Chris Olsen's Heartbreaking Battle Against Online Bullying

Chris Olsen is screaming. Crying. Bereft.

The 26-year-old gay TikTok personality – known for paling around with celebrities like Meghan Trainor – has finally had enough of the bullying and harassment he's faced online. A portion of said bullying is coming from fellow gay men, a fact that may seem shocking at first blush to a general audience. But it's not shocking if you've spent time in that space online. People dunk on each other left and right. Sometimes it's innocent, arguing about who the best pop girlie is. But a lot of the time it's cruel – directly attacking strangers online with little regard for consequence. It goes from petty to dangerous fast.

Olsen, for example, has long been endured people commenting how "annoying" he is. But he's alleging that people are leaking his nudes or finding them online and sending them to him as blackmail (48 states and Washington, D.C., have passed legislation against nonconsensual pornography, or revenge porn, as of October 2023). USA TODAY has reached out to Olsen for comment.

Many have come to Olsen's defense, including fellow creator Rob Anderson. "Seeing him break down and the responses to him breaking down show just like a lack of humanity, just this lack of empathy for people, and forgetting that people are people," Anderson, 36, says. "And having gone through it myself, I just wanted to just give a little bit of insight, and hopefully some release from what he was feeling." That's right. His own nudes were leaked too. "It's something that you don't talk about, because the more you talk about it, the more it happens."

Why are people so horrible to each other, especially people in the same community? Experts theorize it's a combination of factors related to the rise of social media, a generation unburdened by the worst of the AIDS epidemic and changing laws and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. As common enemies and threats fall away gay men may turn against each other to cope with their traumas, from lighthearted memes to cyberbullying to even the aforementioned revenge porn.

"The reason why anyone – gay man or not – is catty comes from a lack of wholeness within themselves, and it mirrors how they view and treat themselves," says relationship coach and certified hypnotherapy practitioner Ted Smith. "Insecurity, low self-esteem and a lack of self-love can all play a role in where this treatment comes from."