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.”
How hollow that must feel. Not getting any justice or retribution.
And the disgusting people to blame are probably praising themselves, now.
RIP
From my cursory glance, yes, they are
The real hollowness is found in the people who have nothing in their lives so they embrace hate and hound those trying to make the world a better place.
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
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.
Apparently there are ‘snark’ (what the hell kinda name for a genre is that?) pages on Reddit for all sorts of niche stuff
There’s snark pages on lemmy too, some of them moved here after getting kicked off Reddit.
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
Snarky puppy is amazing!
So telling lies about people is a ok, but mentioning a green plumber is not. I’m fucking grateful that I’m banned from that cesshole of a website now.
It’s a pretty fucked up name if you ask me, specifically.
I think most people know about her through her fox, Finnegan the Fox
If there was an organized harassment campaign against her I wonder if there is any legal culpability for those involved.
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.
These guys probably saw the Tiger King documentary and decided to armchair warrior to virtue signal how much more pro-animal rights their non-involvement and passivity was than her.
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.
Tragic.
But listen, no one needs YouTube that bad. If you’re having issues because of it get off of it. It’s not real anyway. (YouTube, that is. People and foxes are, of course)
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
You think you’re doing the right thing
But they just won’t listen.How can you blame someone for doing what should be universally understood as a positive and still having nonstop trolling? Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to stop the harassment. Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to make her unsee the harassment. Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to promote advocacy for the animals. But you think it’s her fault for putting herself in a place that is both a primary media location and collection point for a bunch of toxic people?
Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to stop the harassment.
Disagree.
Quitting YouTube wasn’t going to promote advocacy for the animals.
Also disagree
But you think it’s her fault for putting herself in a place that is both a primary media location and collection point for a bunch of toxic people?
You can change your circumstances. None of it is her fault. But if anyone is in that position they should understand that getting out is absolutely an option.
She got harassed and bullied by people she knew IRL. They would’ve slandered her even if she wasn’t on youtube.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Particularly if you’re a good person and you tend to internalize what others say about you. Lots of Internet Famous people are sociopaths who thrive on people trying to tear them down.
Weird how someone who became a minor celebrity opposing the lucrative live fur industry would be targeted and harassed to death.
I hope this isn’t some kind of pattern, wherein public figures who speak out in defense of environmental and social welfare causes are defamed and driven into obscurity or death.
This has been an established pattern for decades…
I think it was around 2002, when i read about that girl that died from a car accident. She had taken her dad’s car, without permission.
Iirc, one of the police officers that was at the accident site took lots of photos of her corpse or rather, from the pieces scattered along the road.
Somehow those photos were leaked online and trolls had nothing better to do, than keep sending emails to the girl’s parents. The subject was something along the lines of , paraphrasing, “Hi Dad, I’m back” or “Guess who’s back in town?”
The emails always contained some of the photos.
The parents moved and even changed their names.
Who the fuck does something like that? The same kind of troll, that now harassed Mikayla to death.
She apparently had an OF as well, which really draws out the judgmental weirdos.
People need to start staying off social media, especially when they’re not doing well mentally
yeah I don’t think the human brain was meant to cater to a million fans
Could have just stopped the YouTube channel and done something else. I know this is a stupid comment but it makes you wonder whether a bit of therapy or support in that direction would have been a bit more accessible her life could have been saved.
F
“Press F to pay respects” if you don’t know the meme.
Thank you for providing context. I guess I’m officially old on the internet.
Another reason why the US healthcare system sucks shit.
