Baby Reindeer creator is provoking his stalker

[jengachampion]

SPOILERS AHEAD
I’ll preface this by saying I had a male stalker for 7 years. I moved, changed jobs, and deleted all social media in that time. I’m also a survivor of SA, as well as assault after being spiked, similar to RG in the show.

It completely baffles me that he would completely replicate his stalker down to physical likeness, occupation, accent, exact correspondences and references like hanging curtains.

He is clearly not too worried about people finding the real person, as well as her potentially contacting him again.

If it were me telling my story, I would change all identifying details of both of us, because I would NEVER want to go through it again. RG telling his story this way is hugely weird to me and really speaks to the theme of mutual obsession he hints at in the show.

I've just read the tabloid coverage and well... I saw a comment which I'd missed but which now seems blindingly obvious. 'Cotton Mouth' was Brass Eye, it's not even subtle. And SF once worked on Brass Eye.

Um... he wrote the series. So he wrote that line. Which shows amazing insight. Your italics are abhorrent.

Hi everyone, hope you're all well and nobody too upset from the very open discussions now being had around SA/stalking and much love to anyone affected. I hope you're getting lots of support.

I've been down the baby reindeer rabbit hole with my own wee lad, I say wee he's 17 soon and we've had lots (more)chat around consent, how men can also be abused etc and its been a really useful tool to discuss these things without it being a very intense purposeful time out your day chat iyswim.

I feel terrible sorry for real life Martha, even though she seems a vile individual in lots of ways, her mental illness is crippling isn't it? Stalking someone for prolonged periods isn't a well mind and my sympathy will always be with the victim, I can't help but feel so sad for anyone who has something so inherently broken inside them, that they can do something so unhinged. I've felt "stalkery" before now for sending a few drunk texts in a row when I was a young lass being ghosted, this really puts into perspective how sinister stalking with consequences really is. I have to be honest also, I feel sorry for "martha" because she's a woman more than I would a man, purely due to the fact when men stalk it usually ends in a severe attack or death on their female victim. With martha it seems like her mind is damaged, not her ego but I could be completely wrong.

Now, the male abuser who groomed Richard i personally believe has been correctly identified by Web sleuths but that's just my opinion, I'd certainly not hope anything awful happens to a innocent man. But whoever the groomer/rapist is, I imagine their life is deeply uncomfortable right now.

I understand after reading all of your opinions how and why you feel the ways you do. I appreciate martha being outed means a vulnerable person being subject to major harassment and that could have dire consequences. I appreciate that people feeling the heat on SF feel as though this could be an unfounded witch hunt and that's scary.

But my own opinions are about Richard and baby reindeer are he is a brave man who is surviving the most tremendous trauma and as well as wanting to give the lad a big fuck off hug, I applaud his bravery and turning something that will have prevented others from ever truly living again, into something that will bring him closure, wealth and hopefully joy in knowing he's given survivors of similar a voice.

(Sent from my Nokia 3310)

I think he's cunningly dumped both crimes right back in the perpetrator's laps. He knows he'll get nowhere in the courts over the rape allegation and that bloke in question is probably savvy enough to successfully fight it. He's probably the type to sue anyone who starts calling him on it. She's an inept fool and is powerless to fight anyone, so she's an easy target.

I wish I could out my abusers/rapist like this. I don't blame him tbh, even if he is a bit of a tosser.

He's being disingenuous by trying to say she's unrecognisable in the show though, that's quite clearly bullshit.

I think there is a clever twist on words by claiming ‘Martha wouldn’t recognise herself’ in the show.

Having been stalked, I know that most stalkers are narcissists and or have significant mental health issues.

Both cause denial and lack of behavioural insight.

It could be that ‘Martha wouldn’t recognise herself’ because she still has no ability to reflect on her actions during that time. So she wouldn’t see herself as the perpetrator. She wouldn’t acknowledge the implications of what she did. My stalker still thinks in his mind that he did no wrong, even though I have a court order.

She has recognised herself though, she's even said that the actress who plays her is ugly.

I think she's only found out because she's been receiving threats. She wasn't posting about it two days ago, but she certainly is now and is complaining about Gadd's supporters threatening her.

But she’s also saying it’s all wrong. She didn’t do it. He stalked her. So she’s saying she knows she is Martha, but not saying she did any of those things.

(If it is the person being named on Facebook.)

She has recognised herself though. As PP have said she's launched scathing attacks now on Richard Gadd himself, his father, the actress who played her etc. She's gone to the press and done an interview. She's posted vitriolic post after vitriolic post in the past few days.

No, people have reached out to her. Baited her.

He says it is true. All the emails and texts used in the show are taken from ones he was sent. Changing identifying details, which he hasn’t done very well if accounts here are anything to go by, doesn’t make something false.

Surely if a criminal and someone who can cause danger is given anonymity that puts people at greater risk I would have thought? And allows the criminal to not be so accountable for their behaviours…

The suspected rapist has resigned from his job, is receiving messages calling him a rapist on his social media, has been taking legal advice and you have no idea what other backlash he is facing in his life.

so why are you making things up?

The problem is some of it is dramatised, so we (the viewers) actually have no idea what she did or didn't do.

@JewelledPony I don't believe for one second that someone who spends as much time on social media as she does, wasn't aware of Baby Reindeer without people pointing it out to them and that she wouldn't have watched it before people began to contact her. She variously claims she hadn't watched it, then in subsequent posts says people have showed her bits yet she seems to have extensive knowledge of its contents. Likewise how she claimed in her fb post that she didn't know Richard Gadd. Then that changed to him stalking her, then asking her out. Then she knows enough about him to know he had AIDS (allegedly). She contradicts herself at every turn but make no mistake she knew that show was about her before people began harrassing her.

Quite. She had not done anything for years before he made a show without even trying to hide who she is.

No I am not saying she is blameless. I am not saying he didn't have a right to make a film about her and what she did.

I am agreeing with the OP that if he had not she would not be launching back into the behaviour she had clearly stopped. The one he has admitted he quite enjoyed and is now getting paid for.

As I have said I do understand why people don't report rape. I don't understand going global about being raped and not being clear about who it was so further damage isn't caused to others not involved.

I hope he finds closure but this is a very damaging way to go about it.

Absolutely. That’s art. And I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to admit, “yes, I did these things but not these.”

but she’s admitting nothing. Going on the attack. Saying terrible things. But she might not even be Martha. It’s a mess.

No, he says its 'emotionally true' and a 'fictionalised account' so he's been very clever with the wording

OP,
I have been reading replies and people do have interesting takes on it. Want to say I'm not coming from a confrontational place or trying to railroad anyone into seeing it a particular way.

Your thread title is quite inflammatory. Was that intentional? Has the thread changed your view?

I mean I think it's very obvious she is Martha. But our problem is it's all his side of the story, we're trusting him when he says he used real emails etc. We have no real idea what happened between them other than taking his word for it.

She's obviously an unwell person but maybe he is too.

Absolutely, I get that. But if she thought she’d done nothing wrong, she might not have seen herself. It’s so complicated. She certainly didn’t start posting about Richard Gadd until people speculated it was her. And shared her name and contacted her. I think that if you stalk someone and don’t recognise that as abhorrent behaviour, you might well not expect this until it’s in your face.

This is so true. Thank you. I think I’ve got a bit over invested tbh. You’ve made me think.

RG telling his story this way is hugely weird to me and really speaks to the theme of mutual obsession he hints at in the show

I haven't watched it, but probably will. However, this got my attention. A good friend of mine, years ago, had a 'stalker' (don't think we called it by that name back then). But I remember once when we all met up as a group of old friends who had moved away from each other and were catching up one night and another friend asked how it was all going in that regard. He reeled off a whole load of anecdotes that had happened in the intervening period, to which we were all sympathetic. He then trailed off - 'actually I haven't seen her for a couple of months - maybe I should call...' We were all agog. I don't think anyone said anything.

Different victims react in different ways. But there is definitely a model of victim that reacts by trying to take control of a situation. Just as a rape victim might react by trying to convince themselves it's consensual because if it was rape then that means they're a rape victim and they have to live with that the rest of their lives (because if they're a victim it could happen again and that's terrifying but if it's because they screwed up they can protect themselves by not doing that). There is a model of stalking victim who will react with anger because if they respond, if they engage then maybe they're not a victim and helpless and vanishing feels very helpless.

It doesn't make you any less of a victim because you didn't react that way. Different people just react differently.