Who the fuck is Luulubuu?
First of all: is it important that I learn about this?
No. Feel free to log off and touch some grass, it’ll be much better than catching up on online drama — even though this one has some disturbing facets worth talking about, at least.
That said, if you’re still here, then let’s go down the rabbit hole of “Luulubuu”, the biggest collective illusion ever shared by the internet.
INTRODUCTION: A Summary
Most people who use Twitter and are into games, as well as similar niches and turfs of the internet, have heard of Luulubuu. The online influencer deactivated their account on Twitter around the end of August, 2021, sporting 76.1k followers and 11.6k posts since joining on October ’16. Lulu, as they called themselves, had most of their online presence supported by shitposting and gaming talk, with the occasional mental health and personal uplifting posts inbetween. Through their fame and presence, they managed to run a Patreon (now deleted), get a Twitter verified checkmark, and jobs in indie studio Aggro Crab Games and in Neon White as community manager.
For the most part, Lulu was pretty beloved by their community. Fans would draw fanart of them, and interact frequently with their tweets, whether they were normal posts, memes, questions, polls… basically, they lived the standard life of a successful internet influencer.
Unfortunately, that was not meant to last. Rumors about Lulu weren’t a new thing by any definition, but they always managed to come out of any disputes either unscathed, or with minimal damage to their brand. Their strong ties to their fanbase, combined with their popularity and the way their online persona carried themselves — the wholesome, cutesy, pink-haired gamer “waifu” — always seemed to sweeten whatever came their way. However, by the end of August, a few loose threads in Lulu’s careful tapestry of lies were pulled; and it all unwound so horribly, that what was supposed to be just another story about “influencer does something shitty and apologizes” became something else entirely. A dystopian, weird phenomenon born from a sick mind.
I feel I should warn everyone beforehand, even though I’ll place trigger warnings when necessary — the allegations go from the mild, disputable act of “stealing memes”, all the way to sexual harassment and abuse. Exercise caution while reading this.
PART ONE: The Tip of the Lulu Iceberg
Let’s start from the end.
When, exactly, the allegations against Lulu started to resurface is unclear, but many people came to know of them through one or both of these two sources:
- These Twitter threads, by user ListeninGarden, which started as more of a one-time shot at Lulu and slowly evolved into an assorted catalogue of allegations as more people spoke up;
- And this Twitter thread, by gaming content creator Liam Robertson (Doctor_Cupcakes), which is more organized in the form of a compilation of said allegations, with links to separate threads made by other accusers.
We’ll be using both as sources. They also cite sources in the threads themselves.
Lulu had been accused of, mostly, scamming artists and creators. Some allegations involved unfulfilled promises of payment or refunds, or asking for sketches/drafts and blocking the artist before they could finish the commission. Others, such as this one from now Senior Game News Writer at ScreenRant, Cade Onder, went as far as including gaslighting and erratic, unprofessional behavior.
Another noteworthy story comes from DerbyCityDerek, a podcaster and news worker who is a part of the Super Deluxe Games Cast podcast — SDGC for short. According to Derek, in summation, Lulu had agreed to do volunteer work for the podcast, which is demonstrably free and maintained by out of pocket payments from staff. SDGC then started a Patreon and enabled subscriptions on Twitch as a form of earning some income, in order to offset the operating costs a bit.
Lulu, as it turned out, was opposed to that, claiming to having been “taken advantage of” and demanding payment for their work, despite very clearly agreeing to volunteer before. Despite threatening to leave — which, for the record, SDGC did not keep them from doing so — Lulu never left. That is, until they were let go some time later for stealing a review code.
Lulu would also be exposed as a clout chaser and a grifter, one who would use all sorts of underhanded tactics (trigger warning for the previous link: mentions of depression and self-harm) for retweets, jobs and attention. One user (rabbittraps_) even details how they created a collective art project, delegated any and all tasks to others, and then returned when it was finished to take credit online. To add to it, Lulu would also lie about being a Capcom employee, as well as similar job-related lies in an attempt to bolster their resumé.
Less known or anonymous accounts were usually Lulu’s “targets”, but they would also try their hand at fellow content managers or even “bigger fish”, so to speak — like the time where they tried to guilt-trip a then-Crunchyroll employee into hiring them, first for the position the company wanted, and later, to a position they themselves wanted to, despite the lack of openings.
While Lulu has repeatedly stolen memes from smaller accounts and discord servers to boost their numbers online, they didn’t enjoy when the same happened to them, even if by accident — as made clear by this account from user Miz_Kriss about the time they were harassed by Lulu and their followers.
But it gets worse; Lulu’s actions sink lower than just clout chasing and unprofessional behavior.
PART TWO: A So-Called Apology
As the rumors and stories about Luulubuu started to gain more and more traction, they eventually began to be questioned by people on Twitter. Though the usual wall of defense put up by their followers was quickly deployed as usual, it didn’t work this time. The weight of the accusations, the names involved, and being let go from both Aggro Crab Games and Neon White forced Lulu to address it all publicly.
The apology came in the form of a TwitLonger — basically a text dump. Before getting into the apology itself, notice Lulu’s afterthoughts — in the form of replies to the original apology post. There, they pre-emptively states that they talk about their mental health in said apology, and also pre-emptively asks readers to not take it as “blaming it all on mental health”.
Seems reasonable enough, in a sense, right?
Now, for the apology itself, which I will paste below but can also be read here:
My apology
Hi, first of all I want you if you were hurt for my actions directly or indirectly, I apologize to you.If you are reading this, you are probably aware that there have been threads narrating things I have said that are not good at all. I want to address these and then just apologize because I’m not here to prove any other party wrong. If they are affected and hurt then I have to apologize.
First of all there’s a screenshot in which I request money from a homeless person.
Basically what happened is that I lent money to a person who wanted a game and they were eager to offer me a deadline which I was ‘sure’
Deadline came and we never heard from this person again, so I got the reminder and I wondered if we knew anything from this person at all; we pooled $350 to find them a shelter and I think shortly after showing that they were in the streets we didn’t hear from them again. Which led us to believe they might have used the money elsewhere since they mentioned getting drugs after.
The conversation in the screenshot happened in 2019, I had asked if we knew anything and I was happy to wait as long as needed, I apologized then and I apologize to you now.Most of these issues with DocSquiddy and Cade_Onder are way before this and come from all from the same place; I was not doing very well in any way back then. I had literally zero going on in my life and money was a problem. So in the process of getting a job I hurt people that at that moment in life were my friends.
I’m not going to try to excuse myself because this happened to me and this allowed me to be a jerk, no. I’m just saying that it’s what motivated that. I’m specially sorry to DocSquiddy for the words I used, he is a very talented creative and I was trying to be more like him but as you can see it didn’t pan out.
And of course my deepest apology to Cade_Onder who was a great friend to me and I had nothing but jealousy and anger. There’s literally nothing else to it, I was nothing but jealous of my peers doing better than me and nothing I can say will excuse that behaviour back then. I have nothing but praise for Cade who has, by his own, made a name in the industry and I really hope whatever they decide to do with this makes this whole ordeal better for him. I don’t deserve this to be better for me.
I only want to say the things I should have said back then and while this fixes absolutely nothing, be sure I have reached to people affected about this to apologize and if I can do things right.
I just shared a series of screenshots in which I didn pay for a rough draft and sadly I have no answer for that. If the artist can reach out and tell me I will gladly pay what I owe them. I have no intention to run from that and it was probably me being block trigger happy which is something I’m working on and I’m not very happy about it.
And now for a heavier issue;
I don’t think I’m in a healthy mindset right now. And I have been wondering for a while if I’m legitimate in a place where it is even possible to be working in social spaces. This has brought to me something that I don’t.I have been dealing with undiagnosed stuff for a long time and it even affected me when things were okay. And I think whatever it is needs attention and it needs it now. I don’t want to excuse what I’ve done through mental illness, I’ve just noticed that this is something that’s happened over and over.
I don’t think I will be here for much longer and for the last 24 hours I had someone to take care of me, and I have been medicated and sleeping most of the day. I had a meltdown today which led me and my family to know whatever it is, it’s affecting me and it’s time to fix it.
I’m literally scared of being seduced by the idea of not being here, in general anymore.
And to everyone who has heard that, told me that it’s time, for reals, to fix things.By far, the most damning thing of everything that happened these days is not have lost opportunities, or have lost jobs, it has been having friends being disappointed and angry
I will forever miss most of you.
In my last words I want to say that if you or your peers were affected by this, like getting a dm or alerted about this, I’m truly sorry the last thing I want is to any of you get splashed by shit I have done. I had the fortune to circle myself with the most brilliant and most understanding of folks and it’s very shameful for me and to everyone involved in this, that this happened at all.
You don’t have by any means respect this or say ‘ah this makes it better’ it really doesn’t this is just my compromise to fix what I have done wrong and leave the place a better place that I found out.
I will take a long break here that could easily go on forever. I will get the help I need, I hope.
And if things work out and we can cherish good moments again, that would be great.And one last thing;
I think there has been a problem with my approach to twitter in general; I had nothing in life. Literal nothing. No friends, a bad job. Nothing brought me joy, but then I don’t know, I felt like suddenly I had this that brought me joy, that I could be good at.
So I obsessed over it, often not working on things that I should work on. I would ask for help and get obsessed over it once again. This is literally poison that has been in my head and until I’m recovered I feel it’s better for me to leave as I said previously.
Hope that my posts until today, gave you at the very least, something to be happy about, even if it was fleeting.
Life is an amount of things,
Some good things some not so good
But they transform you into who you are today. Maybe a different, better person.
The lingering past when you have acted in a way or another, shouldn’t affect your today or yourselfIf in any given moment I committed a problem to you for me being stupid, I deeply apologize.
I will keep growing, that’s the only things about becoming a better person.Thank you and once again, sorry if I hurt you or any of your loved ones. It was never my intention.
While the apology is extense and goes into excruciating detail regarding Lulu’s alleged mental state, willingness to learn and grow from their mistakes, and name-dropping the more “famous victims”, people were dissatisfied with it regardless. One could, cynically, point to the fictional boogeyman called “cancel culture”, and say that by that point, Lulu could never convince their haters that their mistakes were over.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. There was a reason why criticism towards Lulu didn’t stop, and a good reason why the apology rang hollow:
Because it was a play at misdirection.
(trigger warning: the following section talks about harassment, sexual and otherwise)
The biggest controversy around Lulu’s apology was how they barely scratched the surface of all they did. On the contrary; behind all the arguments about theft and gaslighting, harsher stories involving Lulu started to rise to the top, such as this backup of old Discord logs featuring Lulu making unwanted advances at people. Derek from SDGC, mentioned above, also came out in defense of trans women who told them, in private, about how they had to deal with harassment from Lulu. Finally, a former friend of Lulu’s also came out with a story about how, when she was a minor, Lulu befriended her and demonstrated behavior which was both manipulative and sexually inappropriate.
The influencer would also be exposed as someone with “sociopathic tendencies”, who loved to prey on depressed people and establish emotional bonds with them, only to turn these people against each other with faked messages or misdirection.
Luulubuu’s failure to address or acknowledge these harsher, mostly criminal actions in their apology — leaving only a soulless copy-paste of your average “conscious celebrity apology” template, with a few mentions to the cases involving famous people to fake an air of sincerity — affected not only all the bystanders to this car crash, now feeling lied to, but Lulu’s victims as well, who were robbed of the apology they deserve.
However — and I know this sounds almost fake by now — this isn’t even the worst part. No, Lulu’s true nature was only just beginning to show…
PART THREE: Trip Down Memory Lane
(MASSIVE trigger warning: this entire part will cover a story which contains details of sexual harassment, physical abuse, emotional trauma, manipulation and abusive relationship patterns. This entire essay has been rather heavy so far, but this is the deep shit. Exercise caution.)
We are now in the country of Spain — or at least, a Spain of days past.
User ungatofumando, on Twitter, is about to live out her bone-chillingly tragic story as partner to an online artist called Groovyad, a.k.a. Adrián. An unfortunately very real story that she would later share on Twitter, on August 2021.
The original Twitter thread can be found here, but it is in Spanish; as such, I will post my English translation of it below for convenience. Apologies in advance for the lack of pictures or any sort of graphical diversion — I feel like this part has to be about the story, and the story only.
Well, since I can tweet now, I think it’s time I explained my relationship to all things related to luulubuu/doomgee/groovyad, and why it hits so close to home.
Many thanks to all those who have lent me support and kind words. That said, allow me to begin:
I’d written a thread before this one, but I’ve decided to go with something more succint and organized. I also don’t really need y’all to know my entire fucking life. I won’t upload any screenshots as “evidence” because I do not feel like revisiting my conversations with him; if you don’t want to believe me, feel free to do so. Here goes:
Adrián (which is this person’s real name) is a chap from the Canary Islands who would be around 30 years old now.
In 2015, when I was nearly 16 and he was around 23, we met online through a mutual friend and began a sentimental relationship.
At first, like so, all was well and normal.
I had many personal, self-related issues with the concept of love, I’m a girl who grew up faster than they should and things weren’t all right with me. And he would offer me support and sweet words which made me feel better.
However, it quickly turned sour. What followed was my feelings for him turning into emotional dependency. And he knew exactly how to explore this newly co-dependent person I became.
I’d love to be able to explain things in chronological order, but those were chaotic times and it’d be impossible. I’m sorry.
The foundation of everything I’m about to explain was his irritation with me. He knew I’d never leave him, and so every time he didn’t like something, his reaction was the same: to throw a fit. This would always include one or many of the following: insults, screaming, playing the victim, suicide threats, tell me how bad I was and/or directly ghost me.
I can also quote a few passages, such as “you’re the worst fucking shit that’s ever entered my life”, “you motherfucker”, “you should feel sick about the way you treat me”. Anyway, you get the idea.
And he would do this to get his way with me every time.
- He isolated me from all my friends, nitpicking every tweet and comment they made and starting shit. Since I had to agree with him (or else: anger), he would end up telling me “If you agree that their posts are bad, why don’t you just block them? Why engage with them?”. And I’d block them, otherwise he’d still get mad. I’d be lying to him, or being a contrarian, and that wasn’t what nice girls did. So I ended up blocking them and making them into pests along with him. And I became a loner, of course.
- He had a theory in which his ex-friends had created this entire conspiracy to accuse him and undermine all his creative affairs or plagiarize him. If I said I didn’t think they were likely to do so, it was because I was on their side, and not even his own girlfriend stood by him in life: anger.
- I was obligated to do all his social media work and YouTube channel work for him: banners, icons, memes, editing, social media and mail management, upload things precisely on time, and if I didn’t I was a bad motherfucker of a girlfriend who didn’t do anything for him.
One time I was listening via Skype to his recording of a video review and twice a few giggles escaped me because he said “caza” instead of “casa”. His answer? That I had some nerve for “a Sevillean [from Sevilla] piece of shit” like me, who “didn’t even know how to speak”, to be laughing at him.
Another time, I failed to upload a video in time because I wasn’t home, doing my own things, and he told me that “my YouTube channel doesn’t grow because of you”, because I “couldn’t even do the bare fucking minimum I had to do”. You get how it is.
- In theory, we had an open relationship, but the reality is that he would hook up with whoever he wanted to and would tell me about it in full detail, and when I did the same, he’d get irritated and tell me over and over how ugly and how much of an asshole that person seemed to be. Even though he knew nothing.
- He’d ask me to lend him money he never paid back, while buying consoles and special editions of games. He had me call, via phone, all the way from Sevilla, onto places in Tenerife to order him food delivery. I believe he still owes me 250€.
As you can imagine, he made up his own life. To this day, I believe about only 4 things out of all he told me. He’d say he had a C2 in English and Japanese, that he worked for Atlus as a translator, and that he’d get a house in Miami. You’ve all read about this, but I confirm it.
- He would use his upbringing as an excuse for acting the way he did, saying his parents mistreated him. Every time.
- He made me forge documents containing grades or registrations because he’d tell his mother he was studying, while he neither studied nor had a job. I guess it was to have her lend him money.
- One time he told me his father told his mother he wasn’t actually studying, and his response was to beat the shit outta his father. I, nervously, told him “Adrián, this is not okay”. His response: “What, scared I’ll do the same to you?”, between laughs.
- He hated being around others without getting noticed. I had no friends, and at the first party I went to in years, he dedicated himself to telling me he was going to kill himself and had me the entire party crying behind a couch.
- I should tell you that, in general, every time he’d get angry at me I’d suffer some brutal panic attacks. I’d always vomit, sometimes only pure bile due to not having anything in my stomach. At one point, I weighed 88 pounds (40 kilos) while being only five feet (1m55cm) tall. I didn’t feel hungry and I hated my life.
- He once made up an extremely elaborated tale about this “ex” that came back into his life and who he wanted to be with instead of me. He created fake accounts pretending to be her, and I believed him. To the point where I ended up falling for her. A chick who didn’t exist. This one’d be worth an entire separate thread.
- I could tell you a thousand stories, like the time I joked about him talking to an account of which he himself was the CM (“lol you’re talking to yourself, that’s funny”), and he threw a tantrum over me “humilliating him in front of everyone” and that I was “just like his detractors”.
Oh, and when he came up with a podcast, he made me draw an avatar for all the members and afterwards I learned he took all the credit for the drawings. And that it wasn’t the first time he did this with my drawings (which I, obviously, had made for free).
I could add many more to this thread. But it’s late and my brain is fried.
Overall, I’d just say he has abused me emotionally and psychologically to the point of rendering me almost nullified, alone, without contact with my family, no hobbies or time for myself, no life.
All my life I had to do what he wanted, how he wanted and when he wanted so he wouldn’t get angry. Each time he’d make up new problems and I’d take the blame, which made me clueless as to what the problem is. It was all so abstract that I’d be in constant fear of “fucking it all up” without realizing.
My life was a living fucking hell to the point that, when he’d threaten to kill himself, I’d find myself wishing he’d do it so that I could be “in peace”. Every day it was a different fight, insults, silencing, passive-aggressiveness and ghosting.
I’d be scared to go to sleep because the night was peaceful, and we were fine. I’d be scared because I knew that, the following day, things wouldn’t be okay again. Something would’ve happened to him that he’d take out on me. And he was always within his right to do so.
To this day I suffer the consequences of that relationship. Given my age, and the fact that I was still in my formative years, discovering my personality and my way of connecting with my feelings. And they all were dashed to pieces: me, my feelings, my self-esteem and my ability to connect to others.
We were together for a year and a half. I was able to leave him thanks to some friends I made in my neighborhood, friends he couldn’t reach to separate me from, and a person who supported me heavily throughout all that. Even with all that happened with me and that person afterwards, I am truly thankful to them.
Today, I’m 22 years old and I’m still scared that my partner will get angry at me, scared of not doing what they consider to be the best, of “doing things badly”, and I still feel guilty when people around me aren’t doing okay, and suffering panic attacks every time me and my partner argue.
I’ve been treating this and other many things in therapy for a year and I feel much better. I’ve learned to deal with him, and even though I have a long way to go still, I can at least have healthy relationships with the people I love.
However, during all this time, I’ve held a grudge. All this time. Every time I’d think aboiut him, my blood would boil, and I’d feel such anger in my heart that all I could do is just beat his shit over and over and over. Because he never apologized.
After I left him, we tried to stay friends, and even though I’d been conditioned to that spiral for so long, I tried telling him that he mistreated me.
He never admitted anything to me. Never apologized sincerely for anything. Not a single thing. Like I did him just as dirty. And all I wanted was that.
He simply dedicated himself to continue arguing and criticizing me until I said I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. After that, he deleted all his socials and hid behind private accounts and foreign communities where no one knew him, wearing a fake name and identity.
From that day forward I was sure I’d never hear from him again. And that I could never tell him all I kept inside, now that I’m so far away from everything. And he’d never knew the depths of my resentment, and how easy it’d be to just apologize back then. That fed my anger.
I had reached a point where my therapist advised me to assume he was dead, as part of the treatment. Because that was the only way I wouldn’t fucking die of anger thinking about how he’s been out there, living his life normally, without suffering the consequences of what he did.
And it worked until this morning, when he rose from the dead.
However, after an entire day of reading, thinking and without tweeting, I sent some choice words to a secondary account of his, and left it all behind. Perhaps this is the closure I needed.
If you made it this far, thank you. For taking in all of this, for worrying about me, and for dedicating time to know more about this person’s true identity, and how they’ve shown they learned nothing.
For the first time in around 6–7 years, I do not feel that weight in my chest anymore.
Again, thank you. And hugs.
And that is the extent of the heavy damages caused by Adrián, a.k.a. Groovyad, to his ex-partner.
Who is Groovyad, and what is his relation to Luulubuu and Doomgee? How does it all fit into what was originally the intent of this article — Luulubuu’s actions and downfall?
Believe me, I didn’t just put us through this heart-wrenching story for no reason.
PART FOUR: Connecting the Dots
Elsewhere, but still in past day Spain, user biznizmagicgirl, a.k.a. “Doomgee”, approached user iosefe on Discord. They met through a server which was also frequented by ListeninGarden — the author of one of the threads we’re using as a source for Lulu information.
Doomgee wanted to create a character, a “persona”, one that would be the star of their YouTube channel; and iosefe was to be the voice of said character. The character eventually came to life as “Lucharider”, a character who was set to be a sort of half-comical reviewer of games and the like. Along with iosefe, several other members of that server were scouted to be Lucharider’s voice. Eventually, they found a voice for Lucharider, but the character was allegedly being rebranded into a Japanese woman.
In that same Discord server, Doomgee would engage in incredibly weird behavior with other people. They were, at one point, banned from the community for it. Later, though, the name would resurface — in a way no one could predict.
Lucharider’s account had changed its name to “Luulubuu”.
While Luulubuu claimed to be a Japanese woman, a Capcom employee, and so many other things, it turns out that they were actually some dude in Spain with a bad reputation, along with some other, yet-anonymous person lending their “voice” to the project. The person who called themselves “Lulu Chiba” never actually existed.
And now that we know Lulu is actually Doomgee, what else is left?
Well, ask yourselves: who is Doomgee?
Account Overwatch Vines posted in 2016 a submission from Doomgee. The Vine is no longer available since the plataform went offline, but from that, people were able to link Doomgee and biznizmagicgirl on Discord due to biznizmagicgirl posting other Vines under the same handle. From there, a disturbing screenshot surfaced:
In the screenshot above, courtesy of user mxrblesoda2, doomgee’s account DMs another person introducing themselves as “grubi”.
Now for the final step:
In the above screenshot, also by mxrblesoda2, biznizmagicgirl (Doomgee, and by extension, Luulubuu) gives someone their PSN handle, “TomberryWW”.
This screenshot, from the same post, shows Groovyad — the abuser — posting on an online forum. Highlighted in the bottom left corner is his PSN handle… “TomberryWW”.
And we finally hop off this crazy ride.
The person known as Luulubuu, who lied, cheated and stole their way into indie studios, community management, professional editing and a Twitter verified checkmark that not even Danny DeVito managed to get, was actually Adrián, the 30-something year old ghoul who destroyed a young girl’s life.
The rabbit hole started at petty internet things, devolved into actual theft and grifting, then morphed into sexual harassment, and behind this enormous tapestry of lies, all that was left was the pitiful carcass of a “person” whose humanity was, from the very beginning, borrowed.
PART FIVE: Afterthoughts
The term “parasocial relationship” has existed since as early as the 1950’s, but it gained traction and tangential meaning with the increase in demand for online personalities — whether they be “real” or “fictional”, always tailored to a certain pattern.
In the abstract for his article “Forming Parasocial Relationships in Online Communities” (2005), Paul Ballantine, from the University of Canterbury, states the following:
Parasocial interaction theory has been used to describe the one-sided relationships that can occur between a media user and the media being consumed. Used to understand the process by which individuals form attachments to media personae, the theory may also help explain the behavior of those consumers who use Internet-based online communities. This paper provides an overview of parasocial interaction theory, and explores how parasocial interaction can affect the consumption behavior of online community users. Following a review of the extant literature, a number of research questions are outlined to help guide future research in this area.
The article in full is as interesting as it is applicable even now, but even by this very succint summary, we can understand what exactly makes a relationship “para”-social. The idea of connecting with the media character on a personal level is something that lives on gray waters, and discussions on how morally justified the existence of online personas who thrive on artificially connecting with others (such as Luulubuu) is would take ages.
What can be said is precisely what was just stated above. While pretending to be a wholesome, funny, relatable person and playing up those aspects of their costume to garner fame, Adrián hid from his crimes and used emotionally needy, innocent and/or gullible people online to cheat them into giving him the respect he felt entitled to — that his ex-girlfriend, his parents, his ex-friends, his ex-haters “wouldn’t give him”.
This one-way relationship stood to benefit no one but Adrián. Because the one thing all the stories brought up here had in common, curiously, was how every time the accusers tried to bring up what he did as Lulu, nothing would happen. “Lulu’s” fans would instantly shield them from criticism, enabling them to dodge the bullets and allowing him to bank on the image he built for himself as “uwu your friendly neighbor Lulu uwu” to deter any further attempts.
And the more bullshit he could pile up, the better — who in their right mind would believe it if someone came up to you a month ago and said “hey, just a heads-up; I saw you interact with Luulubuu, you should know they’re actually a serial abuser 30-year old man from Spain”? You’d look incredibly crazy.
The internet, and social media, is what it is. We cannot, and will not, stop liking the personalities and celebs we like until they give us a reason to do so. There can be fun in that, and I’d never want to take it away from anyone. What’s dangerous is allowing that one-sided admiration to become attachment, especially to overly-friendly influencers like that. Know that in the end, you are not friends. Not with Lulu, not with the funny Wendy’s social media manager, not with the meme-posting billionaire. An interaction between you two is, at best, a little timekill, and at worst, an attempt to leverage your value as a customer — or worse, as with Adrián’s case.
The tragic story of Luulubuu may read — rightfully so, in a way — as mere internet drama. But just like with everything in this story so far, the closer you look…
… The more you see.
