I Tweeted About Donald Trump’s Son And Have Spent the Last Week Fielding Online Death Threats VoxPluma Follow Jan 30, 2017 · 8 min read

By Stephen Spinola as told to Voxpluma Staff

Comic Stephen Spinola

On Friday January 21st during President Trump’s inauguration, comic Stephen Spinola sent out a tweet that got immediate backlash and spiraled quickly out of control, sparking an onslaught of death threats and a 100,000+ signed petition to fire him from Comedy Central, whom he has never worked for. Here is exactly what happened that day and in the following aftermath, in his own words:

Let’s start from the beginning:

On Friday, January 21st, during the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump a lot of comedians made jokes about Donald Trump’s family — one family member in particular was Barron Trump, Donald’s 10 year old son. I was one of the comedians that made a joke. While lots of the jokes being made we insinuating that Barron was a bad kid or was going to do something harmful to his family, my joke observed how the boy looked. I wrote, “Barron Trump looks like a very handsome date-rapist-to-be.”

I also wrote a lot of other jokes that day. That joke was getting more backlash than normal. People were pointing out that the joke is not right pretty immediately after I made it.

It started to get hateful and some people were saying things like “I hope he rapes your mom.” In return I made the tweet saying, “I don’t want my Mom to get raped, but if she does I hope it’s by Barron Trump — small pp would be painless & we’d win lots of money in court.” Lots of “News” outlets have since decided to post that tweet on it’s own claiming that I came up with that idea off the top of my clever head without any instigation. False.

The weekend went by and nobody really said much. I told my girlfriend that I thought the original tweet was wrong but I say a lot of wrong things and out of principle I’m leaving it up — Comedians should be able to make observational jokes.

I made the observation that this boy looked a certain way, which was really no wish that he would become a bad person or that anything bad would happen to him or his family. I truly hope that Barron Trump has a nice life and grows up to be a respectable man.

Then on Monday I woke up at 6AM to over 800 twitter notifications. All these people were saying stuff on Instagram and Facebook, giving me thumbs down and calling me a rapist on all my Youtube videos — which I still admittedly was having fun with. I thought some of the mean things people were saying back to me were hilarious. One guy said, “Even your hand hates you” because I have a crooked hand that I joke about. So that was how things really began. Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones had posted on their verified accounts that I was a Comedy Central Writer and that I was under fire for my tasteless tweets.

The Death Threats

But then people were sending me death threats. Saying that if they find me they’ll punch my teeth out. That I need to look over my shoulders every time I’m in a comedy club. Somebody with my area code found my phone number and harassed me.

The CEO of some supplement company sent me an email saying to never step foot in Orlando, FL again.

One guy sent me my old address and my Grandmother’s name with the insinuation that he was going to hurt her. She died in 2012. I’ve gotten notifications from twitter that accounts have been locked for harassing me with a legitimate death threat. These people want me dead or fired from my job at Comedy Central (that I never had).

The truth is, I have only worked for myself for the last six years. I sat there all day literally deleting every hateful comment and reporting as many death threats as I could between Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I’m too stubborn to just delete my accounts and I don’t believe I should have to.

Comedy Central Responds

Comedy Central obviously wanted nothing to do with this. So they went around sending direct tweets to each of the Right Wing news outlets posting stories claiming that I misled people to believe that I was a writer for Comedy Central when in truth I never said that:

I understand that Comedy Central wants nothing to do with the death threats and boycotts that came from this Fake News story but now my name is being slandered from the News created by InfoWars and a reputable Comedy television network. The News stories have now been updated the story to say that I am failed comic that lied about being employed at Comedy Central. That is just not fair.

In 2016, Comedy Central used several of my tweets in sketches that are on their website and on their TV show @Midnight. After having signed release forms to let them use my comedic content for free, I thought it was fair to call myself a content contributor and I still do. Especially since they initially contacted me asking to create content for their possible use.

I have never claimed to be a writer for any show. Alex Jones’ website and head editor Paul Joseph Watson made up the false claim that I was a Comedy Central writer without contacting me or contacting anyone at Comedy Central, or even Googling “Stephen Spinola Comedy Central” to see if anything came up. They didn’t do anything required to actually call it journalism. Comedy Central has been firm on their stance that I have never been employed by any Comedy Central or Viacom production, which is still true.

However, they will not take responsibility for falsely claiming that I misled people. And they have made the mobs react even more by painting me as a liar. A lot of people know about Kate Rich and SNL comics are saying she will bounce back from this and is already being offered other jobs. Not many comics knew I was having a similar issue until a few days later. I am not a working writer for any TV show or network. And I will never get a job if my story ends where it is now.

Every time a prospective employer googles my name and does Paul Watson’s job better than he ever could, they will find these slanderous claims against me. Nobody is going to offer comedic television work to a guy they think lied about having a job at Comedy Central and I will have no bounce back. I will have nothing to bounce back to.

I apologize if I hurt Barron’s feelings. I don’t think he should have been able to see the tweets anyway. Who’s letting their 10 year old son on Twitter first of all? And it would have never had a chance of reaching him directly without these terrible “journalists” making such a huge stink of it and getting it posted all over the right wing news.

I do not apologize to anybody that is harassing me directly, or sending me threats and I have since retracted my apology publicly because the apology was not good enough for these hateful individuals. They keep sending me death threats and keep harassing me personally and believe it or not still asking me to resign from my job at Comedy Central. People are so dull minded it is unbelievable — they would go contact a person in a “news story” directly without doing any research beyond reading or hearing that story — and the original story was made without research either. It’s a big mind fuck.

I was willing to apologize, and nothing was good enough so I am back to being completely unapologetic and I am out here defending comedians’ right to the First Amendment. I am not political AT ALL and I never thought I’d be part of the cause, yet here I am at the forefront of one. Nobody has to get behind the tweets that I made but anyone that doesn’t get behind me on this First Amendment issue is supporting people’s right to terrorize others. And that is not very American. These people are stomping on their own right to free speech. If you thought I was going to lose my job for making an observation with comedic intent, imagine how many people will lose their jobs for sending me these very credible death threats.

All I have is hope. Hope that this story will be shared amongst people that are involved in and support comedy. Like I said, this can happen to any of you -especially if you stand by and let political extremists make an example of me. Everyone keeps suggesting that I lay low, or delete my accounts for a while. But if I move on and people don’t find out my side of the story, my name remains slandered and I am letting these hateful, violent individuals win with their threats. Please share what is going on or the art of comedy in the United States will be restricted to only the topics approved by social media terrorists acting under the guise of honorable defenders or Social Justice Warriors. This cannot end like this.

Follow Stephen Spinola on Twitter https://twitter.com/Mr_McStevie

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