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How 4chan ran a female book blogger off of YouTube

4chan's book forum, /lit/, found an attractive vlogger—and they couldn't leave her alone.

 

Rae Votta

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Posted on Jan 13, 2015   Updated on May 29, 2021, 6:52 pm CDT

While 4chan‘s /b/ board may be notorious for porn, gore, and Internet pranks, the users posting on book forum /lit/ generally stick to discussions of novels and other reading material. 

This changed over the weekend when the forum began sharing videos by a book vlogger known as Katie.

“Hi /lit/,” one user wrote, “what do you think of the ‘Booktuber’ trend?”

“Fuck… I lost hard,” one user wrote, referring to the 4chan meme “You Love, You Lose”—posting images of hot women with the intention of finding a new Internet crush.

/lit/ users thought Katie was cute. They also mocked her, called her a virgin, and wondered out loud if she had “a petticoat … I could look up.” 

Then the users went to YouTube to try to get her attention.

Katie took notice.

“This one creeper said that I sounded like a virgin,” she wrote, “and then this other dude … described in like a paragraph what he would do to me if he met me or something and by this I mean in an inappropriate and sexual way.”

She added, “I am so disgusted and feel violated beyond belief.”

katiesclassicbooksandstitches/Tumblr

While several on the board showed remorse—”I’m fucking ashamed of us,” one wrote—it was too late. Katie took down her YouTube page

Katie’s Tumblr remains active. A /lit/ user claimed to have sent her the 4chan thread she was featured in. 

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Then the forum braced itself for Katie’s visit. One user wrote “Luv U Katie” on a piece of paper, placed on top of Coke bottles filled, apparently, with urine.

This is not an isolated incident. Sexualized comments about book vloggers, even ostensibly underage ones, is actually a recurring theme on the board. 

/Lit/ on 4chan

This is far from the first time female YouTubers have faced harassment on the site, especially of a sexual nature. While they continue to speak out about the abuse they face on it and other social media platforms, the tide still hasn’t turned to make YouTube a safe space for female voices.

Katie did not respond for comment about her harassment.

Illustration by Fernando Alfonso III

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*First Published: Jan 13, 2015, 5:01 pm CST