This celebrity murder case feels like fan fiction

Today we’re talking about the D4vd murder case, one of the darkest stories in pop culture at the moment. D4vd — or David Burke — got his start as one of the original Fortnite streamers, who then built a big Discord community around himself, including an alter-ego, "IT4MI," and ultimately his work as a musician blending styles like bedroom pop and indie rock. But in April 2026 he was charged with allegedly murdering one of his fans, 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Jennifer Swann joins us again, to discuss the allegations and everything leading up to them. Our guest Jennifer Swann is a journalist and producer. She has a newsletter, Self Storage, which you can find at https://jennswann.substack.com/ and produces the investigative true crime podcast My Friend Daisy, which you can find anywhere you listen to podcasts. Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free and extended episodes, bonuses, and access to our exclusive Discord? Sign up for a membership at: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, you can now also find us on COURIER+! Sponsors:Mint Mobile: Shop plans at https://mintmobile.com/courier for three months of coverage at $45. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, it's me, the other one. Just a warning before we start today's episode. This episode's a downer. We don't get really graphic, that's not what we do, but this episode deals with murder and child abuse, so take care.

• 0:16Ryan Broderick?

  Today, we're talking about the David murder case, one of the darkest stories in pop culture at the moment, and we're going to be talking specifically about what happens when his discord of fans become the army of internet detectives that are trying to figure out what exactly happened in this case. So, trying to start this episode in not an incredibly dark way, I would say that David's music sounds like absolute dogshit to me. But I guess like after spending a lot of time reporting on him, do you like get his music? Are you into it?

• 0:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I did feel like in some ways it felt like a, I don't know, like indoctrination is not the right word, but I think at first, and this is something that I've heard from my friends too, or like people our age where they're like, I don't get it, like what's the deal with his music? It's really bad, like why do people like this? And it was this thing where like at first I was like, yeah, I don't get it, I don't know why people are so obsessed with him. His songs really are earworms, like I would be listening to his like YouTube videos and like trying to be like, let me look for clues, let me see what this is about and like find myself, like I was sort of disgusted with myself because I would find myself like singing it or like singing the lyrics, like they're incredibly catchy and there's just like something that kind of happened over time where I was like, okay, I think I get it.

• 1:49Ryan Broderick?

  I think the best question to start is, when did you hear of D for VD or David or whatever you want to, should we, first we should standardize, how do we want to call this guy?

• 2:00Speaker 02

  I think David.

• 2:01Ryan Broderick?

  David, I think so too.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03Ryan Broderick?

  So, when did you first hear about David? When did he appear on your radar?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Not until after I heard about Celeste Rivas Hernandez's murder. I think like David existed in this place where like to a certain like, you know, children and teens and like maybe 20 somethings, he was extremely popular for a particular subset. And then like anyone who aged out of that group, it was like, everyone's just like, I don't know who this guy is. Is he really famous? So I only heard about him after the murder and then had no idea he had this like rabid fan community.

• 2:39Ryan Broderick?

  I think I heard of him first due to the arcane soundtrack. It's a Netflix show based on the video game League of Legends. He was like popping up for me in, I don't know how to describe this like layer of music that exists right now where it's like, it's not hyperpop, it's not rap or hip hop, it's not really even dance music. And it usually sounds like shit.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And I think like when people were hearing about him for the first time, they were like, oh, he must be a rapper. Like there was all this misinformation that people, like his actual fans would get sort of upset about. But yeah, I mean, people called it bedroom pop. Like it's definitely the appeal, you know, is that he's like, I made this on my phone. I laid some beats down here, some like, you know, royalty for YouTube music. And so like, it sounds very emo to me. Like it kind of sounds like a throwback from like, I don't know, like music kids were into when I was in high school of just like, yeah, like very slow, kind of like sad boy songs.

• 3:39Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, there's like a whole strain of music that has, I think, has stayed in the underground, but like just, just beneath the surface, that all kind of sounds like Little Peep, if you're familiar with Little Peep.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Goth boy clique.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:54Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it's all Goth boy clique stuff. And like, he is probably the biggest of that. I don't want to say scene because it's not a scene, but it's like of that style, I suppose. And that's who we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be talking about David or D for VD. This is Panic World, a show about how the internet warps our minds, our culture and eventually reality. I'm Ryan Broderick. With me is my personal Goth boy.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Grant Irving.

• 4:19Ryan Broderick?

  And today I'm-

• 4:20Speaker 00

  First thing you've ever introduced me as and I'm like, yeah, that is what I am.

• 4:23Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. You're part of my little Goth boy clique and making her second appearance on the show. This is very exciting. Jennifer Swan, welcome back. How are you?

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. Love what you've done with the show. I was like thinking about it. Everything that you've covered and I was like, oh my God, everything just keeps getting crazier in our world. So it always feels loaded when someone's like, how are you? I'm like, I'm okay, I'm good. Yeah, but happy to be here.

• 4:47Ryan Broderick?

  It's almost as if we're living in some kind of panic world.

• 4:51Ryan Broderick?

  Last time we had you on the show, you had written a fantastic piece for The Cut about true crime, internet detectives, various rabbit holes. You're now back with another insane story that is very dark. One that, as Grant said before we started recording, or maybe after we started recording, I'm not sure when he hit the record button, that it's a, it's a story that you brought to us and we said, that's crazy. We absolutely should have covered that. So we're going to be talking about the fan community that has, around David that have now become internet detectives. So we'll be using your piece in Wired for a big bulk of today's episode.

• 5:29Ryan Broderick?

  And I want to start with, broad strokes, how would you describe his fan base before the murder charges sort of appear?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, his fan base, super loyal, super dedicated, extremely young. I mean, I think his, like David himself, put out his first song on like Sound, I mean, first on YouTube, then on SoundCloud when he was like 16.

• 5:53Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, he's 21 currently, so he's very-

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he just turned 21 like two months ago. So everyone in the story is like very, very young. There were like eight and 10 year olds listening to his music. And I think because he was like a gamer, like that was his whole thing. That was how he came up of like, you know, he claimed at one point to be one of the first people ever to play Fortnite. He was just online all the time, or at least that was like definitely how he branded himself. He was always in Discord. He was always on like Roblox, always talking to people who tend to be really young in those communities, which of course is a problem, you know?

• 6:29Ryan Broderick?

  It is. Yeah, on the, the topic of this sort of subculture, I was having an unk chat with a friend at a bar in Greenpoint last night. And we were ranting to each other about how- You used to be able to sort of understand what people liked and cared about based on how they looked, which it sounds ridiculous, I suppose.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  The good days.

• 6:52Ryan Broderick?

  We used to be able to

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Identify your people. Yeah.

• 6:57Ryan Broderick?

  We were talking about how like, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if you saw a person with tattoos and piercings, you'd be like, I could probably figure out what kind of music they like. And it's probably like alternative or heavy or whatever. And now, if you see that person, nine times out of 10, they were probably just like a person who likes anime and video games. And we were saying this loud enough that like, the bartender started laughing. And I was like, yeah, I bet you'd be laughing. You're wearing a thrasher shirt. And then I was like, name five skateboards. And a huge part of sort of understanding this world is understanding that like, they have all of the aesthetics of what we would have called emo or alternative music 15, 20 years ago, but it is not really that. And it has

• 7:39Ryan Broderick?

  nothing to do with that anymore. It's not like, it's not like David has come out of the punk scene.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  No, not at all. Like, he, he came out of no scene. He came out of gaming and just like being alone in his bedroom, homeschooled. I know that's a topic that's come up on this show for various reasons. Like, definitely, he is this person who's like, yes, you didn't have many friends, you didn't socialize outside your computer screen. And like, this is what you imagined, like, social interactions to be, you know, which is basically just like shitposting for attention. So yeah, his fans, super, super online. And yeah, I mean, I will say too, when you're talking about unshit, like, I have never felt more un in my life than recording this story. And I think like, all of us are around the same age. And like, I, you know, I would

• 8:19Ryan Broderick?

  25.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, but I would, I would be talking to people who were like 22, and they'd be like, I can't give you my age, because it's gonna like ruin my clout, or people are gonna think I'm too old. And I'd be like, whoa. And like, couldn't, couldn't conceive that I was like a human in my 30s. They were just like, this is crazy. Like, you're on Discord, what are you doing? Like, these people do not interact with a lot of just like, Older people who are not their parents, I think, you know?

• 8:43Ryan Broderick?

  Or people in general, I think.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Can I ask a stupid question before we move off of this?

• 8:47Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Are there scenes like who plays different video games? Like, could we not tell because we're olds? But could they tell that somebody's like, like, I can differentiate somebody who's into metal versus punk? Like, probably by how they look. Can they be like, that's a Fortnite player or that's a shit poster?

• 9:05Ryan Broderick?

  In real life?

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Like, is there an aesthetic and clicks? Okay, so it's like gamers one, like one aesthetic and it is not broken up into like scenes the way that we we would think of them.

• 9:17Ryan Broderick?

  I wouldn't even say, I think even the concept of like gamer is unc.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:24Ryan Broderick?

  Like, these people. No, because like.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  This was all new to me, like, I I'm not a gamer and like, but people would tell, I don't know about aesthetic differences, but people would be like, oh, we like David because like he used a keyboard when he played Fortnite. Everyone else used a console, like, just really kind of, yeah, like, really granular things just about like how he played. But maybe not so much about like how he looked, you know?

• 9:45Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, and if you're like, if you're talking about like how these people look I R L, it's like, imagine you just like pu- put every alternative subculture that's existed ever in a cup and shook it up and like dumped a bit out onto a person. That's what you're talking about here.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  I just assumed I couldn't tell the difference, but amongst themselves, they could.

• 10:05Ryan Broderick?

  There's no need to signify. It doesn't matter.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Fascinating.

• 10:08Ryan Broderick?

  Because it's because, yeah, they're also bonding over like different stuff. So like, for instance, yeah, as we said, David got his start as a like a Fortnite player. Um, and he was known for using a keyboard rather than a console or whatever. Uh, his Fortnite videos get him really popular and he downloads, uh, you know, a free DAW, you know, music making software, raps over some beats like with autotune, uploads it to SoundCloud and like the final days of SoundCloud.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  He sings.

• 10:34Ryan Broderick?

  Yes, you're right. Um, well.

• 10:37Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, sorta, sure.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Sorta, yeah, yeah. Everyone in the community, I'm a little brainwashed, but they're like, he's not a rapper. Stop saying he's a rapper. You know, it's like a whole, yeah, point of contention.

• 10:46Ryan Broderick?

  I mean, rap doesn't really exist anymore. Let's be real. Like, none of, like, all of this stuff is just like soup. It's all soup, yeah. And he is like, very good at, at sort of combining that cup of signifiers that I talked about. So he's making anime references. He's, he's, you know, he's in the gaming communities. He's on Discord. He's blowing up on TikTok and he gets comparisons to like Billie Eilish and other sort of, you know, Gen Z artists. And this is all happening at the same time that you have like, are you familiar with, Jennifer, are you familiar with Corpse Husband? Corpse?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:23Ryan Broderick?

  Okay, so Corpse is sort of another example of this where he was known for having a really deep voice. He was on the AOC Among Us stream.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 11:33Ryan Broderick?

  And he started making like shitty industrial metal songs.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, this sounds like a metal band.

• 11:39Ryan Broderick?

  Kind of. He's a streamer named Corpse, but he started making like crappy metal. You know, that sounds like fucking, you know, butt rock to me, but like very exciting for, for the kids. And it was all part of this like post-COVID, like Gen Z, Gothic-y kind of dark music scene. And David, you know, his first big hit is called Romantic Homicide.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  At one point, David drops this music video and this is where he introduces the Atomy character, which is basically him, but he's wearing this blindfold. He's wearing a white button down that is splattered with blood. And he's kind of also like helping people, like in the comments of the YouTube video, he's like, here is a Tommy. This is my alter ego. Like, he does the things that, that I can't do. He's this evil mastermind. And so it sort of introduces this idea that whenever people see either David wearing a blindfold or there's like an anime, like literal animated version of David wearing the blindfold, that it's sort of like a, oh, he's wearing the blindfold. Like, he's about to do something bad. And I think this all contributed to the lore of David, of people being like, maybe a Tommy killed him. And getting into this like weird sort of like alter ego.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Doppelganger character that David had like fed to people.

• 12:50Ryan Broderick?

  So I guess this is where we should probably just say like that he he's like facing murder charges like that's what we're talking about today.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yes, David is facing a slew of murder charges. Basically been working on the story since like the end of last year. I've been digging into this. So he only got charged with murder a month. It was like two weeks before we were going to run the story and we were just we were just thinking like I was start. So part of the story I'll say too is about fans frustration with the fact that he hadn't been charged with murder, you know, over the course of like seven months. So yes, he is charged with murder and like a slew of other, I think, you know, sex with minor, like lots of other really, you know, gnarly, serious charges.

• 13:29Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. And part of I think the driving force behind the the internet detective movement against him is that he has been hinting at these alleged crimes quite a bit in public.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, you mentioned last time I was on, I was talking about this story about a missing girl who turned out not to be missing. And so like, I think the way that I approached it initially was like, I had this like skepticism or this like kind of like, oh, are people just getting carried away? Or like, of course, they're reading too much into every single song. Like, there's no way it's this on the nose. And then as time went on and like digging in, and of course, like, once the charges dropped, it was like astounding the extent to which it did feel like he was breadcrumbing and literally singing about murders that he wanted to commit or did commit. Like, yeah, like, all of that, I think I was kind of like, okay, this can't be, this can't be. And then it's like, oh, yeah, like, it's, it was really, really insane.

• 14:23Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. And so his big early hit is Romantic Homicide, which debuts his alter ego, which is sort of like a, you know, like the anime trope where like, there's like the shadow version of the main character?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:35Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, I think like Dark Link in Zelda. He has this alter ego, Atami, which means pain in Japanese, but stylized. So for listeners who don't want to look this up, he stylizes his name as D4VD, and Atami is stylizes IT4.

• 14:55Ryan Broderick?

  Am I?

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Get it?

• 14:56Ryan Broderick?

  It's like, yeah.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  I mean, you guys, you guys, you guys get the symbolism? It's like the same person.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 15:03Ryan Broderick?

  But like flipped.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Sometimes uses like the letter A, but like, I mean, that's the whole thing that I was just fascinated with him too. It's like his whole persona is so internet brain with like the, oh, this is good for SEO to put like a four in it.

• 15:15Ryan Broderick?

  Yep.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  All of it feels like an incredible marketing stunt that like even a publicist probably couldn't come up with. But then in hindsight, you're just like, oh, this is actually really twisted and

• 15:22Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  very sick and disturbing.

• 15:24Ryan Broderick?

  Uh, so this, this interview was quoted in a Vanity Fair piece about all of this. And, uh, in it, David is quoted saying, a Tommy has been a character I, that I had for years, even before music. I wanted to put him in comic books. And then he said that ever since romantic homicide, a Tommy has been the evil version of me. At some points, I'm even experimenting with the idea that a Tommy is writing some of the songs on the project as well. When his interviewer asked whether a Tommy had started manifesting himself in the real world, Burke revealed, so David Burke revealed that he was experimenting with that and further suggested that his malevolent character can manifest in different people,

• 16:04Ryan Broderick?

  cause them to be chaotic, influence their bad decisions and fuel their flame to do bad things. It's going to be an ever growing thing. I want people to come to the shows as a Tommy who's on David's side, who's on a Tommy's side, you know? Very clearly like the ramblings of like an insane person, but it's also very much couched in like cosplay language. Like he's, like, he's very clear that like, I first noticed this shift when I saw Harry Styles live in like 2022 or 2023. And I was at a football stadium in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, and I was, I got a ticket to the show and I went and with some friends and

• 16:42Speaker 02

  This is a flex.

• 16:43Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, thank you. Um, and it was my first concert, I think, post COVID. And I was surprised by how the audience had all come cosplaying as different eras of Harry Styles. And it sort of kind of opened up the way I've been thinking about this stuff where it's like, I mean, Taylor Swift has used this to great effect where it's like,

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:04Ryan Broderick?

  Everything now is a Comic Con of the thing that it is. Newer artists are understanding that. So it's like, it's not just, oh, I'm gonna go to the concert. It's I'm gonna dress like the video and then someone else is gonna dress like another video. And we're all gonna share each other's costumes and, and sort of concerts have become nonlinear in that way.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, everything is like a layered reference to everything. I think like Swifties are so good at also just like looking for little Easter eggs in the lyrics and like referencing things back, decoding things. And I think like David was, he very much like latched on to that from the start. Like he invented this idea of like the David verse, like literally thinking of himself as this like cinematic universe as if he was like, you know, a video game or like a comic or like, yeah, anime. And so like, he was strategically introducing these characters, like a Tommy was the first character. He never got to introduce more characters because his career ended because of murder charges. But like, he was very clearly thinking about these things and appealing to people's like what he called the lore around it. Like this other Gen Z thing of like, everything means something and like, let's understand this world, you know?

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Like, he totally tapped into that.

• 18:12Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it's been really another unk feeling of mine. It's like been very strange to watch the kind of barriers break down around what has lore and what has fandoms. Where like, you know, 15 years ago, it was like pretty, I thought it was like pretty established that there were rules. Like you would be a fan of a TV show differently than you'd be the, the fan of like a band. And in retrospect, talking about kind of like the Gothic romantic parts of this. I actually think My Chemical Romance is probably like the earliest band to kind of figure this out. Where it's like, every album has its own aesthetic. They're part of a larger cinematic universe. There's like comic books and there's all kinds of lore.

• 18:55Ryan Broderick?

  And it's presented as this sort of experiential theatrical visual project. And

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Gorillaz.

• 19:02Ryan Broderick?

  Well,

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:04Ryan Broderick?

  I would, I would argue not gorillas, only because I haven't really seen the fans react that way to it. Like My Chemical Romance fans, I think are like the, the earliest example I can think of of like, a music fandom going like, we could have an entire Comic Con for this thing.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:21Ryan Broderick?

  And now it's for everything.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and everyone had like the hairdos, the eyeliner, like it was a whole aesthetic that like people could package and it was like, became like the hot topic. Like you, yeah, it was like very marketable, easily identifiable thing, you know?

• 19:33Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, when I saw my Chemical Romance live last summer, I saw people in the audience who were dressed. Thank you.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:40Ryan Broderick?

  It was a great show. I'm seeing them again this summer. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  I'm going to, but on the rival side, right? I'm gonna go as a different version of Gerard and Ryan and I are not gonna.

• 19:50Ryan Broderick?

  I was literally about to, I was literally about to say this. There are people in the audience dressed up in the outfits that Gerard Way had been photographed in earlier on tour.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 20:01Ryan Broderick?

  So like, the, the fandom has, like fandoms have become like hyper, hyper niche to the point where like, you're dressing up as like references to like random photographs you've seen on the internet.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Like, like a few weeks ago, not even like, oh, this is a deep cut from the first album, like decades ago. It's like, no, he wore this and it was posted on Twitter last week.

• 20:20Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, like he, he did a concert in like a bloodstained cheerleader outfit from the 50s and there were a bunch of people just like wearing it and that photo had just gone viral on Tumblr, basically.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Were they all kids? Like, did you see other, other 30 year olds who are like you doing this?

• 20:35Ryan Broderick?

  No, it's like everyone over 27 dresses in the way where like I, I'm gonna have like my black jeans and my carabiner and my fucking Saves the Day hoodie or whatever. And then everyone under 29 is dressed up like a random costume from a random music video.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Cause we, it would be lame to wear the band shirt of the band you're going to see. Like that was always like, and then you would always try to like, wear a band that was cool and adjacent. So people would go like, oh, you're into that? It's really interesting that it's switched to just cosplay.

• 21:08Ryan Broderick?

  Yes.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  Where before it had to be a flex of being like, I know the obscure band that like, they.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  For.

• 21:15Ryan Broderick?

  That's, yeah. And there's a weird zillennial middle ground where like people were doing what they call like closet cosplay, where they're like wearing clothes that are normal clothes that kind of look like a costume if you squint. And then the whole, the whole thing just sort of devolves into, I'm just doing full cosplay at this concert.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  I mean, it sort of reminds me of like Disney adults too, who like, I feel like there's some rule when you go to the theme park where like, you can't exactly dress like a character because it's like copyrighted and they don't want you to, people to think you work there, but it's like, you know, they'll wear like a certain color of a character or like a tail with, you know, a certain signifier that's like, if you know, you know, kind of a thing, but it's like so thought out.

• 21:50Ryan Broderick?

  Yes. And that is all a, um, I think our viewers will be very happy for that little diversion right there, because when we come back after the break, we're going to be talking about a horrific murder case. Uh, so we'll get to that right after a word from our sponsors. And I'm not going to do a joke for this one. I'm just going to say, here come our sponsors. We'll be right back.

• 22:11Speaker 00

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• 23:36Ryan Broderick?

  Okay, so let's get into it. September 8th, 2025, a Tesla registered to David is impounded and the LAPD are called in because of a terrible smell. And in the Tesla, the police find the dismembered and decomposing body that would be later identified as the 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. What is the reaction among David fans like immediately after this news and sort of how does this get the ball rolling, I guess, from the fandom side?

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Part of what was so interesting to me, I guess, like as an unk too, was like, understanding how people in their teens and twenties are even just getting their news and digesting it. Because I, I mean, also like, I live in LA, this was on the LA local news, like, I definitely remember hearing about this and being like, this is horrific. David, I don't know if we've talked about this yet, David had this Discord, and this was the main way that he communicated with his fans and sort of like cultivated all the lore around his characters. So it was like definitely a marketing tool, definitely also like contributed to people being like, I know this guy, like, he's our guy, he's our friend, or whatever, even though they didn't know him. And what's interesting is like, the news about the body in David's car, I feel like it broke like in the afternoon on this day, and weirdly, like, no one in his Discord chat

• 24:49Speaker 02

  realized it until like, late that evening, like, someone, I guess, saw like the local news from an LA TV station that had an Instagram post about it, and they were like, hey, do you guys think this is real? And so like, the immediate reaction was like, fake news, like, this can't be real, do we trust this news source? Like, there was so much suspicion over it, and I think also, the, you know, a lot of these kids are like, rightfully very cynical of just like, growing up in a time where everything feels like a marketing stunt and everything is fake, and so a lot of people were like, oh, is this like a, this must be marketing for his new album, or like, maybe someone, so it was like, it ran the gamut from either like, this is a marketing stunt, to the other end was like, obviously someone stole his car and framed him.

• 25:28Ryan Broderick?

  I saw that, yeah, I saw that one. So I want to talk about sort of like, who the players are in this Discord, but first, like, one thing that has never been quite clear to me, and I'm wondering if you know this, how much of a known entity was the victim, Celeste, before, like, because I've seen like conflicting stuff that she's appeared in his streams or his videos, like, did the fans immediately know this person?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  So there was a bit of a like timeline lag where like first the the body was discovered in the car and then like a week and a half later, I want to say, you know, their remains were identified as this 14 year old girl, not even 15 yet, Celeste Rivas Hernandez. And that was the point when when she was identified that people started just going crazy with conspiracies and that really made people believe that David had been responsible or at least had something to do with it because so people in the Discord, especially like his moderators, many of whom were like fans, they were all just volunteers, some of whom were like, at least one of one member's management team was in the Discord. But anyway, the moderators and people in the Discord kind of knew like David is dating someone named Celeste.

• 26:32Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  They claimed they didn't know she was underage. That is definitely like still a constant source of debate among fans and outside sleuths and all of that. But yes, she did appear in a Twitch livestream with David at one point.

• 26:45Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  And she was never like identified like this is my girlfriend, this is Celeste, but like

• 26:49Ryan Broderick?

  She's in there.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Everyone kind of puts you and two together like, oh, this is the girl. Once they saw her photo on the news, it was kind of like, oh, like this is real. This isn't a joke.

• 26:58Ryan Broderick?

  This is also probably a good place to say that like David was very savvy about like integrating into the world of live streaming. I think he was in like a stream with Pokimane, I believe. Let me just fact check that.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, it could be.

• 27:11Ryan Broderick?

  I think she was the one being like, I'm really creeped out that this fucking psycho was in my house.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, I would be too.

• 27:19Ryan Broderick?

  Yes. So this month, Pokimane talked about the fact that like she's having nightmares about it. They had collaborated in some capacity.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:30Ryan Broderick?

  And he knew all of the right sectors of culture to sort of infiltrate.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Yes, totally. He would go on other gamers Twitch streams that have like, you know, super popular Twitch streams and also just like he would do TikToks with like Cat's Eye and like these girl groups. And so he was like basically just

• 27:47Ryan Broderick?

  Oh yeah, I forgot about the Cat's Eye, the American.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, he would do clips with like pop stars and then also with video gamers and just kind of like, yeah. Croph, croph everything.

• 27:55Ryan Broderick?

  Cat's Eye is an American-ish K-pop group for those who have not been following the meltdown that their fans are having currently because they fell off really hard. Yeah, they squandered all the goodwill after their Gap commercial.

• 28:09Ryan Broderick?

  I'm tapped in.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  God, I love that Gap commercial, though. I mean, like, where do you go for a Gap commercial?

• 28:15Ryan Broderick?

  It's great Gap commercial.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Discord feels so refreshing, though, this fan discord compared to what's happening in David. I'm like, that's so sweet.

• 28:21Ryan Broderick?

  So talking about moderators, let's talk about Sophia.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  She's one of, like, a handful. I want to say, like, a dozen. Like, don't quote me on the number, but she's like one of a bunch of other moderators. And she is someone who has been the most outspoken after Celeste was murdered.

• 28:39Ryan Broderick?

  How old of a person are we talking about here?

• 28:41Speaker 02

  I mean, she just turned 24.

• 28:43Ryan Broderick?

  That's too old to be moderating a Discord.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that most people in the Discord were, like, quite a bit younger. I mean, I spoke to, like, a 16-year-old who joined when he was, like, 13, I think, because he followed David from, like, a gaming Discord. I think it's Sophia. Like, she lives with her parents still. I think a lot of these are people who live with their parents. Like, their life is this Discord. Yeah, maybe because they're not in school or working or whatever.

• 29:08Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I did a couple investigations into sort of grooming cases in the 2010s, and this exact dynamic was all over the place with, like, YouTubers. I did a years-long investigation into a Minecraft YouTuber that was, like, grooming girls across Europe. Similarly, with, like, this, like, group of YouTubers that were making, like, Doctor Who-themed rock music on Bandcamp, and they were using it to groom girls. And, like, all of these situations were exactly the same, which is like, a creep infiltrates a totally unmoderated space full of children and then starts, like, isolating them and talking to them at length. At the time, the Minecraft YouTuber I was investigating was

• 29:50Ryan Broderick?

  using Skype, but it's the same idea where it's like, we're gonna just slowly... You know, create a little world under myself full of kids that I can talk to all day. And, and it's, it's always really sad when you start to like, get the stories of the people in these communities, because as you said, nine times out of 10, it's just like, they have nothing else going on. So now they're just like in this weird digital world that like, feels like it's important to them because they have not much else going on.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Totally. And David was like, I think when he first started out and like, before he really got a record deal or anything, like, he was known for just being in Discord all day, like, doing voice calls with people, like, just doing group chats. And so like, kind of like, cultivating these relationships where people felt like they knew him. And granted, like, at the time, he was also basically a teenager. But like, once he got famous, there was kind of this like rift that happened, that I think sometimes does happen when someone becomes this like powerful figure where it's like, all of them were kind of fighting to be like, well, I knew him first. Well, he responded to my message. Like, oh, I, one time he called me. And so like, there is this thing where now I think a lot of people in a fan community are sort of like horrified at how much they were, he was like this cult of personality where they were all kind of, yeah, fighting each other to be like, well, one time he

• 31:00Speaker 02

  looked at me or some, you know, things. So yeah, definitely the reaction in the beginning, and especially with Sophia was like, oh no, like, this is going to ruin his career. We don't think he did it. But like, this is, this is really bad, kind of a thing. Like, they were, it was almost like they were acting like his managers, even though there's this sad thing where like, they're all volunteers, like, they're not being paid to do this, you know?

• 31:18Ryan Broderick?

  That is another like fascinating cultural shift that I kind of put the blame on the Marvel Cinematic Universe for, which is like, the shift from, I am a fan, and I might have opinions about like, what this is and how this should be, or like, what this band should do. And then like, after the arrival of people like Kevin Feige, or even Taylor Swift, sort of like, you know, and the Taylor version stuff.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:43Ryan Broderick?

  It's a lot of fans now kind of LARPing as a producer or a manager, and thinking about it like, from a business standpoint, which is very weird.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Yes. Like, being like, well, this can't be good for, he should do this first. And then they would do that too, in the Discord. Like, people would give him suggestions, and he would ask for it also. Like, in some ways, he was also grooming the way that people sort of responded to him to be like, what song should I drop next? How should I do this? And it like, making people feel empowered as if they had like, a say in it.

• 32:10Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  The layers of it, it just gets darker and darker.

• 32:12Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. So let's switch gears to the sleuth side now, because like, so, as far as our timeline is concerned, the body's been discovered, it's been reported that it's Celeste. And now people are sort of trying to figure out what has happened here. And so I'm going to quote you directly. And I'm sorry, this is always uncomfortable. It actually just happened to me in a taping right before this and, you know, skin crawl. But here we go. Celeste became a martyr nearly overnight. There were illustrations of her as a saint and avatars of her face taken from missing persons flyers. Her family once posted on Facebook. Sleuths saw her everywhere in screenshots of Instagram stories where a dainty hand showed off what appeared to be an engagement ring and an index finger tattoo. They read, shh, David, they alleged, has a matching one.

• 32:58Ryan Broderick?

  And fans like Sarah start looking for clues. So, so talk us, talk to us about Sarah.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Sarah is someone who, again, she's a bit older, I think, than his typical fan base. I think she's 29 and she is someone who like, almost everyone basically discovered David's music on TikTok. And I know that you've like talked on, talked about this on the show, actually, about how like music discovery on TikTok is like not really a thing or not as much of like thing that people make it out to be. But it does feel like with David's community, people were really like.

• 33:28Ryan Broderick?

  I should be clear. It, it was, but it seems like that's changing. But like post COVID, it, I don't think we've ever seen anything like that ever. Like the, yeah, I would, I would compare it to like the height of Gangnam Style and like somebody I used to know YouTube music video era. Like it was an explosion of.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:49Ryan Broderick?

  Especially like alternative, sort of like non-commercial music getting really popular on TikTok.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yes. And David, again, like his whole origin story, which again, like I do, I do think he was a lot more strategic and savvy about, about it than he lets on. But like, people really did seem to find his music on TikTok. Like they were all using it on, like on their videos. Anyway, Sarah discovers him on TikTok. His, you know, loves his music, speaks to her. She was someone who also, after Celeste murder, was like, there's no way that David did this. She was in denial. She also thought he was framed, someone stole his car and then committed a murder. And then like as more information started coming out about Celeste in particular, she kind of like flipped and had this realization of like, oh shit, this is real.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  She's also someone who I think, like, you know, a lot of us like grew up watching kind of like true crime shows and procedurals and really like wanted to be a detective when she was a kid. And so I think for her, it was like, it activated something in her that was like a lot of true crimes, crime sleuths where it was like. She felt like this is my responsibility. And so like, she's someone who was like trolling the reddits, she was in Discord channels, and she would talk about spending all night, like just staying up all night, like comparing half of a name on a street sign to like Google Maps and like taking Google Street View tours to try to figure out like where David was living at this moment. Like she became obsessed with it in a way that a lot of people did, I think.

• 35:12Ryan Broderick?

  Look, for older people listening, I'm sorry, I can't hold your hand through this. You're just gonna have to accept the reality of what we're talking about. How does the username Ghost come into the picture?

• 35:21Speaker 02

  So Ghost is someone who basically also was in the Discord, also an early fan of David. He's the guy I was talking about earlier, where like he was in a gaming Discord with David, and once he realized that David was suddenly a pop star, he was just like, oh shit, I want to be in his fan community. Joined super early on, was very like, all about it. And then when he heard about Celeste murder, he, again, flipped. He's someone similar to Sarah, who was like very interested in true crime, very interested in like just Instagram sleuthing. He said that he had helped catch basically like a catfisher in his junior high school. And so when this all happened, he was kind of like, alright, like tap me in, coach, let's go, I got this. And it's funny because I, so I found him because he had been posting on Reddit,

• 36:06Speaker 02

  basically archiving the entirety of the Discord chat.

• 36:08Ryan Broderick?

  Huge, that's amazing.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, like he thought it was gonna disappear because he was noticing that people were deleting messages in the chat, and he thought that people were deleting it because it was like incriminating. And so he like downloaded all of it, uploaded it onto like the internet archive, basically, and was like, hey, everyone, here's the file. Of course, like a lot of people were like, I don't actually know how to access this because it's like HTML files and it's super huge. But it's funny because I was talking to him and like being like, oh, like, what's your background? He's like, yeah, I work with a lot of private detectives. And then like an hour into our phone call, I was like, oh, so like, yeah, who else are you working with? And he's like, oh, well, I'm 16. So, uh, yeah, I'm not really a detective. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, like he, I was like, like, I'm glad he felt comfortable enough to just be like, yeah, I'm a kid. But like, he definitely was playing it off as

• 36:53Speaker 02

  if like that was his full-time job was like a detective. Like he was cosplaying as a detective.

• 36:59Ryan Broderick?

  Man.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  I was like, it's your parent.

• 37:03Ryan Broderick?

  It is like, I think part of the reticence from me, you know, about covering this is that like, I think a lot of internet stories are like this, where like, you're talking about something really serious, but you're talking about a lot of stuff that is insane or inherently really stupid. And, and that sort of combo is like very tough tonally to like wrap your head around, I think, even though it's becoming increasingly more common.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:32Ryan Broderick?

  The idea of a SoundCloud rapper who got big on Fortnite, like murdering a girl allegedly, and then having like 16 year olds do like hardcore data journalism to like find out what happened. It's just a lot. It's just, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's a lot.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  In the files that Ghost saved, there was a trail of breadcrumbs of about their relationship that the 16 year old was able to archive. Can you just tell us about what he was able to save and like people found because of his detective work?

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I will say too, like a lot of this was collaborative work where he like posted it. Someone else made like, made it accessible and viewable on a website. So it was interesting to see people really like working together to try, who like really believed in like, we want to, we want to see justice for this girl. So some of the clues that he saw in the Discord, I mean, I think he was, he was hanging out with a friend and like the friend would just type into the search bar in Discord, Celeste, just her first name. And I think they were astounded at how easy it was to find seemingly incriminating evidence just by doing that. So one of the things was like, um, you know, David was like asking, hey, like which song should I drop next? And someone was like, um, drop, drop the missing one, drop the one with the missing girl, Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  And so like, I think just that alone, it definitely implied some, at least one person in his Discord, not only knew who Celeste Rivas Hernandez was, but knew, knew that she had been reported missing, like that she was a minor. And then I think throughout too, there was also, so this also involves Sophia. Ghost was and is someone I think who was very suspicious of Sophia and all the moderators and what did they know? And when did they know it? And so he also found screenshots of her. So there was an instance where. David did a Twitch stream with Celeste. The Twitch stream ended up going a little bit haywire. Celeste like made a reference to David having sex with minors, which I think in hindsight, like knowing what we know now about what the prosecutors are alleging,

• 39:39Speaker 02

  it does feel like, whoa, was she trying to out him live on this Twitch stream? Which is also like brave of her and just like, yeah, holds all this different weight now. But there's this moment where Celeste says that and then all of a sudden David is like, we need to cut the live stream, cut the live stream. And so he calls Sophia to try to like, figure out how to delete it. And Sophia didn't answer, but everyone saw that in the chat where at one point Sophia was kind of like boasting like, oh, well, David called me once because he needed help to delete the live stream. And everyone saw that as evidence that she knew who Celeste was.

• 40:09Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, okay.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  That she knew that, you know, Celeste was a minor, which she claimed she didn't. But yeah, that was one of the things of just like Sophia talking about like his girlfriend Celeste. And everyone was like, there it is. Like there's the evidence that was his girlfriend.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  There's just a trove of stuff that like, at the time, it's like, that's weird. That's whatever. And then people were able to go back after the fact.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 40:30Ryan Broderick?

  How, how would you sort of describe?

• 40:34Ryan Broderick?

  Like, I guess, like, based on what we know from what's been gleaned from the Discord and your own reporting, like, how would you describe the relationship between David and Celeste, like, leading up to her, her death?

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, based on what we know, I mean, obviously off the bat, it's like a predatory relationship. He's, he's an adult, she's a minor. Allegedly they met when she was just 11, which is like,

• 40:54Ryan Broderick?

  Jesus Christ.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Just hard to even wrap your head around. She was like a baby, like maybe not even in junior high. I think she was probably in sixth grade. But I think on top of that, there were, there was like a playfulness to it. And of course, like, all things considered, like, this is very much a predatory grooming, you know?

• 41:11Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Illegal relationship, like by all accounts. But like, there was this like playfulness, if the person in the Discord who everyone believes to have been Celeste was her, like where she would, she would kind of tease him, she would troll him and like they, you know, like she would kind of, yeah, make fun of his name or like, they definitely had like a clear sort of like rapport with each other. That was very just like easy and like, you could tell they just chatted constantly. And even when so the the charges just dropped a couple of weeks ago and and so much horrific stuff that I'm glad I didn't know at the time has since come out. And I think there's just troves of of messages where it seems like they were just in contact all the time.

• 41:47Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, so David was arrested on April 16, 2026, and this is from the Vanity Fair piece again. So the prosecution claims that Hernandez and Burke, David, met in January 2022 when she was just 11 and that their relationship became sexual in November 2023 when he was 18 and she was 13. The prosecutors say text exchanges between the victim and the defendant contain references to sex, pregnancy, abortion, and the use of the Plan B emergency contraceptive. There are also explicit photographs documenting and corroborating their sexual relationship. But what was the motive for killing her? The prosecution wrote in the brief that there are also messages suggesting Hernandez was jealous of Burke's relationship with other women and

• 42:32Ryan Broderick?

  threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with the defendant to end his career and destroy his life. And then, as you reported, the LAPD had already been investigating David before this, which is like, actually, like, even more heartbreaking to to rap. That's like, that's almost like inconceivable to me.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so much of the discourse around this stuff, like, obviously, on Reddit, on TikTok, on Twitter, was like, on Discord, all of it was so dark to begin with. But I think when this all came out, and like, you know, the prosecutor, I went to this press conference where he was revealing this information. And like, it was kind of shocking, because I think like, no one anticipated the level of like, just the fact that so Celeste, according to the prosecutor, had been a witness in a an investigation involving like, David having sex with minors. It's unclear to me whether she, like, the investigation was just about her, whether it was about, it was probably about other girls as well. But like, that whole thing, like, there

• 43:34Speaker 02

  were so many theories thrown out, and that was not something that anyone had ever even thought of, which was, yeah, heartbreaking.

• 43:41Ryan Broderick?

  I will say, like, in my time doing these kinds of stories and reporting on these kinds of stories, like, dealing with law enforcement was a nightmare. Getting them to understand that the communication infrastructure at play, I remember, I maybe I've talked about on the show before, but I had this, like, This totally roundabout insane conversation with the FBI where I was I was trying to chase down any information I could about this TikToker that was like preying on girls like right at the beginning of TikTok like he had moved over from Vine or somewhere and he was like set up shop on TikTok and I called the FBI and I was just like are are you even aware of this guy like these videos you know accusing him of grooming people are going viral they

• 44:23Ryan Broderick?

  couldn't like they couldn't play ball at all like I eventually had to be like hypothetically if you were aware of this kind of thing would you investigate it and the guy was like hypothetically yes and it's like it's it's it's you know and I'm on a call trying to explain what discord is right it's and it's it's insane that you know it's still moving this slowly you know six seven eight years later

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Yeah yeah and like this is the kind of thing where too I think people like Ghost who's this like 16 year old that I don't know in my head I'm just like picturing him wearing a fedora or just being like the the like detective character like

• 45:00Ryan Broderick?

  Oh not because he's a redditor but because he's

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah yeah but I think this is the kind of thing that really made people like him feel sort of like activated and righteous about it is because they were like the cops don't know this shit like they don't know how kids talk they don't know how to get on discord like they don't know anything and so I think like people who are really deep in that community were kind of like I gotta step up I gotta tell them what I know and then I think like when still like Pete the still the police had not made an arrest for like seven months since the discovery of Celeste Body and so I think people were still so just losing their minds that they were like the evidence is right here like go on discord you know we archived it for you and that was like just incredibly frustrating to people obviously

• 45:44Speaker 00

  I mean I'm sure this will come out during the trial but like do you have a sense that it was like they were building up a big case about child porn and they're taking their time with it do we have any sense of her role and like how far along were they you know like should somebody have been watching worried about somebody like wearing a wire kind of thing especially a minor

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think we know anything about the timeline. But yeah, it does raise a good question of like, the implication to me was that like, David knew that she was, or maybe he didn't know she was involved in like a formal investigation. But like, it does seem like she was making that explicit that like, there was a threat of like, you will be exposed. And so that is like, the prosecutor's theory of like, David's motivation and killing her. But yeah, it will be interesting to see like, why? Yeah, I mean, there's the other question of too, like, how was she allowed to just live with him for months at a time, go to his house, which was like, at least an hour and a half, two hours away in an Uber? Like, he's, he allegedly just sent an Uber for her and picked her up at her parents' house. So it does raise the question of like, did anyone know where she was going? Did she have a parent involved?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Like, yeah, I mean, I think at every stage of it, she was just failed by the adults around her, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was her parents. Like, it's just such a tragedy that again, like, you're like, in hindsight, like, man, this, this sucks that she went to his house.

• 47:04Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, none of this had to happen.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:07Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. And we're gonna talk about basically how the fandom has shifted since the arrest, after a word from whatever poor soul has decided to be the sponsor of this episode.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Abercrombie.

• 47:22Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, sure. Yeah, hot, hot topic.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Crocs. Oh, right, it's Hollister, Hollister, yeah.

• 47:28Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 47:32Ryan Broderick?

  So, to swing back to Sophia, the, the mod, like, how, how is, how has she handled this? How have the defenders, the initial defenders handled this since the arrest?

• 47:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I think she, so she realized within, I think, like, weeks of Celeste being identified, like, she kind of, she knew, like, oh, this is real, something's up. And like, I think by that point, people, just to backtrack a little bit, people were really kind of like digging into her and accusing her of, like, so there's this thing that happened where once people were convinced that Celeste was in fact in the Discord, and people knew who she was, and knew that she was underage, like, everyone began pointing fingers because it was this like vigilante. Investigation, everyone was accusing one another of like enabling or facilitating this. And so she was someone who took tons of heat because people thought that she knew something just because she had like made a reference to Celeste. Or like being in a live stream and that kind of thing.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  So she basically like took it upon herself to go on Reddit and like actually respond to people and defend herself. That went pretty poorly at first, but like there were definitely people who are like, okay, we get it. She's a fan who's kind of hurt and feels betrayed by this artist that she loved. And she's maybe not handling this well. She maybe posted some shitty things, but like, you know, she means well. So she definitely like came around to being like, David did it, this kind of thing. She's, but she's definitely someone who like, she has spent so much of her life on the internet. And I think now she's kind of like, this is too much, this whole experience. I mean, I felt bad even like talking to her for like fact checking and stuff because she was like traumatized by this whole thing. It was kind of like, I'm kind of like, I'm so glad he's arrested. Like, I kind of can't keep talking about this.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  But the other, the thing that really struck me too, like once I had more conversations with like Sophia and with Sarah, and there's, you know, there was another detective, the, you know, detective in quotes they worked with.

• 49:21Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  May, the thing that I was really struck with is that like, a lot of these young women had all had experiences with grooming online. And so like, I think that was, that was really interesting to me to be like, oh, they're not, they're not just people who like true crime and are inserting themselves into this case, which like, sure, those things are true, but also I think for them it felt like, oh, like I've been in Celeste's shoes. And luckily that wasn't the way things ended for me, but like all of them had these deep stories that kind of like came out on multiple conversations. And like Sophia was definitely one of them that's like, oh yeah, like I kind of feel, I know what she was maybe going through and I feel like I wish I had known. So it's, it, yeah, it was interesting because she was made into like this monster online.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  And then it turned out she kind of had her own, her own story too, you know?

• 50:07Ryan Broderick?

  It is interesting to me that like, at the same time that Gen Z is so vocal about like age gap discourse, that they're also, I mean, from what I can gather, like huge chunks of them are all in like completely age inappropriate, like online spaces together. And yeah, I, I mean, a part of me that that makes sense. It's like, it kind of goes hand in hand. It's like you have a moral panic over a thing that's relevant to you, you know? And so it is though, a little maddening for me to like.

• 50:41Ryan Broderick?

  For this to still, like this kind of thing to still be happening and be possibly more popular than it's ever been. Like the idea of like finding random people on the internet and like just creating a chat room with a bunch of children and just like hanging out there all day. It seems like it's worse now. It seems like it's worse than it's almost ever been. Grant, in the, in the, in the outline, we have, I think, very astutely compares this to the com network. Are you familiar with the com network?

• 51:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:10Ryan Broderick?

  It's basically like a decentralized terror network that like connects on Telegram and stuff and they, they sort of get a bunch of kids in chat rooms. And then use like extortion and blackmail and peer pressure to make them commit acts of violence. It's been connected to a bunch of spree shootings over the last couple of years. But it's the same, it's the same mentality of like, I have entered this online community through some sort of channel, whether it's a thing that interests me. Or it's a video game I play or a person I meet in the lobby of Fortnite or whatever it is. And now I'm just in this world and I, you know, I can't tell what's up and what's down. And it's happening like at a, at a level that is very hard to wrap your head around, I think.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And there's this other thing. I mean, again, I feel like for me, like it was this like anthropological experience of like, hey kids, like what are the kids up to? And like, it was also surprising and like just strange to me to learn how like some people just identified so much with like their screen name or their avatar. That I'd be like, hey, like, do you feel comfortable using their name? They're like, yeah, yeah, of course. I don't care. And I'd be like, oh, so what's your name? They're like, my screen name. Like, no, I don't tell anyone my real name. Like it was, it was almost like this private information where like no one could know who they really are. And like everything they did online was just an extension of like, yeah, who they were and like how they were perceived. Like their entire sense of self was based on like how many likes they got on this thing or like how much engagement. And like, it was very like disturbing. Yeah.

• 52:39Ryan Broderick?

  As of right now, recording, recording this in mid-May, his, David's hearing has been delayed another month. And basically, it's gonna just be duked out in the courts. I mean, from what you've seen, like, how do you think this is gonna play out, I guess? I mean, do you, do you think there's more horrible stuff we haven't seen yet? Like, and that's hard to, that's an insane thing to ask when you've already got like terabytes of child pornography and murder charges and all the rest. But like, what's your sense of like where we are in this, I guess?

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I think this is only the beginning, which is like, kind of terrifying. Because I think, yeah, I mean, just the stuff that's sort of come out in like, the, I think he had like, a, just like an arraignment hearing, and there was some discovery that came out. And like, just the stuff that's come out initially has been so far, like, it just feels like stuff from like, the goriest horror movie, you know? And I will say too, like, he's someone who bragged in his Discord about like, watching gore videos on YouTube and like, becoming desensitized to violence. And like, there are, there are all these, these like, chicken or egg questions that come with like, yeah, his life online and how this played out. But I think it's gonna get so much worse.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think it's gonna get better for him in any way. And that's probably for the best. I think he is someone who like, people, and it's just horrifying to even go back and see like, the day that he allegedly killed Celeste, according to prosecutors, like, you know, he was like promoting his album on TikTok, he was at a release party the next day, like, the things that are just very, like, very unreal, like, not, not human behavior that I think anyone would have imagined. Like, I think that what he does is beyond the scope of like, what even any of the like, true crime sleuths are imagining. And it's terrific.

• 54:33Ryan Broderick?

  I wanna, I wanna circle back to that chicken and egg thing, because I think it's like, a very relevant question right now, especially in the midst of all the like, child safety, online law bullshit flying around. And I, I think one experience that, I bet like, almost everyone has had some version of this with meeting strangers on the internet, or having like, predominantly online relationships.

• 54:58Ryan Broderick?

  There's this moment where like you like you can't tell if someone's doing a bit or not.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:06Ryan Broderick?

  This was like a big kind of like part of like the beginnings of like the online far right in the 2010s of like, are you a Nazi or are you just being ironic? You know, like that, like, I think the, the fact that he is, was savvy enough to sort of couch his violence and predatory tendencies with, you know, an identity of like, I watch like fucked up stuff on the internet.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:33Ryan Broderick?

  And this is why I'm like this. It's like, I could see that being very confusing for especially young people who are like, I am I like, is this real? Or am I just role playing? A, a great version of this actually was depicted in, we're all going to the world's fair. The film by

• 55:52Speaker 00

  Jane Schoburn.

• 55:54Ryan Broderick?

  Jane Schoburn, who it was a, the movie she did before I saw the TV glow. And it sort of depicts a relationship between like a teenage girl and an adult man who are kind of like egging each other on. And the adult man seems to kind of think that like, it's a game and the girl does not realize it's a game.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  And it's like, yeah.

• 56:13Ryan Broderick?

  It's, it's effectively like context collapse. And I think it's like very easy to, it's, it's very easy to, to like, experience that on a digital platform.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's totally confusing and hallucinatory. And like, I mean, I was even thinking when you were talking about like Gerard Way used to wear these like blood splattered clothing when he performed, like David did the same thing. And of course, like, everyone thought this was an act. And like, of course, that is part of his act. But I think like, yeah, I mean, by all appearances, he was just a psychopath. And yeah, this was all a form of masking.

• 56:46Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. I mean, I can't keep track of how many times we've talked about predators going into different communities on this show, but like, they are known to like, go into places where there's little oversight and a lot of gray area. So it's not surprising. You know, I mean, honestly, one, one of the very first stories I ever Wrote, you know, back when I was in college was about Jesse Slaughter and 4chan and the band Blood on the Dance Floor, who were, you know, making shitty goth dance music and taking advantage of young girls and sort of knowing that they could infiltrate communities on MySpace to find victims and like, it's a tale as old as time, unfortunately.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it even made me think of like Marilyn Manson doing this kind of like stunt stuff and like, you know, cutting his skin with glass and like stuff that like when I was a kid and like seeing him on MTV and stuff like it was kind of chilling. And I think like, obviously like, you know, he fought back against censorship and all of this backlash that was like at the time felt really unwarranted. And it is that slippery slope about censorship where you're like, let the man be an artist. And then we come to find out that he's, yeah, also a rapist, like has this whole dark thing going on. So it is this question of like, yeah, is this their persona, the art from the artist, like all of the stuff that we're still grappling with. With like, yeah, Michael Jackson movie, all this stuff.

• 58:03Ryan Broderick?

  It's why kids should only be listening to ska music. I think none of this emo shit, it's just gotta be upbeat ska music, you know, it's safe.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, everyone should just be skanking in person, no internet.

• 58:16Ryan Broderick?

  We should just, everyone should just be listening to the Digimon, the movie soundtrack. Yeah. And just leave it at that.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  And you've somehow managed to end us on a more horrifying thought.

• 58:24Ryan Broderick?

  That's right.

• 58:25Speaker 00

  A question for both of you and also a question, I guess, like for the universe. These are things that sounded like the Satanic panic come and the idea of actually like, oh, like the predatory musician who's writing about dark things like, like these were like bad fiction of overreaction reactive Christian parents is like how we were taught to think about all these things.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Has something shifted? How did we actually get here where these stories that now actually seem cartoonishly bad and we were told was just like daytime Satanic panic fodder are now like.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  Yep, guys talking about murdering girls in the, in the music video and like confessing to all the things. I'm like, it's actually real.

• 59:12Ryan Broderick?

  Well, I mean, as someone who spent most of my teenage years listening to I'm gonna kill my girlfriend music, uh, like.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Eminem, you know?

• 59:20Ryan Broderick?

  I'm talking like Boys Night Out, uh, fucking Census Fail, uh, like just awful MTV2 screamo.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Need more Scott.

• 59:30Ryan Broderick?

  Aesthetic lullaby, a thorn for every heart. I can keep going, but I listened to a lot of that music. Yeah, there were predators in that scene, but they weren't actually the bands that like people thought like if I had money, if I was gonna bet money on which of the two bands would have a predator and it brand new or Taking Back Sunday, I would have lost that bet. These things are notable because they are the exception. Like it is not like every shitty emo bedroom artist like David is a predator using Discord to groom people. And it's not even true for like every streamer or video game player or whatever. It's like those spaces are popular with young people and they are wildly unmoderated and some of

• 1:00:15Ryan Broderick?

  that is actually good. I think like teenagers should be allowed to hang out with each other online or offline. But if you don't have, you know, safe precaution setup or, or, or agreed upon social norms, things can get really wacky and they can get really dangerous.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially when one of those people is famous and has all this money all of a sudden and is like suddenly in this like different stratosphere than everyone else that they're interacting with. Like even if they're the same age, it like creates this crazy power imbalance where people are just want, yeah, want to be close to that person. Like I think this idea too of like, we've moved past the hysteria around like, you know, morbid lyrics or like shocking stuff on stage. Like I think a lot of that also contributed to his fans denial in the beginning is because like a lot of them were like. He couldn't be so stupid that he would actually sing about doing this thing. Like, we have to give him more credit than that. Like, it just, it felt like too shallow of an explanation, or it felt almost like insulting because it was so, like, on the nose. And so I think, like, that also made people defend him.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Because it's like, yeah, we should, we should give people the benefit of the doubt that, like, this is their art and they're not, like, singing about every single thing they've ever done in their lives.

• 1:01:26Ryan Broderick?

  Also.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  And, yeah, rare exception.

• 1:01:28Ryan Broderick?

  Let, let's be real. This guy was signed to Interscope. I cannot accept the idea that no one knew he had a 14-year-old girlfriend.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:01:37Ryan Broderick?

  Like, I'm sorry.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Like, yeah.

• 1:01:40Ryan Broderick?

  And the fact that, like, as, as Jennifer pointed out, like, his man, at least part of his management was in the Discord.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  Sorry to interrupt, but like, his management also rented his house, like, his mansion in the Hollywood Hills that Celeste was allegedly living with him in. That was rented by his management. He wasn't even on the lease. The landlord didn't know he was living there. Like, the management was very involved in his life. Again, because this is, like, a pretty sheltered, homeschooled kid who grew up in the suburbs, like, doesn't really know how to live on his own. So you have to imagine there's, like, adults with money and influence who are helping him just day to day, like, get a car, get from pla, like, place one to two. Like, yeah, it's, it's unimaginable that nobody know.

• 1:02:17Ryan Broderick?

  Right. So I, I actually don't think the fact that he sort of had a morbid Gothic aesthetic is actually even relevant. I, I, I think it's more just like, every single person with any sort of ability to stop this in this kid's orbit didn't. And, and a girl died. Like, that's how I sort of view this story.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  Like R. Kelly.

• 1:02:39Ryan Broderick?

  Like any other predator. Like, predators only work when everyone else around them doesn't say anything.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they all saw him as a cash cow. They're like, we're not, you know, like, he was making money for the label, and so why would they step in and interrupt that? And it's like, it's, yeah, it's horrifying.

• 1:02:56Ryan Broderick?

  This story would be exactly the same if he was in a ska band. The, the music is, sort of, doesn't matter. And as far as, like, comm stuff goes, or like, the other kinds of Gen Z grooming stuff, or Gen Alpha grooming stuff that's happening right now, that, I, I always just put it on the platforms. Like, if you can't come, like- We would not allow someone to open up a storefront and be like, I'm gonna leave and all these teenagers get to hang out here completely on their own with no supervision. You'd be like, I'm shutting that shit down tomorrow. But for some reason Discord can be like, you can have a 2,016 year olds in here and we're just not gonna care about like, what's happening in there. Like, that's ridiculous.

• 1:03:37Speaker 00

  I worked at a teen center when I first moved to New York and we hired somebody new, who none of us knew was lax. He was like, very responsible around us. And then like, the rest of us would be upstairs like helping people with homework and he'd be down like, with the rest of them. It was after a couple of weeks and I went downstairs and like, they were all showing each other porn on each other's phones. And like, the minute that there was, that like, the adult was not adulting. Like, and it's like, I don't blame them. Of course, that's what they were, that's what they would do.

• 1:04:06Ryan Broderick?

  That's what teenagers do.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  And I was just like, what the fuck dude?

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  You had one job.

• 1:04:11Ryan Broderick?

  Yes. Just to close the loop on this, because I can already see the comments coming in. If you are a platform like Discord, and you can't respect people's digital freedom and allow them to communicate, you know, safely, anonymously and openly, while also not creating a safe environment for young people to do the same, without stuff like this happening, like, you don't deserve to be a company. You can't live up to the responsibility of what you've tried to take on. That's sort of my, my feeling on it. So like, if you can't figure out how to stop something like this from happening, among everyone else involved that also should have stopped this from happening, you shouldn't be around, you know? And so, uh, I'm mad now, uh, and upset and-

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  It's so deeply upsetting. Like, every aspect of it. Yeah.

• 1:04:55Ryan Broderick?

  I've been trying to be mindful that like, people listen to this while doing the dishes or something. But like, yeah, this story is fucked. And I just keep coming back to the fact that like, she was already talking, like, the LAPD was already investigating before she was murdered. Like, none of this had to happen. At every single stage, there was a failure here.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Ryan Broderick?

  I want to thank you for coming on and- Ruining my day, and I assume the days of everyone that listens to this. It was great to have you back, and this is an important story, and I'm glad we I'm glad we're covering it. And when the trial is all over and we sort of have a full, complete picture of what happened here, I want to bring you back and talk about it again. But read Jennifer Swan's piece in Wired. It's really great.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:05:37Ryan Broderick?

  If people want to follow you online and not on Discord.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Not on Discord.

• 1:05:43Ryan Broderick?

  Where can they find you?

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  I'm Jen Swan with four N's on Substack and Instagram, wherever else.

• 1:05:50Ryan Broderick?

  And just before we go, one fact check note. I'm actually not an MCR guy. That was just a little bit. That's more of a Ryan thing. I don't want credit for that or your judgment for that. So I just felt a need to come clean before we close out this episode. Thank you. Panic World is a production of Courier. It is written and produced by Grant Irving and hosted by me, Ryan Broderick. Josh Fielstedt is our production coordinator. And our amazing researcher is Adam Bumis. From Courier is Shane Verkest, who edits our video episodes, along with our producer, Kevin Maroney, and National Managing Director and Executive Producer, Kevin Dreyfus. R.C. Demezzo is their VP of Brand and Social. Charlotte Robinson is their Deputy Director of Brand and Social.

• 1:06:35Ryan Broderick?

  Mary Ann Couga is their Director of Marketing. YouTube and Podcast Growth Marketer, Samantha Hallows. And Tracy Kaplan is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution. If you want to sponsor the show or give us products to sell, she's the one to talk to. You can email her at [email protected]. Be sure to check out the Panic World YouTube channel, which you can find at youtube.com/panicworldpod. And please give us some nice ratings on podcast apps and leave a funny review. Lastly, here's my advice for you. Chill out and touch grass while you still can.