stop being so deceptive and being a generally disingenuous person. All of these things would better Chloe as a person and make her far less amusing to read about on internet forums.
Reading through Chloe Sagal's Kiwi Farms thread (which started in May, 2015) was pretty uneventful and nothing more than a collection of (and laughing at) her social media tantrums, figuring out her "dead name" to connect it to previous scummy behavior, friends who were sick and tired of her bullshit ousting her, and many pages making fun of her then girlfriend's "music career" and appearance. That's it. That was all there was to it. Transgender politics were never discussed and misgendering rarely, if ever, happened in the thread at all. Compared to Julie Terryberry's thread, this thread was extremely tame.
Having known a ton of beautiful wrecks in my life, I've come to realize your job isn't to fix them, it's just to be there if they decide they want to change. Most don't.
On June 22, 2018 it came to the attention of the forum that Chloe Sagal had taken her own life in the most brutal way possible. It was reported that in the weekend prior to her death, she was found with a machete and had threatened to kill herself. She was brought to a mental health crisis center. After her release her housemates had decided to kick her out, and it seems that upon hearing this news, she planned her own demise. She left two notes, went to Portland park with a manifesto, started reading said manifesto which was about homelessness and mental health issues, doused herself with liquid, and set herself on fire with a lighter. She later died in the hospital.
When one of the witnesses asked Chloe why she did what she did she said it was because she's homeless and didn't know what else to do. Here is a quote from one of the notes she left behind: "My death cannot be silent. It has to be loud and political. My entire life, my experience, my education has led up to this moment. I can only expect trauma and death from my existence."
What is extremely upsetting to know is that every single news article that pops up on the first pages of Google that talk about her death, say that (usually in their headline) "she committed suicide because she got bullied online" but then later in the article it is repeated that, by Chloe's own words, she wanted her death to be political, and that she killed herself over homelessness and mental health problems. Can journalists read? Do they know the concept of comprehensive reading ?
So yes, the horrible Kiwi Farms was blamed in almost every single article you can read about Chloe's death, which to me seems extremely tone deaf. I will repeat: she said in her own words, in her manifesto, heard by bystanders, that she was reading a statement about homelessness and mental health issues. In her fucking suicide note she stated that she wanted to make a POLITLCAL STATEMENT BUT ALL YOU GUYS CAN TALK ABOUT IS THE EVUL KIWI FARMS????????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
It is, however, extremely unlikely that the Farms were responsible for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest one being that the thread was dead for over 6(!!!) months before her passing (last post being on December 28, 2017). But in actuality the thread was basically dead for almost a year:
- Page 155 had eight posts posted in May, one in June, and eleven in July
- Page 156 had fifteen posts posted in July, and five in August
- Page 157 and part of page 158 were all posts from December
This means that: in the second half of the year 2017 Chloe Sagal's Kiwifarms thread was more or less dead. Then it was completely silent during the first half of 2018. Only to be revived in June 2018 once it came to their attention that Chloe had passed away. Consequently the thread, just like Terryberry's thread, is now locked.
So, let's ask ourselves, why is the Kiwi Farms being pointed at as "being responsible"? Why is no one blaming fellow transwoman Brianna Wu for her suicide? There are enough screenshots going around from their private chats that Chloe herself leaked where she continues to say that Wu ruined her life. Or what about Zinnia Jones who publicly tweeted that Sagal was messaging her about her suicide plans back in January, 2015 and did nothing because Sagal also threatened to kill her? Choe also mentioned trans lifeline not being helpful at all. Why aren't they held accountable? Why is no one else "blamed" for this action except the Kiwi Farms? Why aren't they even mentioned in these "news articles" and why is no one actually reporting on HOMELESSNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH CARE LIKE CHLOE WANTED???
Here is an online article written by Robert Stacy McCain talking about Chloe's suicide. McCain was a prominent figure during the entire GamerGate fiasco and got yeeted off of Twitter. You love to see it!
Near/Byuu
Byuu is a classic example of a programmer savant who completed his passion software project, and then once it was finished he slowly lost it. His public image is slowly burning away due to the failed project and conflicts with others in the scene.
On June 27th, Henry Martin (@marcan42 on Twitter) published a Google Doc stating that an emulator developer named Near (or Byuu) had committed suicide. He went on to explicitly blame the Kiwi Farms for harassing Byuu. He also listed the names of two third-party service providers, implying people should harass them in retribution.
1. No evidence of Kiwi Farms users harassing Byuu exists
Byuu had a 13 page thread on the forum. Byuu participated in this thread. You can read the thread in the archives here. Threads on the Kiwi Farms forum often grow to thousands of pages, so thirteen is very small. I encourage you to read it for yourself before making assumptions about what was said or done to Byuu.
Last year, Byuu joined the forum to talk to users in his thread. You can read his posts in archives here and here. In his messages, he said:
People on Twitter (who do not participate in the forum and actively want to see it shut down) frequently claim that the Kiwi Farms are an "organized harassment site" designed to "drive people to suicide". This is not true. There is a rule on the site about "no trolling plans", and otherwise not messing with people. It is not there for liability. The principle of "look, don't touch" is built into the zeitgeist of the community. The users on the forum are ordinary people who want to watch the trash TV of the Internet. With limited exceptions (see: Zoosadism and Nick Bate), there is no desire to see people harmed.
2. There is no evidence that Byuu is dead on the contrary
The only source of this suicide is the Twitter user marcan42, who himself is a secondary source citing a totally anonymous person.
The Google Doc describes a preposterous scenario where a real life friend of Byuu was called late at night, and then he proceeded to sit on the phone for 30 minutes while his friend overdosed and killed himself. The document describes the music playing in the background, but nothing else. No discussion, no attempts to stop him, no attempts to call welfare services. This is an unrealistic story described in such a way which does not hold up to scrutiny.
In emails to Joshua Moon/Null (described below), Byuu claimed he had no real life friends. The document claims that this person had sushi with Byuu the week before.
Byuu himself is anonymous. In the years that the Kiwi Farms (famous for 'doxing') had a thread on Byuu, no one had a first or last name for him. Nobody knew where he lived. Nobody knew what he looked like. None of his personal information is in that thread. Even right now, we cannot do a wellness check to see if he's alive.
Marcan's last tweet about Byuu came a day after his first. He says that he, with no relation to Byuu, called the police of Tokyo and that they confirmed, over the phone, that Byuu was dead. This is not how the police operate in any country, never mind Japan, where personal privacy is deeply revered in their society. Marcan's claim that the police would do this seriously undermines his credibility.
3. Byuu has a history of manipulative behavior
He made a post on his forum (which has since been deleted) accusing a rival emulator developer named Squarepusher from Retroarch of harassing him for a decade. A copy of this post is here.
In 2020, he posted that he retired from emulation development (archive). He became reclusive and triggered people into wondering if he had committed suicide (archive). He hadn't, and returned to development months later.
4. Byuu tried to extort Joshua Moon aka Null (the owner of the Kiwi Farms forum)
Byuu emailed Null the day before posting his tweet chain. You can read it here. In it, he attempted to extort him. Byuu claimed that if Null did not delete all information about him on the forum, he would kill himself and blame him.
He offered Null $120,000 cash. He also offered him his services helping write software for the Kiwi Farms. Null saw this as a legally and morally dubious offer at best, entrapment at worst, so he declined.
Null told him he would have to consult an attorney. Byuu barely waited 12 hours after his first email to Null before closing communications and deciding to go through with his plan.
In his emails to Null, he promised a trusted friend would deliver a scan of his passport on Twitter within 5 hours of him killing himself as proof. Two days later, no one has seen this passport scan or any evidence he has killed himself besides the testimony of a Twitter user, citing an anonymous third party.
The Google Doc names two third-party services the Kiwi Farms does actually use (albeit, neither 'host' the forum). This information is not obvious without educated scrutiny, because a lot of the Kiwi Farms's infrastructure is self-hosted and owned directly by Null - unlike most websites online. Marcan was both very fast and very accurate in finding and naming these two unaffiliated companies. It is hard to believe that he could have found that information in the timeframes between Byuu's last email to Null, the alleged phone call, and the document that Marcan posted.
Most, if not all, of the above statements were written by Joshua Moon/Null himself and i copied it directly from the forum and made some tweaks. I did this because this entire thing is pissing me off because people are too lazy to look into this themselves and i just want to publish this article and get it over with. There is just one thing i have to add:
Byuu/Near supposedly committed suicide on June 27, 2021. The US Department of State finalized its records for 2021 a few months ago. No death of an American citizen was recorded in Japan in 2021 after Byuu's suicide note was published. This means that until this day, there is still no confirmation of Byuu being dead. Should it matter? No. If he wants to kill off his "internet persona" he should be able to do so. The only problem here is that the Kiwi Farms are thrown into the middle and being made out to be the bad guy. So i hope this post cleared that up and we can all move on.
In Conclusion
First of all: If you feel suicidal, get some fucking help, and GET OFF THE FUCKING INTERNET. Second of all: Byuu isn't dead. Third of all: If these individuals didn't know and read their own KF thread, they wouldn't know they were getting "cyber bullied" either. A forum can't cyber bully you if they just talk among each other. It becomes bullying when they seek you, and people around you, out and constantly harass you no matter where you go.
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| see, like these literal cyber bullies |
If anything the first two stories should make you shake your head and question society: these people were extremely terminally online, broadcasted every single fucked up thought they had, were very clearly slowly mentally declining, and yet no one in their immediate surroundings did anything. And now ask yourself: Why is Twitter using these tortured souls to push their agenda? How would you feel if this was someone you knew being used like that?
I first wanted to write three separate and very detailed articles dedicated to each individual mentioned here with screenshots, (archived) links, and other factual information (think Kiwi threads condensed to only factual information). This seemed to be too much for me to handle on my own, but i am still willing to work on it if i can find at least one other person who is willing to help. So if you would like to see such an article come to life, feel free to email me (goatswithfeelings@gmail.com). It is a lot of work and i wont be able to do it on my own, since i have a life outside of the internet, and this blog isn't my job, so it is difficult to prioritize this over other things.
If you want to support the Kiwi Farms forum financially you can find more info here.
