A Twitch Streamer Was About To Fly When A Troll Called In A Bomb Threat To The Plane In His Name
Vice – On Thursday, the relationship between Paul Denino, known as “Ice_Poseidon” online, and his fans got out of hand as he was escorted off of a flight after someone called in a bomb threat in his name. This practice is known as “swatting,” and it’s how malcontents in the gaming community terrorize people they don’t like.
ABC15 Arizona reported that police said an anonymous bomb threat was called in. Denino was escorted off of the plane by officers at Phoenix’s Sky Harbour airport after the anonymous person allegedly impersonated Denino, and said he had a bomb. Although the incident was little more than an inconvenience to the flight’s passengers, in a follow-up video posted to YouTube, Denino explained how the swatting has shaken him.
“I’m considering not streaming Dreamhack [an international gaming conference] because I’m afraid,” Denino said. “If someone’s willing to do that on a fucking plane, what’s to stop them from doing it at Dreamhack?”
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“You swat my house, whatever, fuck you—you swat a plane?” he said during his YouTube response to the flight swatting. “That’s a whole other level. You don’t expect that to happen.”
I’ve seen videos of “swatting” before at a dude’s house and that seems like a prettyyyy evil thing to do. But calling in a bomb threat in a dude’s name while he’s on a flight is some next level fucked up shit that I can’t even follow. You’re not only subjecting this guy to whatever legal issues that can come — I would hope that police can quickly figure out that a guy on the plane didn’t actually call in the bomb threat but who fucking knows what shit you deal with in that situation — but you’re also fucking over every single person on that flight who just wants to get home or on vacation or wherever they’re going. I admit I have a hard time understanding the troll mentality because that’s not something I’m personally into but to me there’s a huge difference between being a dude online who gets his rocks off by insulting people or screwing with others and being a guy who calls in bomb threats because he doesn’t like a guy on Twitch. That’s the kind of fucked up brain that needs to get locked away immediately and throw away the key, no question about it to me. Lazy supervillainy, that’s what this is.
That said, I don’t see how this streamer dude doesn’t end up getting even more relentlessly fucked with now. If you get dudes so worked up that they’re calling bomb threats in your name to planes, there’s no telling how deep that rabbit hole goes with them wanting to fuck with you. You’ve either gotta shut down shop with streaming or lock yourself in a room in an undisclosed location when you’re streaming like you’re filming a hostage video, very little in between.