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."

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[–] 200 points 1 year ago (7 children)

How hollow that must feel. Not getting any justice or retribution.

And the disgusting people to blame are probably praising themselves, now.

RIP

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    [–] [S] 134 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

    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

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  • [–] 113 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    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.

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  • [–] [S] 64 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Apparently there are 'snark' (what the hell kinda name for a genre is that?) pages on Reddit for all sorts of niche stuff

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  • [–] 60 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    There's snark pages on lemmy too, some of them moved here after getting kicked off Reddit.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    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

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  • [–] 100 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    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.

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    [–] 87 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    Why the hell would anyone feel any need to harass someone like this? Shit like this is never justified, but once in a while I can understand their motivations. Not this. RIP, she was pretty cool.

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  • [–] 60 points 1 year ago

    They are filled with hate, because they are deeply insecure, deeply afraid, and the current political and social climate tells them that this is not only an acceptable way to deal with those feelings, but encourages them to deal with those feelings in this manner.

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  • [–] 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Because it works.

    kiwifarms has been doing this en masse for over a decade and others predated that.

    It is gauche to link to it considering this is the umpteenth fucking person murdered by angry and hateful bastards. But Patrick Klepek, someone who has been targeted by these orgs for over a decade, wrote about this in the context of the emulator developer Near being murdered by kiwi farms et al a few years back https://www.vice.com/en/article/what-i-learned-from-near-an-emulation-legend-and-real-person/

    He talked about it more on the Waypoint (now Remap) podcast, but it is very much an open secret that these hate campaigns are ongoing with the explicit goal of murdering their target (it is not fucking suicide if you were tormented until you picked up the gun). And how even fellow victims who usually will advocate for this kind of stuff are wary of raising their voices because they or their partner are semi regularly approached, in person, by these bastards.

    My hope, as always, is that this will be the last time. That this will lead to focused efforts by those with platforms to speak out. The reality is that the mid tier "creators" will probably say something and give the trite "If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the national suicide prevention lifeline". Or, well, these days "the national slip and slide prevention lifeline" because gotta stay fucking monetized. And then they'll remain silent. All while the biggies choose to stay fucking silent out of concerns of losing people in their audience who are part of those hate campaigns.


    To be clear, I do not fault the people who are under attack and wary of reminding those murderers they exist. I specifically linked to Patrick's post because he and the (now Remap) crew did an amazing job of explaining exactly what goes into this and how painful it is and why they are genuinely afraid to speak up.

    I do very much fault the ludwigs and charlies of the world who will mention this for clicks and then never care again. And if the truly massive outlets were to speak out against this kind of harassment and reach out to the victims? Suddenly youtube and twitch and reddit and the like would care and start moderating this shit rather than laughing that kotaku in action and the like are so popular and only occasionally link to where the REAL hate and doxxing happens.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago

    Why the hell would anyone feel any need to harass someone like this?

    For one, there's good money in it.

    Black Cube's tactics have resulted in a number of international controversies. In Canada, the firm was criticized by an Ontario Court for an attempt that aimed to discredit a judge by trying to get him to make antisemitic comments in secretly recorded meetings. In Romania, two of its employees were convicted of criminal charges involving harassment and hacking. The firm also drew condemnation for covertly surveilling and assisting efforts to discredit women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual violence and the investigative journalists researching whether those accusations were credible. Their tactics also involve attempts to goad individuals into making anti-semitic or otherwise damaging remarks.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago

    See, I have no idea what to do with this idea that fits within the bounds of good ethics but I’m certain that there’s something deeply wrong with our species that gets worse the more isolated we can be without dying off. The further back you go the more likely being shunned for being an absolute piece of trash would lead to your death but now the most broken people can still proliferate and cause problems for everyone else without even really needing to leave their homes. I can think of a million better things to do than obssess over and relentlessly bully someone.

    I’m glad that we’ve hit a certain point where more and more people are choosing to have higher standards, and maybe that will help, but holy fuck this is gunna take a while to sort out.

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    [–] 68 points 1 year ago (30 children)

    Why the fuck would you harass someone for saving foxes? Is it because she's a woman?

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    God gave us dominion over all creatures read the Bible!

    There are children dying in the streets here, why don't you do anything about them?

    The foxes bread for fur here are not capable of living in the wild, "rescuing" and releasing them is the real animal abuse.

    I think fox fur is fancy, fuck you lady!

    Just some examples I can think of off the top of my head. People can get pretty polarized when it comes to killing, or not killing animals.

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    [–] 67 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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    [+] 65 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)
  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    It was reddit. Reddit is dead center of this.

    Edit: its amazing how being correctly identifying reddit as the culprit is downvoted on lemmy when its clear most of us are here because reddit sucks a skunks ass.

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    [–] 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    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.

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    [–] 55 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I would also like to add another perspective.

    I think its important to bear in mind that there are plenty of examples of animal rights and environmental organisations that have been the target of harrasment campaigns bankrolled by corporate and political interests.

    I'm not suggesting this is what happened here. I think we have to scrutinize any possible conspiracy -- I really want to make that clear. If you look through the other comments, there's a lot to delve through here.

    But I would suggest bearing in mind that smear campaigns aimed at cultivating a kind of political nihilism is something that does happen.

    The best you can do, if you care about these causes, is to continue to support them in whatever ways you can.

    In my opinion, all animals deserve a hell of a lot better than this.

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    [–] 52 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    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)

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  • [–] 55 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    That advice is basically, don't work in your chosen vocation. Running animal rehabilitation is not free, you need some sort of source of funding.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    If your job is causing you enough mental anguish to go through with suicide, it's reasonable to suggest you find another. That goes for any job.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    it's reasonable to suggest you find another

    If it's "just a job" like working retail at Target, sure, that's a respectable take. It's still blaming the victim, but it's also advocating for the victim to address the issue themselves.

    But if it's not "just a job"? If it's your life's work, your calling, something you love more than anything else?

    That idea is very likely what drove her to the brink. You really have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

    I've been there and I almost didn't survive. Choosing to live isn't always so easy.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    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?

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    [–] 45 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 44 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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    [–] 40 points 1 year ago

    I saw a longer quote from him. He doesn't blame online abuse, rather says that it was a (major?) contributing factor. He also said that some of that abuse was coming from other animal rescues, so I'm sure he's fucking pissed on top of grieving.

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  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The human race makes me really sick on a daily basis these days

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    [–] 39 points 1 year ago (26 children)

    I believe she had BPD as well, which in itself often gets you targeted harassment online while also making you extremely sensitive to said harassment.

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    [–] 38 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    People need to start staying off social media, especially when they’re not doing well mentally

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    [–] 36 points 1 year ago

    As a long time supporter of SaveAFox, it's hard to really even process this. I am sure being an online personality to try and fundraise isn't easy, but never did I dream that there was such a degree of hate lobbed at Mikayla that she'd decide to end her own life. Someone so kind and devoted to the lives of creatures who are constantly exploited and cannot save themselves. It's just despicable, and all I can really hope for is that Mikayla's mission continues on in spite of such significant loss.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    This has been an established pattern for decades...

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    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.

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    [–] 30 points 1 year ago

    That's incredibly sad to hear. I watched this channel alot to see the various fox personalities, like Finnegan. I'm gonna be worried about the foxes for a while, now.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago

    I really feel quite torn up over this news. I'd seen the channel and her videos sporadically, she seemed like a kind soul who really loved & cared for the foxes.

    RIP Mikayla

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