A Female Gamer was Stalked and Murdered by a Man she chatted online

An 18 year old female gamer was murdered Sunday night by a man she met on Discord. Discord is an online chat channel for gamers to talk to one another individually or in group chats while they play. Bianca, also known as @.escty on Instagram briefly met and chatted with the young man, when he began sending disturbing and extremely possessive texts shortly after. 

Obsessed with Bianca, he produced a narrative in his imagination and through Reddit threads that she was his girlfriend. In reality, they were strangers inside and outside the gaming world. Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) has written a Twitter thread breaking down the following horrifying events.

When Bianca rejected his romantic advances, he stalked her. He tracked her down to a festival she was attending, killed and decapitated her— all while documenting it online. His fatal pursuit was first posted on Instagram stories under the fake account he made @.yesjuliet. He then posted photos of her body and head on his 4chan and online chat group.

This news is just one disturbing account that the threats women face online are quickly transitioning into life-threatening dangers in real life. Declarations of sexual and physical violence against women are no longer empty threats, but viable and sick masqueraded behavior. 

Bianca’s life was taken not just because of online activity, but because the man she met was a reflection of our society’s inability to confront the very real and heartbreaking consequences of toxic masculinity and violence against women. 

Toxic masculinity, that he had some claim to her because they chatted online, is as familiar as a man who sexually preys on a woman because she smiled at him, or another man who attacks a woman because she was wearing something he found irresistible. 

While social media users came together under #ripbianca to pay their respects for Bianca, there was a noticeable trend amongst men AND women. They all warned women to be careful. Rarely, if any, did tweets condemn men or ask them to take accountability for their aggressions towards women. Nor did any tweet ask men to seek help about their issues when dealing with rejection. 

This is not to place blame on those who sincerely care about the welfare of women, but it is to recognize this mentality that it is women who must do something to protect themselves, rather than men who must do something to stop themselves.

Until we demand our men to value women’s lives as much as they do their egos, until we rewire our men to respond with humility when it comes to rejection, until we teach our men to take accountability for their actions and until we reprimand our own Presidential leader for encouraging violence against women and people of color, this. will. continue.