Los Angeles-based Mia Matsumiya has gained fame as a violinist, but her legacy may be in how she ripped the catgut out of her online trolls. She outed them.
S. Joshua Dunietz via Wikimedia Commons
Matsumiya told BuzzFeed News that the harassment began when she began blogging as a rock band performer in 2003-2010 when she lived in New York, especially with Kayo Dot.
“I received an insane number of creepy messages the whole time I was in that band,” she said. “I thought for sure that the messages were going to stop at some point, but they’ve persisted to this day.”
A friend, David Farrier, drew out more details in a New Zealand interview:
Matsumiya: Five years ago, I wanted to make a coffee table book out of all these f******up messages. I thought they were hilarious, anthropologically interesting and would make an entertaining but disturbing read.
I never really had the courage to launch it though, but the messages kept coming and coming and never stopped, especially the abusive ones (It was like a Lars Von Trier Film, haha!)
Individually, I found a lot of the messages darkly funny, minus the death and rape threats, of course, but looking at them collectively, it’s pretty upsetting!
I definitely don’t deserve to be the recipient of such vitriol, just for posting photos of myself and tweeting and blogging harmless self-expressions. I thought a good place to start actualizing the book would be Instagram. My intention is to bring to light all the horrific things people say to women online when everyone else’s heads are turned.
WOW! My project, https://t.co/Up1NPrse5b Perv Magnet is trending on Facebook. I’m astounded. pic.twitter.com/2mA0VCM3BY
— Mia Matsumiya (@mia_matsumiya) October 21, 2015