What in the everloving fuck.
If you thought the rest of the week couldn’t be as awful as the last few days, I’m sorry to destroy your hopes. Just hours after leaving a heartbreaking goodbye message about her father, Zelda Williams became the latest victim in an all-too long line of women attacked by sick people on the Internet.
Yes, that’s right. This is a story about a Robin Williams’ daughter being bullied and tormented online about his suicide. Buckle yourselves up; in the words of Bette Davis , it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
On Tuesday evening, two Twitter users with the names @PimpStory and @MrGoosebuster began tweeting images of a body they said was Robin Williams’ directly to Zelda Williams. I can’t even believe I had to type those words. Goddammit I am so sick of this shit.
The images were quickly proven to be fake. Twitter reacted with a resounding “WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK”:
Unfortunately, it appears that she saw the images. That sound is the sound of everyone’s hearts breaking for her all at once. Even though they were later discredited as fakes, does it really matter? This woman, who tried to do something brave in the face of a devastating tragedy, was met with an unspeakable grotesqueness, simply because she committed the crime of wanting to share her grief with countless others who loved her father. As we here know all too well, there are no lows to which certain people will stoop.
Apparently, in this world of unbridled “free speech” we’ve created on the Internet, a daughter can’t even mourn her father and share memories with a grieving public, because a few people decided this was the ideal time to torture a woman who dared share her story. I cannot even fathom the sickness at work here. I’m sure those jackasses (who have since been banned from Twitter) are laughing it up somewhere. I’m sure they are keeling over with laughter at her for sharing her anguish over their tweets, at the hundreds and and hundreds of people on Twitter decrying their shitty actions and even at me for writing this because we just don’t get their LULZ.
This may not matter right now, but I believe one thing. That when those people look back at then end of their sad, empty lives, they are going to have face the fact that they were the people who trolled a grieving woman with photos of a dead body. Go ahead. Keep laughing. You’re pathetic.
Williams urged followers to report the offending accounts (in a tweet that she later deleted). “”Please report @PimpStory @MrGoosebuster. I’m shaking. I can’t. Please. Twitter requires a link and I won’t open it. Don’t either. Please.” Jesus. I am filled with tears and also ALL THE RAGE. RAGING SO HARD. She then left a goodbye post on Twitter after the incident:
I cannot even imagine what she is going through right now. I give up, humanity.
Image via Getty.