Raines created a successful YouTube channel dedicated to her advocacy efforts rescuing foxes from fur farms.
Animal rescue activist and YouTube star Mikayla Raines has died by suicide, according to her husband. She was 29.
Ethan Raines announced her death in an emotional video he posted to her YouTube channel on Monday.
He said that for years his wife suffered from various mental health issues and struggled to cope with online criticism.
“She couldn’t bear what she was feeling any longer, and she ended her life,” he said. “And it breaks my heart that someone who is selfless and devoted her life to animals could have so much negativity pointed at her.”
How hollow that must feel. Not getting any justice or retribution.
And the disgusting people to blame are probably praising themselves, now.
RIP
From my cursory glance, yes, they are
It’s times like these that I hope there is in fact a god and they are watching folks like that.
If there’s a god, he’s a cunt. Find your own justice.
I agree, but at heart I’m a pollyanna.
“Inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist.”
- George Carlin
The real hollowness is found in the people who have nothing in their lives so they embrace hate and hound those trying to make the world a better place.
Why the fuck would you harass someone for saving foxes? Is it because she’s a woman?
God gave us dominion over all creatures read the Bible!
There are children dying in the streets here, why don’t you do anything about them?
The foxes bread for fur here are not capable of living in the wild, “rescuing” and releasing them is the real animal abuse.
I think fox fur is fancy, fuck you lady!
Just some examples I can think of off the top of my head. People can get pretty polarized when it comes to killing, or not killing animals.
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In this case I’d say it’s a difference between animals raised as a product vs animals as pets. Personally, I don’t take issue with animal products as long as the animal is treated with care during life and dignity during death, but I definitely understand why some people are against animal products. Harassing them to the point of suicide is not an acceptable reaction. I’d also put some money down that the industries she targeted had at least some involvement in harassing her.
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A perfect demonstration of my point. Thank you.
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I would also like to know what the criticism was, but at the same time, I also feel like the internet can be shit sometimes whether there was reason to criticise or not.
Pretty sad story.
I did the research in the muck mines of the internet for y’all, and it is more complicated than it looks on the surface.
Several animals died in her care due to neglect, including leaving foxes on leashes and letting them get tangled up and baked alive in the sun. There are text messages that leaked of her having paperwork forged to make some animals look like they were bred in captivity. Her organization was registered as a fur farm to avoid some taxes and regulations. Lastly, she had an OnlyFans page where the regularly posed with dogs and foxes in ways that suggested she was trying to appeal to zoofiles, including text descriptions that are very questionable.
A subreddit was created called Save A Fox Snark that was tracking her questionable methods, and one user in particular, seemingly a furry, was very active in screenshotting all of her questionable content in hope that she would get shut down for animal cruelty. That furry is now also being targeted for harassment.
I went straight into the swamp for this info—you can read it all on KiwiFarms, Soyjak, OnlyFans, and the internet archive pages of the Save A Fox Snark subreddit.
Yeah sorry if I don’t believe this when the source is fucking kiwifarms
The source isn’t just kiwifarms—the internet archive pages of the subreddit are still up to see exactly what they were posting. The OnlyFans photos have been archived and there are many of them.
Believe whatever you want, but there was a whole mountain of information out there.
And you need to keep in mind that targeted harassment campaigns are perfectly content twisting and manipulating the truth. I have plenty of experience with shit like that from my personal life. So I do not put a lot of stock in info sourced from places like those
In addition, I highly doubt the founder would have been this deeply affected by the harassment if she actually was a person that didn’t care much for the animals or others and their opinions
I do keep that in mind, that’s why I just report what I saw and where I saw it. The OnlyFans posts were created by her directly, I don’t think there is any dispute that the account was hers.
People can believe what they want, I just did some digging to see what the accusations were that made her feel like suicide was her only option.
Kiwifarms isn’t always wrong, but they like to fuck up things major ways, usually by focusing too much on someone being a leftist and/or trans, and sometimes even covering up abusers. They managed to cover up a rapist by not only focusing on her being trans, but also harassed multiple of her victims as it usually were “drunken sex”, which wasn’t considered as rape by many. Also Kiwifarms has an obsession with the “let’s paint our targets as irredeemable assholes, so driving them into suicide will be heroic, and also can be weaponized against the same group later on”. (BPD, while often seem like a misdiagnosis of badly mishandled CPTSD, is pretty much “asshole disorder” in many people’s minds.)
They claimed she was not taking proper care of the foxes. I haven’t read one thing that was in any way proven. It was just trash talking trolls doing what they do best, telling lies. They had story after story about the conditions. The woman was trying to do good, something none of those trolls harassing her have ever did. The trash reddit sub went private because now they fear consequences.
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Sad, I watched her shorts sometimes. Apparently there was a hate ‘snark’ subreddit that just made up shit about her all day, with some members connected to the factory farming fur industry, and pedophilic artist KazeoLion, leading the harassment
So…wait. I’ve never heard of her, but you’re saying there was an entire subreddit deddicated to making up lies about her, saying she did horrible shit, KNOWING what they said was a lie? Because if I’m reading this right, that’s pretty fucked up.
Apparently there are ‘snark’ (what the hell kinda name for a genre is that?) pages on Reddit for all sorts of niche stuff
There’s snark pages on lemmy too, some of them moved here after getting kicked off Reddit.
Lol at Snarky Puppy getting caught up in that search result.
TIL there’s a snarky puppy community here
Man, my life is kinda sad, but at least it’s not “join a community specifically to hate on stuff” sad. What hosers.
quietly unsubscribes from all reddit sublemmies
So telling lies about people is a ok, but mentioning a green plumber is not. I’m fucking grateful that I’m banned from that cesshole of a website now.
It’s a pretty fucked up name if you ask me, specifically.
I follow her and she was a beautiful human. This news is so painful for me.
If there was an organized harassment campaign against her I wonder if there is any legal culpability for those involved.
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It was reddit. Reddit is dead center of this.
Edit: its amazing how being correctly identifying reddit as the culprit is downvoted on lemmy when its clear most of us are here because reddit sucks a skunks ass.
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I forget tumblr still exists.
The internet mirrors humanity.
Not really. Nowadays, it’s a funhouse mirror that is distorted in ways that rich sociopaths think are better.
It mirrors humanity when we’re anonymous, which is why it’s so awful. There are people who are publicly shitheads without being anonymous, sure, but they’re far fewer in number.
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Jesus, it really goes to show how shitty humanity really is.
I actually really liked watching those foxes laughing, it was a nice little bright spot in a world fully of cynicism and bullshit and if course shitty humans had to be shitty humans harassing her for being a decent human being.
Humans not humanity.
Doing some sleuthing, it appears a former follower was mad about some incidents at the shelter, and started a subreddit against it:
SFW, but click at your own risk.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250307232100/https://www.reddit.com/r/saveafoxsnark/
The last web archive backup is old, but my guess is the subreddit snowballed (due to the Reddit engagement algo loving hatesubs, of course) and got us here.
So… yeah.
Rest in peace.
Reddit needs to be held accountable for the snark subs
I’m pretty okay with Duggar snark and Sister Wives snark. My girl follows all of it. Anything that spotlights the abuse inherent in fundamentalist Mormonism/Evangelicalism is mostly a good thing, in my book.
No clue about the particulars on this. Never heard of her before.
Jesus, every single post is made by the same person.
What a fucking nutjob
I would also like to add another perspective.
I think its important to bear in mind that there are plenty of examples of animal rights and environmental organisations that have been the target of harrasment campaigns bankrolled by corporate and political interests.
I’m not suggesting this is what happened here. I think we have to scrutinize any possible conspiracy – I really want to make that clear. If you look through the other comments, there’s a lot to delve through here.
But I would suggest bearing in mind that smear campaigns aimed at cultivating a kind of political nihilism is something that does happen.
The best you can do, if you care about these causes, is to continue to support them in whatever ways you can.
In my opinion, all animals deserve a hell of a lot better than this.
The human race makes me really sick on a daily basis these days
Why the hell would anyone feel any need to harass someone like this? Shit like this is never justified, but once in a while I can understand their motivations. Not this. RIP, she was pretty cool.
Because it works.
kiwifarms has been doing this en masse for over a decade and others predated that.
It is gauche to link to it considering this is the umpteenth fucking person murdered by angry and hateful bastards. But Patrick Klepek, someone who has been targeted by these orgs for over a decade, wrote about this in the context of the emulator developer Near being murdered by kiwi farms et al a few years back https://www.vice.com/en/article/what-i-learned-from-near-an-emulation-legend-and-real-person/
He talked about it more on the Waypoint (now Remap) podcast, but it is very much an open secret that these hate campaigns are ongoing with the explicit goal of murdering their target (it is not fucking suicide if you were tormented until you picked up the gun). And how even fellow victims who usually will advocate for this kind of stuff are wary of raising their voices because they or their partner are semi regularly approached, in person, by these bastards.
My hope, as always, is that this will be the last time. That this will lead to focused efforts by those with platforms to speak out. The reality is that the mid tier “creators” will probably say something and give the trite “If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the national suicide prevention lifeline”. Or, well, these days “the national slip and slide prevention lifeline” because gotta stay fucking monetized. And then they’ll remain silent. All while the biggies choose to stay fucking silent out of concerns of losing people in their audience who are part of those hate campaigns.
To be clear, I do not fault the people who are under attack and wary of reminding those murderers they exist. I specifically linked to Patrick’s post because he and the (now Remap) crew did an amazing job of explaining exactly what goes into this and how painful it is and why they are genuinely afraid to speak up.
I do very much fault the ludwigs and charlies of the world who will mention this for clicks and then never care again. And if the truly massive outlets were to speak out against this kind of harassment and reach out to the victims? Suddenly youtube and twitch and reddit and the like would care and start moderating this shit rather than laughing that kotaku in action and the like are so popular and only occasionally link to where the REAL hate and doxxing happens.
So the motivations are… just to kill an innocent person without having to take responsibility for it? You’re right, more needs to be done about this. Look what happened to Chrischan. Probably wasn’t always willing to commit incest.
They are filled with hate, because they are deeply insecure, deeply afraid, and the current political and social climate tells them that this is not only an acceptable way to deal with those feelings, but encourages them to deal with those feelings in this manner.
Why the hell would anyone feel any need to harass someone like this?
For one, there’s good money in it.
Black Cube’s tactics have resulted in a number of international controversies. In Canada, the firm was criticized by an Ontario Court for an attempt that aimed to discredit a judge by trying to get him to make antisemitic comments in secretly recorded meetings. In Romania, two of its employees were convicted of criminal charges involving harassment and hacking. The firm also drew condemnation for covertly surveilling and assisting efforts to discredit women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual violence and the investigative journalists researching whether those accusations were credible. Their tactics also involve attempts to goad individuals into making anti-semitic or otherwise damaging remarks.
See, I have no idea what to do with this idea that fits within the bounds of good ethics but I’m certain that there’s something deeply wrong with our species that gets worse the more isolated we can be without dying off. The further back you go the more likely being shunned for being an absolute piece of trash would lead to your death but now the most broken people can still proliferate and cause problems for everyone else without even really needing to leave their homes. I can think of a million better things to do than obssess over and relentlessly bully someone.
I’m glad that we’ve hit a certain point where more and more people are choosing to have higher standards, and maybe that will help, but holy fuck this is gunna take a while to sort out.
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“Body shaming is good when its men.”
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Accusing anyone that acts a way you don’t like as having a micro penis seems like body shaming to me. I can’t imagine that someone who has one and isn’t a shitty human appreciates being associated with them.
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As a long time supporter of SaveAFox, it’s hard to really even process this. I am sure being an online personality to try and fundraise isn’t easy, but never did I dream that there was such a degree of hate lobbed at Mikayla that she’d decide to end her own life. Someone so kind and devoted to the lives of creatures who are constantly exploited and cannot save themselves. It’s just despicable, and all I can really hope for is that Mikayla’s mission continues on in spite of such significant loss.
Tragic.
But listen, no one needs YouTube that bad. If you’re having issues because of it get off of it. It’s not real anyway. (YouTube, that is. People and foxes are, of course)
That advice is basically, don’t work in your chosen vocation. Running animal rehabilitation is not free, you need some sort of source of funding.
If your job is causing you enough mental anguish to go through with suicide, it’s reasonable to suggest you find another. That goes for any job.
it’s reasonable to suggest you find another
If it’s “just a job” like working retail at Target, sure, that’s a respectable take. It’s still blaming the victim, but it’s also advocating for the victim to address the issue themselves.
But if it’s not “just a job”? If it’s your life’s work, your calling, something you love more than anything else?
That idea is very likely what drove her to the brink. You really have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.
I’ve been there and I almost didn’t survive. Choosing to live isn’t always so easy.
If you are just working for money, yeah.
People work for things that benefit everyone at a personal cost all the time, and advances are made because of people like that. It’s a good thing, which had tragic consequences in this instance.
We need to protect people who put the world before themselves. This isn’t her failing, it’s ours.
I’m in agreement with you, though I still think it’s a fair suggestion for people putting the world before themselves to find another line of work too. I’m not saying that’s the only reasonable suggestion. I’m all for trying to mitigate the risk of abuse and trauma in the first place. I took Optional’s comment as an intended show of support to folks that might be struggling with similar abuse in their life.
Alright, but in general just leaving the work to other people doesn’t mitigate, it just shifts the abuse to other people.
Social workers, emergency aid, etc have high suicide rates.
And yet animal rehabilitation exists all over the world and has for decades without it. Somehow.
🤔
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
But they just won’t listen.How can you blame someone for doing what should be universally understood as a positive and still having nonstop trolling? Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to stop the harassment. Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to make her unsee the harassment. Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to promote advocacy for the animals. But you think it’s her fault for putting herself in a place that is both a primary media location and collection point for a bunch of toxic people?
Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to stop the harassment.
Disagree.
Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to promote advocacy for the animals.
Also disagree
But you think it’s her fault for putting herself in a place that is both a primary media location and collection point for a bunch of toxic people?
You can change your circumstances. None of it is her fault. But if anyone is in that position they should understand that getting out is absolutely an option.
She got harassed and bullied by people she knew IRL. They would’ve slandered her even if she wasn’t on youtube.
Blaming the victim eh?
No, just saying people younger than me never had a time when none of these horrible things existed. (Other things did, but not YouTube fame.)
Uh OK… Suicide due to bullying isn’t an internet only thing. We’ve been killing ourselves since the beginning of ourselves.
It’s different with the internet, but I don’t need to tell you that.
Fuck off, no one here is blaming her. But reality is holding no punches. I too would love for there to be no world hunger or violence in the world… Wait till you find out about this thing called “crime”!
Fuck off yourself. They clearly put the fact she killed herself in the frame of “it’s so simple to not do a thing”. Extra fuck you because you deserve it.
Holy fuck, I loved SaveAFox, what the hell is wrong with people 😭🤮
I don’t understand why anyone would be mad that someone was saving foxes from becoming pelts.
Unless you’re the piece of shit profiting from the suffering and death of those animals, in which case, your opinion is null and void, nobody should be against the idea IMO.
It’s incredible to me that anyone would carry such vitriol against such a noble cause.
May she rest in peace.
On any online forum, there are people who just like to stir the shit: doxxing, swatting, death threats, you name it. Most platforms have reduced their efforts to keep those slimebags at bay, and this is the result.
I believe she had BPD as well, which in itself often gets you targeted harassment online while also making you extremely sensitive to said harassment.
Wait what? People harass people online because they’ve got BPD? Like they specifically target people who are suffering from BPD? Why??
Fucking gross.
Because hurt people hurt people.
People with BPD can be very manipulative and controlling, they can leave you with your own psychological trauma if they’re not self aware enough to realise what they’re doing. And some people are just evil and don’t try be better. So there are a lot of people who have been hurt by people with BPD and they then become a target for harassment.
Sad part is that most people with BPD just want to be loved. Unfortunately they can’t trust love or anyone around them. It’s fucked and really hard to manage, but possible with a lot of hard work.
No, people don’t specifically look for people with BPD. I believe you misunderstood.
I would assume that the trolls are attracted to those people because they get more of a reaction to their vitriol. It’s sad, honestly.
Yeah, I agree. If a sadistic person wants to see reactions naturally they’ll continue to harass the people that give it to them.
Then what does this mean?
I believe she had BPD as well, which in itself often gets you targeted harassment online
I believe some people react to bullying in a specific way that excites bullies. It’s not like they say “hey, who’s got BPD,” it’s just that people with BPD tend to get the reactions they seek. Don’t mistake this as saying the bullies aren’t doing wrong or ableist. It’s still awful.
Well, it is unfortunately symptomatic. Lived with one for 10 years. Gave everything. It is not easy to admit that most of the even self aware sufferers will automatically manipulate and stir up drama due to the impossible weight of their own guilt and anger which if you want to help you have to realise is never going away and more often than not continually hurt anyone around them. It’s sad that giving energy and help to sufferers is so draining and destructive and if you want support many people react like you. Except in support groups. So if anyone is reading : take care of yourself first, giving more than you have is bad for everyone and it will be hard not to. Support groups are your friend as many that are in the same situation sharing and understanding is deeply important to survive
Is BPD bi-polar disorder? Or borderline personality disorder?
BPD is borderline personality disorder.
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Latter
I don’t know her at all - is that BPD diagnosis something confirmed, thet she shared and all?
I have terribly mixed feelings about people with BPD.
On one side, lots of empathy: they often feel miserable and (not always, but) very often their BPD is the result of trauma or abuse.
On the other, and having lived it for a decade and a half: they can make the lives of people in their surroundings an absolute abominable horror-movie type of nightmare.
It’s actually treatable but not all people with BPD seek treatment, it’s a tough one.
Yeah, her husband shared it when he announced the news on Tuesday (or Monday?).
I have an uncle who has been cut-off from the family because he refuses to treat his BPD and his sisters got tired of taking care of/cleaning up after him. “Doesn’t like how the medicine makes him feel”. Pretty sure he started self-medicating with other stuff and found a woman who enables him, don’t know exactly (it’s been two decades since I last heard from him)
If he was taking medicine for it, it likely wasn’t BPD; BPD doesn’t have any chemical treatments. Treatment is usually Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to try and regulate the person’s emotions and establish a more normalized baseline emotional state. But that requires a lot of personal effort, and many people with BPD refuse to follow through with it. And CBT only really helps with the emotional outbursts; It doesn’t do a lot for the abandonment issues, desires to self-harm, dissociation, etc…
Maybe he was bipolar? Bipolar is in the same category as schizophrenia, because the mania produces delusions and hallucinations. And it is treated with meds similar to schizophrenia.
Bipolar is indeed what I meant, I forgot that Borderline Personality Disorder took the initialism. It’s also probable that he has more than just that going on.
BPD is brutal on the people close to the person with the disorder. Absolutely brutal.
My sister has BPD. My parents cut her off after some particularly spectacular episodes. I stuck up for her even after she wasn’t allowed around anymore. She tried to off herself in my room when I let her hide out from her boyfriend (not the first time she did that). She ended up moving in with that scumbag who on multiple occasions beat her senseless and threw her out of a moving vehicle. I have so much fuckin trauma on account of her. She’s better now, for now. If it comes to it again tho I’ll always fight tooth and nail to keep her safe, regardless of how outrageously she behaves. That’s my fuckin sister.
Thank you, you’re an amazing sibling. Just don’t let her abuse you. I hope she is getting help, it can get better.
You’re a good sibling. I had an ex that really fucked me up. I found out later that she was diagnosed with BPD a few years after our relationship.
After reading up on it, it explained so much… Didn’t really help anything, but explained it. Made the mistake of reconnecting with her around the time of the pandemic. What a terrible idea that was lol.
I personally cannot confirm it, I just saw it being mentioned on one of the BPD subs on reddit.
I think it’s important to differentiate people with mental health issues and bad people with mental health issues.
I have BPD, it sucks so much and I suffer a lot of emotional pain. I have hurt some people, but the first person I really hurt, I loved like no other, and when she told me what I was doing to her when she left me, I decided not to be that person anymore.
I’ve fucked up a lot of my life during my worse episodes, but I choose not to be a horrible person to the people around me. I don’t always get it right, but I try.
A diagnosis doesn’t make you evil or bad, that’s a personal choice.
Bless you, take care of yourself and loved ones. If you do anything at all, please have safeguards against the most harrowing statistics with suicide on this diagnosis. Even worse if you are male but that’s beside the point <3
I saw a longer quote from him. He doesn’t blame online abuse, rather says that it was a (major?) contributing factor. He also said that some of that abuse was coming from other animal rescues, so I’m sure he’s fucking pissed on top of grieving.
People need to start staying off social media, especially when they’re not doing well mentally
I couldn’t bear to watch her husbands video, but I saw several comments on reddit that her “friends” were spewing this shit too.
While they have admirable goals and do important work, a lot of animal rights people are fucking nuts.
Correction * a lot of PEOPLE are fucking nuts.
