Raines created a successful YouTube channel dedicated to her advocacy efforts rescuing foxes from fur farms.

Animal rescue activist and YouTube star Mikayla Raines has died by suicide, according to her husband. She was 29.

Ethan Raines announced her death in an emotional video he posted to her YouTube channel on Monday.

He said that for years his wife suffered from various mental health issues and struggled to cope with online criticism.

"She couldn’t bear what she was feeling any longer, and she ended her life," he said. "And it breaks my heart that someone who is selfless and devoted her life to animals could have so much negativity pointed at her."

top 92 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 100 points 1 year ago (14 children)

It is a sad state of affairs when a person is doing something actually good to help animals and they get harassed. May her legacy live on forever.

  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    My wife told me about this last night, supposedly the majority of the abuse came from OTHER FUCKONG RESCUERS!!!!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    That seems so crazy to me. I'm on a bunch of different guitar forums around the Internet, and I don't recall a single time when I've seen anyone attack or harass a content creator or anyone else. It's a really friendly, highly supportive, international community, and it's HUGE. Everybody feels like a friend.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It happens in photography, I think there's a competitive element.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    The guitar world is pretty competitive, too. Perhaps the difference is the guitar is exceedingly difficult to learn, and we've ALL struggled with it, and have had help from others overcoming our problems. So we can all sympathize with each other, and want to share our help and knowledge.

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] -18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Meat eaters can't stand animal rights activists

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 197 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    How hollow that must feel. Not getting any justice or retribution.

    And the disgusting people to blame are probably praising themselves, now.

    RIP

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] [S] 81 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    From my cursory glance, yes, they are

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's times like these that I hope there is in fact a god and they are watching folks like that.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 58 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    If there's a god, he's a cunt. Find your own justice.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] [S] 131 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

    Sad, I watched her shorts sometimes. Apparently there was a hate 'snark' subreddit that just made up shit about her all day, with some members connected to the factory farming fur industry, and pedophilic artist KazeoLion, leading the harassment

  • source
  • hideshow 15 child comments
  • [–] 109 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    So.....wait. I've never heard of her, but you're saying there was an entire subreddit deddicated to making up lies about her, saying she did horrible shit, KNOWING what they said was a lie? Because if I'm reading this right, that's pretty fucked up.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • [–] [S] 61 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Apparently there are 'snark' (what the hell kinda name for a genre is that?) pages on Reddit for all sorts of niche stuff

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 57 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    There's snark pages on lemmy too, some of them moved here after getting kicked off Reddit.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Fundiesnark is often for people who leave insane religious institutions or crazy churches to talk about that and make fun of the people still trying to push their hateful religious agenda online, there’s a lot of survivors of some bad shit there, I support it frankly but like, foxes? Not like any of these people are coming from fur farms where they were personally abused and need a space to talk about its ridiculousness

    Also snarky puppy is just a musical group it’s not a snark group

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 86 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Why the hell would anyone feel any need to harass someone like this? Shit like this is never justified, but once in a while I can understand their motivations. Not this. RIP, she was pretty cool.

  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Because it works.

    kiwifarms has been doing this en masse for over a decade and others predated that.

    It is gauche to link to it considering this is the umpteenth fucking person murdered by angry and hateful bastards. But Patrick Klepek, someone who has been targeted by these orgs for over a decade, wrote about this in the context of the emulator developer Near being murdered by kiwi farms et al a few years back https://www.vice.com/en/article/what-i-learned-from-near-an-emulation-legend-and-real-person/

    He talked about it more on the Waypoint (now Remap) podcast, but it is very much an open secret that these hate campaigns are ongoing with the explicit goal of murdering their target (it is not fucking suicide if you were tormented until you picked up the gun). And how even fellow victims who usually will advocate for this kind of stuff are wary of raising their voices because they or their partner are semi regularly approached, in person, by these bastards.

    My hope, as always, is that this will be the last time. That this will lead to focused efforts by those with platforms to speak out. The reality is that the mid tier "creators" will probably say something and give the trite "If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the national suicide prevention lifeline". Or, well, these days "the national slip and slide prevention lifeline" because gotta stay fucking monetized. And then they'll remain silent. All while the biggies choose to stay fucking silent out of concerns of losing people in their audience who are part of those hate campaigns.


    To be clear, I do not fault the people who are under attack and wary of reminding those murderers they exist. I specifically linked to Patrick's post because he and the (now Remap) crew did an amazing job of explaining exactly what goes into this and how painful it is and why they are genuinely afraid to speak up.

    I do very much fault the ludwigs and charlies of the world who will mention this for clicks and then never care again. And if the truly massive outlets were to speak out against this kind of harassment and reach out to the victims? Suddenly youtube and twitch and reddit and the like would care and start moderating this shit rather than laughing that kotaku in action and the like are so popular and only occasionally link to where the REAL hate and doxxing happens.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    So the motivations are... just to kill an innocent person without having to take responsibility for it? You're right, more needs to be done about this. Look what happened to Chrischan. Probably wasn't always willing to commit incest.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago

    Why the hell would anyone feel any need to harass someone like this?

    For one, there's good money in it.

    Black Cube's tactics have resulted in a number of international controversies. In Canada, the firm was criticized by an Ontario Court for an attempt that aimed to discredit a judge by trying to get him to make antisemitic comments in secretly recorded meetings. In Romania, two of its employees were convicted of criminal charges involving harassment and hacking. The firm also drew condemnation for covertly surveilling and assisting efforts to discredit women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual violence and the investigative journalists researching whether those accusations were credible. Their tactics also involve attempts to goad individuals into making anti-semitic or otherwise damaging remarks.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 60 points 1 year ago

    They are filled with hate, because they are deeply insecure, deeply afraid, and the current political and social climate tells them that this is not only an acceptable way to deal with those feelings, but encourages them to deal with those feelings in this manner.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    See, I have no idea what to do with this idea that fits within the bounds of good ethics but I’m certain that there’s something deeply wrong with our species that gets worse the more isolated we can be without dying off. The further back you go the more likely being shunned for being an absolute piece of trash would lead to your death but now the most broken people can still proliferate and cause problems for everyone else without even really needing to leave their homes. I can think of a million better things to do than obssess over and relentlessly bully someone.

    I’m glad that we’ve hit a certain point where more and more people are choosing to have higher standards, and maybe that will help, but holy fuck this is gunna take a while to sort out.

  • source
  • parent
  • Some nasty people just see someone who appears vulnerable/has mental health issues and use that as an excuse to attack someone. there's this really fucked up site called Kiwifarms that's been around for over a decade that was specifically made for trying to harass and bully people to death for being "weird", trans, or neurodivergent. it could also be they were jealous of her popularity

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] -9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    "Body shaming is good when its men."

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [+] -13 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Accusing anyone that acts a way you don't like as having a micro penis seems like body shaming to me. I can't imagine that someone who has one and isn't a shitty human appreciates being associated with them.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (-1 replies)
  • load more comments (-1 replies)
  • load more comments (-1 replies)
    [+] 64 points 1 year ago (13 children)
  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    It was reddit. Reddit is dead center of this.

    Edit: its amazing how being correctly identifying reddit as the culprit is downvoted on lemmy when its clear most of us are here because reddit sucks a skunks ass.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Proof? Not that I'm saying you're wrong, I'm just not familiar with this lady at all so would like to know more.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    There was a whole subreddit called "r/SaveAfoxSnark" that went private after the news came out. One reddit mod there got doxxed, panicked, and deleted their whole reddit history.

    Edit: The mod's reddit handle is/was KazeoLion. There are only quotes here about this, so take it all with a grain of salt until we know more. These are YouTube comments:

    MappleBunny 13 hours ago One of the people responsible for the bullying is a reddit user by the name of KazeoLion, who has since been doxxed and had to delete most of his reddit posts (which are still available in the wayback machine), he even made a post where he doubled down on his actions.

    We will neither forgive nor forget. Rest in peace Mikayla


    bluebowser3347 21 hours ago There was a whole subreddit called r/SaveAfoxSnark that was dedicated to bullying and harassing Mikayla. The moment the news came out that she had killed herself the subreddit switched to private.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Those snark subreddits need to remember that they’re dealing with human beings.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    The older I get the more I understand why the concept of demons was something people could accept.

    Idk, some people are just bad. A cousin, adopted but my uncle's adopted son nonetheless, is a good example of this. He's no longer with us, thank fucking god, but this little devil was bad from the moment I met him to the point he died at... idk I think it was 18 or 19 years old.

    His parents got him a pet weasel. It 'disappeared'. I don't remember the specifics but it was pretty clear it didn't just run away. His brother would show up at the dining table with bruises around his neck. Just fucking evil shit like that. Ended up running away at 17 years old, died in an attempted robbery sometime after that (his memory is not something I try to keep alive).

    Point is: there is such a thing as irredeemable. At least, in my eyes.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The internet mirrors humanity.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 44 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is a good reason to avoid getting Internet famous. The Internet is full of trolls, and you have to be prepared for it or it'll destroy you. It doesn't matter what content you're famous for, pieces of shit will try to tear you down just for the fun of it.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    Doing some sleuthing, it appears a former follower was mad about some incidents at the shelter, and started a subreddit against it:

    SFW, but click at your own risk.https://web.archive.org/web/20250307232100/https://www.reddit.com/r/saveafoxsnark/

    The last web archive backup is old, but my guess is the subreddit snowballed (due to the Reddit engagement algo loving hatesubs, of course) and got us here.

    So... yeah.

    Rest in peace.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Reddit needs to be held accountable for the snark subs

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    I'm pretty okay with Duggar snark and Sister Wives snark. My girl follows all of it. Anything that spotlights the abuse inherent in fundamentalist Mormonism/Evangelicalism is mostly a good thing, in my book.

    No clue about the particulars on this. Never heard of her before.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Holy fuck, I loved SaveAFox, what the hell is wrong with people 😭🤮

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I don't understand why anyone would be mad that someone was saving foxes from becoming pelts.

    Unless you're the piece of shit profiting from the suffering and death of those animals, in which case, your opinion is null and void, nobody should be against the idea IMO.

    It's incredible to me that anyone would carry such vitriol against such a noble cause.

    May she rest in peace.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    On any online forum, there are people who just like to stir the shit: doxxing, swatting, death threats, you name it. Most platforms have reduced their efforts to keep those slimebags at bay, and this is the result.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago

    This one hits me hard. So sad. So goddamn sad. Seeing her and those foxes really cheered me up. Her death just stabs me right through the heart.

  • source
  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The human race makes me really sick on a daily basis these days

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 66 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Jesus, it really goes to show how shitty humanity really is.

    I actually really liked watching those foxes laughing, it was a nice little bright spot in a world fully of cynicism and bullshit and if course shitty humans had to be shitty humans harassing her for being a decent human being.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    Oh god I love the saveafox channel. This is such a tragedy.

  • source
  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago

    As a long time supporter of SaveAFox, it's hard to really even process this. I am sure being an online personality to try and fundraise isn't easy, but never did I dream that there was such a degree of hate lobbed at Mikayla that she'd decide to end her own life. Someone so kind and devoted to the lives of creatures who are constantly exploited and cannot save themselves. It's just despicable, and all I can really hope for is that Mikayla's mission continues on in spite of such significant loss.

  • source
  • [–] 45 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Wtf she seemed so happy in her vids

    Sorry that was a flippant reaction. I'm so sorry she struggled and wish she was able to get help before it came to this.

    I have depression and I understand that you can seem outwardly happy and still nothing can bring joy on the inside.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago

    That's incredibly sad to hear. I watched this channel alot to see the various fox personalities, like Finnegan. I'm gonna be worried about the foxes for a while, now.

  • source
  • [–] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I would also like to add another perspective.

    I think its important to bear in mind that there are plenty of examples of animal rights and environmental organisations that have been the target of harrasment campaigns bankrolled by corporate and political interests.

    I'm not suggesting this is what happened here. I think we have to scrutinize any possible conspiracy -- I really want to make that clear. If you look through the other comments, there's a lot to delve through here.

    But I would suggest bearing in mind that smear campaigns aimed at cultivating a kind of political nihilism is something that does happen.

    The best you can do, if you care about these causes, is to continue to support them in whatever ways you can.

    In my opinion, all animals deserve a hell of a lot better than this.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    If only. The fact is there are also plenty of animal rights organizations that think they could have done a better job and/or that she was doing it wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if there were people who saw SaveAFox as another Tiger King.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah there’s a big difference between rehabbing animals based on heavy human contact VS as minimal contact as possible, in this age, I can definitely see harassment from people who are very opinionated and have kind of lost the plot; who harasses people that are trying to help but have a method you disagree with versus the people who don’t care or are doing harm?

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 40 points 1 year ago

    I saw a longer quote from him. He doesn't blame online abuse, rather says that it was a (major?) contributing factor. He also said that some of that abuse was coming from other animal rescues, so I'm sure he's fucking pissed on top of grieving.

  • source
  • [–] 37 points 1 year ago

    No, this was the SaveAFox person... This is like hearing if The Girl With The Dogs were to suddenly die tomorrow. I'm not sure I could handle so much good leaving the world so quickly.

    They had been posting fundraising updates on their YouTube for the last couple weeks. I hope they can keep it going.

  • source
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›