Sometimes its hard not be a misanthrope

The cast of characters was a mixture of the strange and — even stranger — the seemingly normal, all known to one another by their screen names. There was the Torture King, who had invited Kapetanich in; there was “Sadistic”, a gas station attendant and grandmother in rural Alabama; there was “Bones”, a former US Air Force airman from Texas with a big collection of guns; and “Champei”, who caused chaos and infighting in every group he joined. There was “Trevor”, who couldn’t contribute during daytime hours because, “no phone at work, nuclear stuff”.

And it wasn’t just Americans, there were dedicated members in Europe and Australia. Among the cruellest contributors to the group was “The Immolator”, a 35-year-old woman who loved birds and lived with her parents in the English midlands.

In real life, he was Mike McCartney, a 48-year-old former motorcycle gang member in Norfolk, Virginia, with a swastika tattoo and a “man cave” in his home decorated with Nazi symbols and Confederate flags. McCartney was well-built, heavily tattooed, and toothless from years of heroin addiction. He had spent two decades in one of America’s most dangerous outlaw motorcycle gangs, before going to prison and dropping out of that life. When the pandemic hit, he started spending a lot of time on YouTube. At some point, he saw his first monkey torture video. It was a video of Mini.