Behind the Blog: Brainrot and Brain Power Hours

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss the death of Mr. Deepfakes, introducing kids to the Manosphere, and working on big, difficult, high-brain-power scoops.

SAM: I’m gonna use my time to give a huge shoutout to Bellingcat, the CBC, and Danish publications Politiken and Tjekdet for this story, where they spent a ton of time and effort tracking down the guy behind Mr. Deepfakes. I don’t really know a better word to use to describe this investigation than ballsy—it takes serious nerves of steel to confront a guy at work and in his car about some vile shit he’s done online. I would be pretty nervous about his reaction, considering he’s spent years thinking he’s completely anonymous and untraceable, and now a reporter is dogging him in person. The way they conducted the investigation is also really impressive, using crypto payments, usernames across forums, and IP data along with a bunch of other data to track him down. He eventually slipped up, and so much of this kind of investigation is about patience. I have a lot of respect for that process. Go read it.