It is a truth universally acknowledged that one of the pains of modern life is an awkward ride-hailing trip.
Back in March, Annaliese Nielson, CEO of social network Crushee and founder of the alt-porn site Gods Girls, had such a ride. She tweeted on March 12 that she was kicked out of her Lyft after confronting a “racist” driver.
Recently, video of the incident surfaced, which shows Neilsen insisting that the driver remove his bobblehead hula girl doll.
“No, yeah, I want you to, because it’s actually deeply offensive, and I want you to take it down,” she says to the driver, after referring to Hawaii as a continent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMT3vuSQk3g
The driver remains mostly calm, even when Neilsen threatens to put him on Gawker. “You will be like the next internet meme, it’s going to be super funny,” she says.
At one point, a fellow passenger, who identifies herself as Jade, tells Nielsen that her outrage is “pretty pathetic.”
“And now my passengers are fighting. I’m so excited,” the driver deadpans.
When he eventually loses his patience and tells Nielsen that she is being rude, Neislen retorts, “Yeah, I’m sorry that you have a no consideration for actual Hawaiian people who don’t want to be a bobblehead item in the car while you are driving for Lyft.” Then she called him a “fucking selfish dumbass idiot.”
It is then that the driver kicks Nielsen out of his car. “Here is a sidewalk,” he tells her calmly. “Have a wonderful night.”
The video was apparently taken by Nielsen herself, but was emailed to Lauren Southern, a self-described libertarian activist and writer for the site Rebel Media. Southern posted the video to her YouTube channel on Saturday, more than four months after the incident, and in her intro calls Nielsen a “SWJ” with a “nails-on-the-chalkboard voice.”
Since the video was posted—and viewed nearly 400,000 times on Southern’s channel alone—Nielsen has deleted her Twitter account. But it was soon taken over by someone impersonating her.
Screengrab via Twitter
The bio reads, “Masters in Women’s Studies at the University of Honolulu. Thesis on how the patriarchy shames women in today’s rape culture.” The parody account also tweeted that the driver had been fired.
Thank you all for the support. We won. The driver has been fired, & I rec'd confirmation @Lauren_Southern is being banned in next 24 hours.
— Annaliese (@tornadoliese) August 28, 2016
The Daily Dot reached out to both Neilsen and Lyft about the incident, but hasn’t heard back as of this posting.
In light of the Twitter takeover and all the recent video views, Nielsen said on Facebook Monday that she has been subject to a “barrage of harassment.”
https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/770181931690491905
Since making the statement, Nielsen’s Facebook page has been set to private.