The Cyber-stalkers Who Outed "Martha" Were Wrong
They also made up false accusations against innocent men and accused them of rape on the basis of no evidence.
Baby Reindeer was at times hilarious, creepy, and downright terrifying. It was brilliantly done.
But Twitter detectives completely missed the point. Users tried to discern the identity of the stalker Martha. They searched people on Twitter, spread rumors about them, and spammed their mentions with harassing messages. After watching a series about how stalking can ruin people's lives, they cyber-stalked someone.
Reportedly, some cyber-stalkers also made up rumors about various men and falsely accused them of being rapists in an attempt to out the identity of "Darrien O'Connor." This one is more serious because the cyber-stalkers are misidentifying innocent people, leading to some who were falsely accused to file police reports.
The identity of the inspiration for "Martha" was easy enough to suss out because, apparently, the writers of Baby Reindeer used verbatim or near-verbatim tweets from her public Twitter account in the series. The writers may deserve some criticism for making it so easy to out her. They also may have gone too far by calling the series a true story, when it may not have been 100% true but more likely inspired by a true story. That said, I do not intend to be too harsh on Richard Gadd; he was clear in his statements that he didn't want anyone speculating about identities.
The real villains here are the many nut jobs who took time out of their busy empty lives to pause the series, copy the texts with their own hand, and Google them. They are engaging in creepy and predatory behavior. Piers Morgan is also at fault for interviewing the woman, and of course she is, too, for having appeared on the interview.
What do internet detectives hope to accomplish by targeting people online? If the goal was to shame "Martha," what more can they do? She's already the subject of one of the most popular series of the year.
Was the goal to help Richard Gadd? Richard already solved the problem--and made good money out of it.
We don't really know exactly what happened between Richard and the woman. The internet detectives don't know what happened. We don't know how much of the Netflix story was true to the real-life events.
For example, did "Martha" get convicted and go to jail for stalking Richard? According to the series, she did. Her real-life embodiment denied it on the Piers Morgan interview. If she did serve time, then she has faced justice. If she didn't, then a major part of the series is untrue--we have no way to know what details of the series are true and what aren't.
It's most likely that the person who stalked Richard did many wrong and blameworthy things, period. But did she assault Richard's girlfriend in a restaurant? Did she make all those threats, including to his parents? If Martha's cyber-stalkers take every incident from the series as gospel, they might end up accusing her of something she didn't do.
Stalker stories usually show one person is good; one person is bad. And I wanted to get away from that.
- Richard Gadd on “This Morning”
Richard's character, for his character's part, is partially blameworthy, too. For example, his character went to Martha's house one night and initiated sex with her--knowing full well she was a dangerous stalker. He also treated his girlfriend poorly, made her feel shame as a result of her trans identity, and disregarded her safety.
This is not the only example of internet detectives making up defamatory stories about random people online. Anytime there is a sensational murder, people will falsely accuse people of being the killer. If someone even posts an awkward/cringe video of themselves with their significant other on TikTok, then harassers may falsely accuse one of them of being a cheater or abuser.
Unfortunately, social media apps are filling the voids in losers' wasted lives. Those people should go outside, write something, paint something, cook something, work out, or do something, anything--in short, start living their lives--instead of speculating on other people's lives.
No one is helping anyone when they make false accusations about someone online. They aren't going to solve a crime they don't know anything about by Googling things. Police already have access to forensics and professional investigatory techniques. If Richard Gadd was molested, as the series depicts, he knows who did it. Twitter users don't know. Gadd doesn't need their help in cracking the case.