True Life: 3LAU Cyberstalked Me After I Insulted His Music

You have the right to think a DJ sucks.

You have the right to say mean things on the Internet about a DJ sucking.

A DJ has the right to fire insults back, just like standup comedians have the right to turn their sights on hecklers who provoke them.

A DJ has the right to be a jerk right back to a trash-talker.

But a DJ has no right to spend days cyberstalking and harassing someone who says something mean things about him on the Internet.

That happened to me last week, when I insulted 3LAU on Twitter – and he responded, not only with insults of his own, but with a creepy and obsessive two-day campaign of cyberstalking that included not one, not two, but five different incidents of harassment.

The irony is that I didn’t even see the tweet that started it all.

You see, 3LAU – aka Justin Blau – has earned a reputation for tweeting incredibly nasty, vulgar, classless things about people who criticize him online – and then deleting the tweets.

In the first tweet of the day between us, 3LAU linked to that “PLURlife daddy seeks little” Craigslist personal ad that’s been making the viral rounds lately – and said that it sounded like me. I wasn’t even on Twitter at the time. He deleted the tweet before I saw it. But what I did see was the conversation that followed, wherein 3LAU talked trash about my appearance, my age and my relationship. But whatever. I didn’t care. I went about my day.

Then, later that night, I saw an opportunity to respond to 3LAU’s earlier mockery and chimed in on a Twitter conversation with a sarcastic suggestion for 3LAU’s post-EDM career. It was admittedly a mean comment, but no different than any other mean comment on the Internet.

But mean things said on the Internet are the price you pay for being a public figure, whether it’s a musician, an actor, an athlete or a politician. People will criticize you online. Sometimes unfairly. But you learn how to deal with it.

Unless you’re 3LAU.

I said that his music sucked and he lost his mind.

First, he visited my website, which was linked from my Twitter, and insulted the DJ mixes I’ve posted there. I still didn’t care.

So then, having failed to bother me with his juvenile insults about my age, appearance, girlfriend and music, he then decided to seek out my personal information.

Cyberstalking/harassment incident #1: 3LAU searched for and found my phone number and address, then threatened to tweet them. 

3LAU looked up the whois records on my website, and from that collected my phone number and address. He then threatened to post that personal information on Twitter, for the express, explicit purpose of hopefully goading his 130,000 followers into harassing me. Because I said something mean about him on the Internet.

He tweeted exactly how he found my personal information, which gave his followers a step-by-step guide on how to find my personal information themselves. Soon, 3LAU’s fans and followers began to seek out my information and threaten me as well.

Cyberstalking/harassment incident #2: 3LAU searched real estate records for information about my home and tweeted those records.

He took my address, that he found from my website records, and then searched for the real estate records associated with my house.

3LAU then posted the record of my 2009 home purchase in a since-deleted tweet. He did this so that he could gloat that he makes more money in a month than I paid for my house.

Let me repeat that: 3LAU searched for and posted my real estate records to Twitter because I said something mean about him on the Internet.

The next day, 3LAU refused to let up or let go, and continued to harass me. He posted several tweets admitting to his stalking behavior and at the same time defending it, while pointing his followers in my direction. But on this second day of 3LAU’s obsessive campaign against me, the vitriol in my mentions was nothing compared to the harassment that continued off Twitter.

Cyberstalking/harassment incident #3: 3LAU sent me obscene messages via my website.

 
Cyberstalking/harassment incident #4: 3LAU attempted to subscribe me to a gay porn email list.

And then the doorbell rang.

Cyberstalking/harassment incident #5: 3LAU sent a prank pizza delivery to my home at 11 p.m.

After two days of veiled threats to reveal my personal information, the doorbell to my house rang at 11 o’clock at night. We weren’t expecting anyone. Why would anyone ring the doorbell at 11 o’clock at night?

It’s important at this point to note that I live in Las Vegas – the city where 3LAU resides.

What would you think if your doorbell rang unexpectedly late at night, after two days of someone with 130,000 Twitter followers harassing and cyberstalking you? If you were anything like us, your first instinct would be that 3LAU – or an attention-hungry follower – actually followed through with the threats, and showed up to create a confrontation.

I looked through the peephole and saw an older man with a large bag. When I opened the door he identified himself as being from Dominos. I hadn’t ordered anything. He told me, someone else had sent me the delivery. I refused the delivery, but it wasn’t much of a mystery. 3LAU admitted to sending me ten pizzas, at 11 o’clock at night. He claimed it was an apology.

Right.

Nobody sends somebody ten pizzas at 11 o’clock at night as a genuine apology. It was an act of harassment. It was designed to give us that moment, when the doorbell rang at 11 o’clock, that moment of thinking that 3LAU or someone else was there with aggressive or violent intentions. And to show that 3LAU has enough money that he can flush ten pizzas’ worth down a black hole. But mostly to put a scare into us, to demonstrate that he could get to us.

Cyberstalking is a Class C felony in Nevada. It’s childish, but it’s certainly not child’s play. You never know who’s actually crazy enough to instigate violence, so you have to take it seriously. But 3LAU thought it was funny and carried on for two full days, thinking this kind of campaign of harassment was a proportional response to me saying something mean about him on the Internet.

Finally, I’d had enough. I contacted 3LAU’s management and sent them screen shots of his threatening tweets. I told them that if the harassment continued, my next call would be to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. I guess his manager said something to him, because he begged me for a truce. His manager probably realized it was career suicide to spend days publicly harassing – and outright admitting to stalking – me just because I said something mean about him on the Internet.

Life in the public eye comes with its share of slings and arrows, and if you can’t handle people saying mean things about you on the Internet, you should hire someone to run your social media for you. 3LAU needs to learn how to deal with people saying mean things about him on the Internet without resorting to cyberbullying, or he needs to retire from public life.

Can you imagine if Johnny Manziel spent his time obsessively gathering the personal information of everyone who talked trash about him on Twitter? How much time do you think Paris Hilton spends adding the email addresses of her haters to gay porn lists?

If 3LAU got a one-star review from Rolling Stone – and he probably will – how far will he go to get revenge on its writer?

How much of a psycho ex-girlfriend response is enough for a rich, famous globe-trotting DJ when someone says something mean about him on the Internet?

Is it OK for every famous person you’ve ever said something mean about on the Internet to respond with cyberstalking?

3LAU went out of his way not just to insult but to harass me five separate times, all because I said something mean about him on the Internet.

Cyberstalking isn’t okay. Harassment isn’t okay.

No matter what somebody says about your music.

*Editor’s Note: This is a guest contribution from @AdultRaverProbs. Content and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of DJOYbeat or its staff.*