@clevernamehere: You are a champ. I will dedicate the next hour to hating the world and reporting as many of these as I can. After that I want a glass of wine and a Nora Roberts novel, dammit. #rapeculture
@clevernamehere: Good luck there. There are several anti-Israel sites that call for "another Hitler", "let's jihad the Jews!", "can we kill another 6 million?", "peace will reign when the Jews are wiped off the earth" and a ton of racist speech. (all of which, unsurprisingly, has a ton of grammatical errors)
I've reported, and NADA. I think that the internet is just a breeding ground for psychopaths, finally getting validation they wouldn't have seen otherwise. #rapeculture
@deeemer: Their removal policies are iffy [www.cnn.com] but since they just removed a similar group, I think the chances are pretty good that some of these will be removed if a bunch of people report. #rapeculture
@yvanehtnioj: Okay, one hour later and here's what I've learned:
1. Do you have a stupid group that you think people won't be interested in? Find a way to name it so that the acronym is R.A.P.E. and you're instantly clever! Good job idiots!!
2. A disturbing number of Hahahaha Rape! groups have high school / secondary school kids as creators.
3. The worst offenders are at the beginning of the list, as you work through you get to many more Stop Rape and Men Against Rape and Rape Survivor groups. I hope this is because the shitty ones are newer, and that they're newer because they get banned.
4. A lot of Yawn Rape and [Animal] Rape and other things are supposedly cute. You can tell because there are a bajillion of these groups. Har har.
Worst offender was a group called "I rape" with this description: If you catch someone from across the room and rape them, you can join I Rape.
If you've been caught, you have to leave the group.
And the recent news was: Nick-1, brunette-0
So, obviously I would like to murder that person a lot.
Which leads to my question: the reporting format lets you report either the title or the basic info or the recent news or the wall posts, etc. So I wasn't sure if I should report pages for everything, or pick the most obvious and move on. In the interest of covering a lot of ground I chose the latter, but I'm not sure if it was the most effective.
And because there was one single site that made me laugh out loud, I'll leave you all with this: [www.facebook.com]#rapeculture
I don't normally do this, but I am going to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt here and say that I don't think the long lag time before the page was shut down is indicative of FB condoning rape. It's far more likely that they have lax or sporadic check-ups on content and this one was missed. I manage my employer's website, which is a teensy fraction of the size of something like Facebook, and I missed a link once that had expired and changed into a site with some decidedly NSFW content, until someone brought it to my attention (which was pretty damn embarrassing, I must say). It happens. It definitely makes Facebook look bad (and they should probably review to their content management process) but it is not necessarily indicative of their stance on sexual assault. This doesn't mean they think rape-as-public-sport is acceptable. #rapeculture
@brokenscope: Yeah, I'm sure that as soon as it was reported it was taken down. Now the problem is that we live in a society where people routinely report pictures of breastfeeding for being obscene, but this shit can go on for a year with nary a complaint. Seriously, world? Srsly? #rapeculture
@Cerridwen: I had the same reaction as you when I read that they were complaining about Facebook taking a few months to find this and report it. Three months or whatever is pretty fast when you consider that Facebook probably gets thousands, if not millions, of reports of bad Facebook groups every day. That's not even to count the ones they have to ignore, where the reporter misreads the Facebook policies or is reporting an okay group out of spite. And even after they delete a group, they have to keep an eye out to make sure it doesn't get re-created. I'm not surprised it would take them a few months to notice this one. There are so many, one can likely assume the Facebook staff probably didn't even see this group until someone took the time to report it.
I mean, I've seen whole groups of Facebook users dedicated to reporting hate groups of certain stripes. I'm a member of one that looks out for homophobic groups, and a new group to report gets posted pretty much every day. And Facebook has only been able to remove about five of the ones we've targeted. I'm sure they're pretty swamped with these requests.
@Cerridwen: Ditto, The pictures of breastfeeding moms are often left up for months as well. They aren't out there looking at each group or picture, they do respond to complaints.
I'm MUCH more upset at the people who participated in the group. #rapeculture
@yvanehtnioj: My profile was disabled less than an hour after someone reported me for posting a photo of a shirtless man. Because you can see his bare hip it suggests that he may have been nude but it showed nothing more than that. After several days and several emails, my profile was reinstated with a warning and they removed the photo. I have seen countless truly obscene photos of women on FB and it makes me crazy that a those photos and a pro-rape group would not be reported but a shirtless man and a woman breastfeeding are considered unacceptable content. #rapeculture
There was a feature on, I think, Gawker, that detailed the history, personality and proclivities of the inventor of Facebook, whom I believe still possesses some controlling ownership interest.
Based on what I read, although I am horrified, I cannot say, particularly given the other things I keep seeing and seeing and seeing these days, that I'm surprised. #rapeculture
Wait, what? The linked article doesn't specify what the group was for. Are they debating statuary law? The article lists a bunch of rape allegations and convictions on the campus, but are they saying this group perpetrated, encouraged, or talked about them on the group? there doesn't seem to be a lot of actual information about the group, and without that, this is a witch hunt.
@BytheSea: The linked article actually says that the page was tagged as "pro-rape, anti-consent" (yes, in quotes), so it's bizarre to me that your immediate reaction is it must be a bunch of students debating statutory law. A witch hunt? Give me a break. #rapeculture
@BytheSea: The group reportedly billed itself as "pro-rape, anti-consent." That's fairly damning, don't you think? The campus allegations/convictions are posted to point out the rape culture that, according to administrators, has been allowed to stand for too long on the campus and has led to groups like this being seen as "harmless" when in reality they are perpetuating the message that being proud of being "pro-rape" is okay. #rapeculture
@BytheSea: I dunno, a group that advertises itself as "pro-rape, anti-consent" is kind of making it clear what they're for, aren't they? Even if it was a joke, it's not a harmless one and these guys seem to know that, since they didn't respond to several requests from the reporter to talk to the creator of the page and its members. #rapeculture
@BytheSea: A group of students at an elite school started a pro-rape, anti-consent group on FB under the heading "Sports & Recreation". When it was taken down by Facebook over a year later, some enterprising reporters interviewed the current and most-recent heads of the school about the incident, and whether they felt it pointed to broader trends at said elite school. They also called police and government officials for quotes. To contextualize the article, they also referenced actual incidences of assault and harassment on campus. This is called a news article.
A witch hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching. The classical period of witchhunts in Europe falls into the Early Modern period or about 1480 to 1700, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 executions. The term "witch-hunt" is often used by analogy to refer to panic-induced searches for perceived wrong-doers other than witches. ([en.wikipedia.org])
Let me know if you need any more help understanding.
@BytheSea: I think the article is pretty clear. A group was started on Facebook by students and alumni that encouraged rape culture on campus. They called it "Define Statutory" which is pretty indicative of, at the very least, a dismissive attitude towards rape.
If they weren't advocating rape, then the group wouldn't have been taken down or censured. Sounds like the school has a problem with sexual violence and this was just another version of it. The article says it promoted and publicized rape culture.
@BytheSea: I, for one, think laws regarding statuary are entirely legitimate topics of public debate. Honestly, statuary is incapable of consent, what with it being made primarily of stone or metal varietals and essentially inanimate. Moreover, one may be interested in sexual activity with a statue of a small child - abhorrent, clearly, sexual activity with small children - but what if the statue itself was created in the 18th century? Then it's well into its third century, and clearly sexual activity with something 300+ years old can't be considered sex with a minor. Punishment for expressing interest in such activities on Facebook is entirely unwarranted. Someone should call the ACLU. Or at least the National Endowment for the Arts. #rapeculture
@tiredfairy: wait, what. your argument/logic is so circular. facebook takes down pictures unfairly but the school wouldn't have censored a group if it wasn't wrong? why can't we know the details of this group? i really can't make a judgment on something i have no actual details about. #rapeculture
@incurable paranoiac: What other details do you need besides a group that calls itself "anti-consent" and "pro-rape"? I feel like those are the only details you need to think it's a shitty group made up of fucked up psychopath criminals. #rapeculture
@incurable paranoiac: Uhm, no, that's not what I said or what the article said. It said it was taken down by Facebook, and that the school is appalled by the content because a group of students and alumni representing themselves as such, advocated sexual assault on campus.
If Facebook can take down photos of breastfeeding, they can certainly take down a group promoting rape.
I don't think anyone is saying we can't know or shouldn't know the details. I for one would like to, although I suspect it's going to be pretty ugly. I can't imagine a school admitting to a group like this existing if it didn't. It's hardly good press for it to get out that there's a culture of rape problem on campus, or that students and alumni took it public ot promote and condone it. That just doesn't make a lot of sense. #rapeculture
if this is the sort of thing that is *publically* posted, i'm kind of horrified by the thought of what kind of awful private groups there are out there. #rapeculture
Statutory Rape: Unlawful intercourse with a person under the age of consent (as defined by statute) regardless of whether it is against that person's will. Generally, only an adult may be convicted of this crime. See age of consent
There you go. Statutory, defined. Your group is now redundant and I invite you to cram it up your ass sideways.
Wow. I guess that all those super annoying "ADD A DISLIKE BUTTON FOR REALS, Y'ALL!" and "ARGH! NEW FACEBOOK R TERRIBLE! NO CHANGE EVER!" and "BARACK OBAMA IS NOT A CITIZEN" groups don't seem so bad. #rapeculture
"The idea that a group of young men that are going to become leaders within our community.... think it's OK to post information like this encouraging rape on a website is absolutely abhorrent.
The idea that any group of young men think rape is okay, and encouraging rape is even better, is absolutely abhorrent. I hope action is taken against the students who are at the school currently. It probably won't be, but hey, I can hope. #rapeculture
@brokenscope: I have no idea what NSW's laws are regarding the publication of material that encourages violence, so I can't speak from a legal point of view, but it's also not wholly a legal question; it's a question of violations of school behavioral codes as well.
It's an all-male school, so I imagine they don't have anything on the books that addresses encouraging sexual violence; there might, though, be rules in place regarding student representation of the school's standards of morals and behavior in society. But with an admittedly misogynist culture firmly in place, it's why I said I can hope that something would be done to punish this sort of behavior, even if it's only in a "hey, you being a stupid asshole on the Internet damages our school's reputation" way. This is why I said I hoped action would be taken against current students, men who would fall under the school's jurisdiction.
(Again, I am fully aware that nothing will be done about this. The site no longer exists, and there's really no incentive for the school to take action against offending students, so... there you go.) #rapeculture
@brokenscope: Maybe they can't take legal action, but the university is free to take disciplinary action against the students.
My high school suspended a kid for calling two of his teachers "hot" on a Facebook group, under the charge that it was "sexual harassment." If schools had suspend a kid for something that trivial involving Facebook, surely they can suspend a student for this. #rapeculture
@Cimorene: Once again, expel them for what? Being stupid fucking assholes? I would imagine the schools judicial committee would be rather tied up dealing with assholes considering the number of students at the university.
edit: Well, I didn't realize what Saint Paul's was. They may actually have a more stringent code of conduct that would actually deal with shit like this.
@brokenscope: Actually I think it would be within the right of almost any university to expel people who created a public web page devoted to encouraging illegal behavior. Or even just violent behavior.
It's like, if I made a website called "Drive Drunk" advocating drunk driving, or a facebook page that detailed how to make a bomb or how to make crystal meth, or how awesome it is to shoplift at target, I'd be advocating illegal behavior. But I can't actually even think of something comparable to rape, excluding other hate crimes. Like, a facebook page that was "Pro-murdering fags" or something. Because even something about how to build bombs wouldn't be targeting a specific, and oppressed, group.
And also you totally can get expelled from college for being an asshole. If you can get expelled for, say, cheating on an exam (not illegal), or not paying your tuition (not illegal), or throwing water balloons at the president of the university (not illegal and also my dad totally got expelled from university in the 70s for doing this), they why couldn't you get expelled for publicly encouraging rape? #rapeculture
@wtfox?!: Pssst. Not a 'school'. It's an all-male residential college (dorms) attached to the University of Sydney. I don't know what the University can do about it, because the college is only affiliated with the University. [www.usyd.edu.au]
St Pauls is an individual entity, so these fucksticks are going to have to be dealt with by the College. Who have a real elitist classist patriarchal WASP image to uphold, so hopefully they'll kick these mongrel students out. *I live in hope* #rapeculture
@100flowers: If they're elitist, classist, patriarchal, and WASPy... entitlement to women's bodies actually fits in quite nicely with their ethos. If the school does do anything, it'll only be to save face; it won't be to actually address the attitudes these morons have about women. #rapeculture
@wtfox?!: That's the shitty thing. We'll get vindication, but we won't get change.
I cast a look over some of the alumni of the college, and a few of them are people with a bit of clout amongst the younger demographic - if they started to denounce and rail and bitch and point out how wrong wrong wrong this all is, then maybe maybe there'll be a little change in attitudes. But today I'm cynical & bitter, so I don't expect change. #rapeculture
@brokenscope: Labeling them 'stupid' implies they did this because of pre-damaged skulls or something. Instead, they had to choose their words, type them into the computer, and continue this misogyny for a good long while. They weren't stupid. They were evil. They acted deliberately, and it wasn't harmless thoughtless fun. #rapeculture
Ugh, I went to a majority-boys, elitist, expensive English boarding school - and this does NOT come as a surprise to me. The sad thing was, the teachers' attitude towards boy-on-girl bullying and sexism was "boys will be boys". The answer to that, my friends, is not if you suspend them for it. #rapeculture
I wonder if the reason that the Facebook admin didn't notice this group is that no one flagged it, or brought it to their attention, but the photos were? Not sure how facebook decides/doesn't decide to censor certain things.
But if they do delete things due to people notifiying them- and no one did this time, thats almost as upsetting. #rapeculture
@duetoprivacy: I wonder if the group was public or secret? You can create a secret group where only members can see even the name of the group. If they created a secret group, it would be very unlikely that someone would flag it. #rapeculture
so, photography is a new art medium, but artists have been in LOVE with depictions of death since cavemen drew on walls. renaissance art is chock full of it - and it's shocking, stunning, arresting. women look like they have no agency, but they make beautiful (submission, dainty, obedient, pure, religious) corpses. talking about art using death to create heightened emotion is absolutely *nothing* new... the *kind* of death the slideshow demonstrates here is a whole nother question. are we uncomfortable with death in art period, or just violent crime death? #deadmodels
@miss.terious: I think we're uncomfortable with death being used to flog us a dress or a pair of boots.
Fashion photography is not art, not in the strictest sense, because it has a commericial endevour beyond trying to sell you the image itself - it's trying to get you to pony up your hard earned cash for an item.
I don't care about depictions of death in art; I care when the violent murder of a woman is seen as a good way to get me to buy a new pair of jeans. #deadmodels
@jenrobe: Since when did works of art begin losing artistic value due to their intrinsic commercial motivations?
The frescos of the Sistine Chapel were only commissioned to attract more visitors and feed the Pope's sense of grandeur. Even Michelangelo resented his work there, but hey, he needed the money.
@FADviral: I think that could well be a good argument, that the Sistine Chapel was a commercial work, although it had a religious context and was created arguably by someone who believed in that faith.
However, Michelangelo was pissed about the commission because he was already working on sculptures for the Pope's tomb, not because he hated the church. And then he demanded to be able to do the work the way his vision told him to, not according to what the Church initially invisaged.
I didn't mean to suggest they lost their "artistic" value, but that there is clearly a divide between a work being created for its own self (art for art's sake) and to sell stuff. #deadmodels
11/08/09
To that end, I just searched under groups for rape and found the following:
No idea if this is an in group joke or what [www.facebook.com]
Group is fine, comments are fucked up [www.facebook.com]
"Joke" [www.facebook.com]
"Facebook rape" [www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
(there are a bunch of these groups)
Rape Islam [www.facebook.com]
Bro Rape [www.facebook.com] (again, there are a bunch of these)
Rape Club [www.facebook.com]
We stand for rape [www.facebook.com]
Where mutants rape you [www.facebook.com]
I don't even understand [www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
Rape Squad [www.facebook.com]
Anal rape [www.facebook.com]
Team Rape [www.facebook.com]
Rake Rape [www.facebook.com]
Team Rape [www.facebook.com]
Free Rape [www.facebook.com]
I only made it through the first hundred and forty, but there are a bunch that are either questionable or flat out fucked up.
Groups with the word rapist in their title include these winners:
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com] #rapeculture
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[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
[www.facebook.com]
I only made it through 10/135 #rapeculture
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I've reported, and NADA. I think that the internet is just a breeding ground for psychopaths, finally getting validation they wouldn't have seen otherwise. #rapeculture
12:00 AM
12:26 AM
1. Do you have a stupid group that you think people won't be interested in? Find a way to name it so that the acronym is R.A.P.E. and you're instantly clever! Good job idiots!!
2. A disturbing number of Hahahaha Rape! groups have high school / secondary school kids as creators.
3. The worst offenders are at the beginning of the list, as you work through you get to many more Stop Rape and Men Against Rape and Rape Survivor groups. I hope this is because the shitty ones are newer, and that they're newer because they get banned.
4. A lot of Yawn Rape and [Animal] Rape and other things are supposedly cute. You can tell because there are a bajillion of these groups. Har har.
Worst offender was a group called "I rape" with this description:
If you catch someone from across the room and rape them, you can join I Rape.
If you've been caught, you have to leave the group.
And the recent news was:
Nick-1, brunette-0
So, obviously I would like to murder that person a lot.
Which leads to my question: the reporting format lets you report either the title or the basic info or the recent news or the wall posts, etc. So I wasn't sure if I should report pages for everything, or pick the most obvious and move on. In the interest of covering a lot of ground I chose the latter, but I'm not sure if it was the most effective.
And because there was one single site that made me laugh out loud, I'll leave you all with this:
[www.facebook.com] #rapeculture
11/08/09
Oh. Wrong. Just top three displayed. Over 15 000 exist but I'm hoping the majority are anti-rape. I pray.
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Really the only way they could do a 99.9% no offensive content thing would be to screen all photos and posts. #rapeculture
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I mean, I've seen whole groups of Facebook users dedicated to reporting hate groups of certain stripes. I'm a member of one that looks out for homophobic groups, and a new group to report gets posted pretty much every day. And Facebook has only been able to remove about five of the ones we've targeted. I'm sure they're pretty swamped with these requests.
11/08/09
I'm MUCH more upset at the people who participated in the group. #rapeculture
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Based on what I read, although I am horrified, I cannot say, particularly given the other things I keep seeing and seeing and seeing these days, that I'm surprised. #rapeculture
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A witch hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching. The classical period of witchhunts in Europe falls into the Early Modern period or about 1480 to 1700, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 executions. The term "witch-hunt" is often used by analogy to refer to panic-induced searches for perceived wrong-doers other than witches. ([en.wikipedia.org])
Let me know if you need any more help understanding.
#thinkoftherapists #rapeculture
11/08/09
If they weren't advocating rape, then the group wouldn't have been taken down or censured. Sounds like the school has a problem with sexual violence and this was just another version of it. The article says it promoted and publicized rape culture.
That's not a witch hunt. #rapeculture
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01:10 AM
01:42 AM
If Facebook can take down photos of breastfeeding, they can certainly take down a group promoting rape.
I don't think anyone is saying we can't know or shouldn't know the details. I for one would like to, although I suspect it's going to be pretty ugly. I can't imagine a school admitting to a group like this existing if it didn't. It's hardly good press for it to get out that there's a culture of rape problem on campus, or that students and alumni took it public ot promote and condone it. That just doesn't make a lot of sense. #rapeculture
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There you go. Statutory, defined. Your group is now redundant and I invite you to cram it up your ass sideways.
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The idea that any group of young men think rape is okay, and encouraging rape is even better, is absolutely abhorrent. I hope action is taken against the students who are at the school currently. It probably won't be, but hey, I can hope. #rapeculture
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It's an all-male school, so I imagine they don't have anything on the books that addresses encouraging sexual violence; there might, though, be rules in place regarding student representation of the school's standards of morals and behavior in society. But with an admittedly misogynist culture firmly in place, it's why I said I can hope that something would be done to punish this sort of behavior, even if it's only in a "hey, you being a stupid asshole on the Internet damages our school's reputation" way. This is why I said I hoped action would be taken against current students, men who would fall under the school's jurisdiction.
(Again, I am fully aware that nothing will be done about this. The site no longer exists, and there's really no incentive for the school to take action against offending students, so... there you go.) #rapeculture
11/08/09
My high school suspended a kid for calling two of his teachers "hot" on a Facebook group, under the charge that it was "sexual harassment." If schools had suspend a kid for something that trivial involving Facebook, surely they can suspend a student for this. #rapeculture
11/08/09
edit: Well, I didn't realize what Saint Paul's was. They may actually have a more stringent code of conduct that would actually deal with shit like this.
11/08/09
It's like, if I made a website called "Drive Drunk" advocating drunk driving, or a facebook page that detailed how to make a bomb or how to make crystal meth, or how awesome it is to shoplift at target, I'd be advocating illegal behavior. But I can't actually even think of something comparable to rape, excluding other hate crimes. Like, a facebook page that was "Pro-murdering fags" or something. Because even something about how to build bombs wouldn't be targeting a specific, and oppressed, group.
And also you totally can get expelled from college for being an asshole. If you can get expelled for, say, cheating on an exam (not illegal), or not paying your tuition (not illegal), or throwing water balloons at the president of the university (not illegal and also my dad totally got expelled from university in the 70s for doing this), they why couldn't you get expelled for publicly encouraging rape? #rapeculture
11/08/09
[www.usyd.edu.au]
St Pauls is an individual entity, so these fucksticks are going to have to be dealt with by the College. Who have a real elitist classist patriarchal WASP image to uphold, so hopefully they'll kick these mongrel students out. *I live in hope* #rapeculture
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I cast a look over some of the alumni of the college, and a few of them are people with a bit of clout amongst the younger demographic - if they started to denounce and rail and bitch and point out how wrong wrong wrong this all is, then maybe maybe there'll be a little change in attitudes. But today I'm cynical & bitter, so I don't expect change. #rapeculture
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But if they do delete things due to people notifiying them- and no one did this time, thats almost as upsetting. #rapeculture
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Fashion photography is not art, not in the strictest sense, because it has a commericial endevour beyond trying to sell you the image itself - it's trying to get you to pony up your hard earned cash for an item.
I don't care about depictions of death in art; I care when the violent murder of a woman is seen as a good way to get me to buy a new pair of jeans. #deadmodels
11/03/09
The frescos of the Sistine Chapel were only commissioned to attract more visitors and feed the Pope's sense of grandeur. Even Michelangelo resented his work there, but hey, he needed the money.
Not art in its strictest sense then? #deadmodels
11/03/09
However, Michelangelo was pissed about the commission because he was already working on sculptures for the Pope's tomb, not because he hated the church. And then he demanded to be able to do the work the way his vision told him to, not according to what the Church initially invisaged.
I didn't mean to suggest they lost their "artistic" value, but that there is clearly a divide between a work being created for its own self (art for art's sake) and to sell stuff. #deadmodels
11/02/09
All that death really makes me want boots! No, wait... #deadmodels