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David D'Amato is dead

Comfort Eagle

Level of Cherry Feather
Joined
Apr 21, 2003
Messages
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David D'*****, the subject of Kiwi-made hit documentary Tickled, has died.

His obituary was published in the New York Times on Saturday (NZ time). He died on March 13, the cause at this stage unknown.

In a statement, Tickled directors David Farrier and Dylan Reeve said Mr D'***** had "been a part of our lives for around three years now - a very unusual three years".

"Despite the various lawsuits he brought against us, this news is something that brings us no joy, and has hit us pretty hard."

The film alleges Mr D'*****, over the course of a couple of decades, tricked young men into making fetish tickling videos.

"It is… clear he had certain troubles, and those are troubles that we hoped he would come to terms with at some point," said Farrier and Reeve.

"While making Tickled we always thought it was important to portray David D'***** not just as an online bully, but as a person. That is why the closing minutes of Tickled are so important to us - an insight into D'*****, the person.

"Ultimately we'll never know all the things that made David the man he was. Like all of us, he was complex and complicated.

"So we ask you to keep in mind that while David appears to have lived a fairly solitary life, he did have friends and family members. We ask that in comments online, and out there in the real world, you treat this information, and this man's passing, with respect."

Tickled screened at the prestigious Sundance festival, and was later picked up by HBO and Magnolia Pictures. It received critical acclaim, was long-listed for an Academy Award and currently has a 94 percent 'fresh' rating on movie website Rotten Tomatoes.

Mr D'***** was 55.

Previous to making Tickled, Farrier was a reporter with 3 News, which later became part of Newshub.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2017/03/david-d-*****-subject-of-tickled-has-died.html
 
Oh apparently the auto-censor kills the link.

Google 'Tickled subject dead', you'll find it.
 
Wasn't the auto censor used so that that guy wouldn't sue the forum because.....reasons...

Now that he's dead, can they breathe a sigh of relief and undo that function?

(There's so much behind the scenes mystery that has been in place for decades about this guy, I think that's the reason that feature exists on the forum. Maybe now the FULL behind the
scenes story in a future LONG ASS post can come out now about all of it.....)
 
I can't find it in me to have any sadness or celebration at this news. He was a troubled person.
 
So I guess he'll just be remembered as "a weird dude"? I just stopped watching a chunk of that confrontation video where he's trying to define what his content was by strict porn definitions.
 
So I guess he'll just be remembered as "a weird dude"? I just stopped watching a chunk of that confrontation video where he's trying to define what his content was by strict porn definitions.

To call him a "dude" is to disparage the concept of dudeness. :)

I think he will be remembered as someone whose fetish was so overwhelmingly consuming and destructive that it defined who he was.
 
I guess by "dude" I just meant he didn't come across like the monster the community's portrayed him as. Like a regular guy.

I can see the whole self-destruction thing but I guess that happens if you look at the general picture too closely for too long. I mean, I know guys who want to make bitstrips style cartoon series but don't want to learn simpler concepts like learning to draw/photocopy vs sequence every frame.

I think he teaches a valuable lesson: if you want to get popular, don't try one area, diversify.
 
I guess by "dude" I just meant he didn't come across like the monster the community's portrayed him as. Like a regular guy.

I can see the whole self-destruction thing but I guess that happens if you look at the general picture too closely for too long. I mean, I know guys who want to make bitstrips style cartoon series but don't want to learn simpler concepts like learning to draw/photocopy vs sequence every frame.

I think he teaches a valuable lesson: if you want to get popular, don't try one area, diversify.

Good advice! I haven't and won't see the film, but I was there when he was doing his thing. I'm surprised he was portrayed as a regular guy, because he was pretty monstrous.
 
It kind of reminds me of situations like in education the student focusing so hard on the difficult math problems that he didn't end up connecting the rudiments together to solve the easy ones. That sort of spurgery.

It wasn't like in his memoriam they weren't able to recall good things he did. He was just fucking odd.

I haven't watched either, but I gave the confrontation video a fair shake because that's what this seems to have been leading up to.
 
Wow.

Well, that happened.

You honestly don't recall all the threads on social awkwardness that were brought up here? I mean, he was a lawyer who happened to be well versed in blackmail. With a focus on tickling. You think all the wiring connected well? I don't, just looking at him.
 
(There's so much behind the scenes mystery that has been in place for decades about this guy, I think that's the reason that feature exists on the forum. Maybe now the FULL behind the
scenes story in a future LONG ASS post can come out now about all of it.....)

I'd imagine he just threatened TMF with what he ended up attacking Farrier and Reeve with. They said they were being hit with suit after suit that they really were only able to dismiss because of studio and HBOs backing. Presumably TMF is ran by normal, middle class men who would have been fucked up pretty good by even obviously baseless court proceedings.
 
Wasn't the auto censor used so that that guy wouldn't sue the forum because.....reasons...

Now that he's dead, can they breathe a sigh of relief and undo that function?

(There's so much behind the scenes mystery that has been in place for decades about this guy, I think that's the reason that feature exists on the forum. Maybe now the FULL behind the
scenes story in a future LONG ASS post can come out now about all of it.....)

Yes and yes. I'm so glad that fat asshole is gone.

Years and years ago, after he got out of jail, he sued a bunch of Internet companies including Google and Yahoo, for five million dollars. Among those named were me personally and the company that was hosting the TMF at the time. Nobody wants to be sued for five million dollars, but I wasn't that worried because it was an obviously ridiculous suit.

But our hosting company wanted no part of it. I got a call at about 8:30 AM one day from their lawyer who said I had four hours to take down the TMF. It wouldn't have been a huge deal, just a few days of downtime while we found a new host, but who needs that headache? So I said "What if I just put his name and alias into my spam filter, and make it impossible to have discussions about him on my site? Would that satisfy you?"

They agreed, so that's what I did, and that's why he's been on the blocked list for so long. Eventually we changed hosts anyway, but I kept the policy in place because there was no reason not to, and I didn't want to provoke more harassment from him. Especially since he seemed to be growing more unhinged over time.
 
Sorry, even though I don't like to hear about someone dying relatively young, I feel no remorse for this jerk. Perhaps he was a tortured soul, but he was also a rich entitled sociopath who tried to ruin people financially and emotionally. Plus he was downright creepy. Good riddance.
 
This may be a thread to shut down, just because.... (I am aware of the background)
 
Hope he put a bullet through his head.

Guy was a piece of shit. It's clear if you watch the documentary to just what lengths he was willing to go to destroy the lives of others. In truth, I hope he suffered as he died. The fact that the obituary is all hush hush makes it seem pretty clear, especially since he had enough money to scrub away stuff like that from getting out, that this wasn't natural causes.

Again, think of the people who had their lives ruined by his sociopathy. People can talk about troubled this, or say "I take no joy", but they should. The guy was a piece of filthy disgusting shit. I'm glad his life was ruined so much by the release of this documentary that he literally secluded himself and decided to take his own life.

Can't sue when you're six feet under, Davey. Suffer in Hell.
 
When obituaries say "die unexpectedly", it's generally a suicide. Or murder. I'd kind of laugh if ol Schillaci made good on his vague threats from the doc and killed him.
 
The real life tickling supervillain is gone, I can't believe it. Next we'll hear he died after laughing too hard.
 
This may be a thread to shut down, just because.... (I am aware of the background)

This is the thread that most probably WON'T be shut down by the moderators, since THEY were the ones at ground zero dealing with the stress and evil this man was putting them through
for decades, when most of us didn't even know or knew scant information.

I all honestly, they've probably waited forever for this to happen.

This thread inherently poses a question - do you ever deal with truly vile, evil people, and don't you wish them dead/gone/jailed/fired?

I certainly have. The bullying student or co-worker who is NEVER going away, who can do WHATEVER they want and the school or boss just lets them, when other people
would be fired or expelled for WAY far less? They can act like a maniac, break rules, physically hurt people, be rude as shit to customers, tried to get people fired, and the leadership
just looks he other way.....

The shitty evil neighbor who makes the neighborhood unlivable? Don't you wish that motherfucker would just go away, die, get arrested, leave town, SOMETHING!

I'm pretty sure that's how they felt all these years with his threats hanging over there head, and they not being to do anything about it.
 
Fuck that guy. He was the fantasy freak that made every single one of us look bad, and had enough of his parent's money to become that guy we all subconsiously fear could destroy our community from the inside out. He was the very literal personification of everything that we detest - mental illness or not. I'm glad there are people in this thread who are big enough to say that they are neither happy or sad about this news - I'm super stoked. Rot in hell, you dehumanizing piece of crap.
 
You honestly don't recall all the threads on social awkwardness that were brought up here? I mean, he was a lawyer who happened to be well versed in blackmail. With a focus on tickling. You think all the wiring connected well? I don't, just looking at him.

What he did had nothing to do with social awkwardness. He was a predator. If exposure of his actions were the catalyst for his death, it's ironic. I don't take any pleasure in his death, but gets no pity from me, either. He was a creep who used fake identity and a dead girl's picture to lure young men, and then blackmailed them to keep his actions, his identity, and his own sexual orientation secret, and used his family's money to stay out of trouble.

This story mentions just one of his victims: https://mycitypaper.com/articles/040501/cb.onmedia.shtml From the article:

"But TerriTickle’s sadism was not limited to video. She/he regularly retaliated (using "Internet weapons of mass destruction") against anyone who complained about her activities, or tried to end their association with her, as in the case of the then-18-year-old Drexel student who tried to terminate their online relationship.

Although the FBI’s press release does not mention the Terri DiSisto alias, Samantha Martin of the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed the connection: "In the statement of facts given orally at the time of the plea, it was stated to the court that the defendant used the female persona, Terri DiSisto."

According to Martin, D’Amato is an assistant principal at a high school on Long Island, NY. The school’s website also lists D’Amato as director of guidance. When reached at his office, D’Amato declined to comment on the charges.

"I can’t talk to you about it at all, not a word," D’Amato said. "That’s not something that I’m prepared to discuss. My name is David D’Amato — I’m not in a position to discuss anyone named Terri DiSisto."

The Drexel student, who has since moved to the Boston area, expressed relief that his tormenter has finally been brought to justice. Ironically, the student recalled that while he was a high school senior in 1996, DiSisto/D’Amato had threatened to send the then 17-year-old student’s videos to his high school assistant principal, in this e-mail message: "I will be returning all of your videos to you tomorrow… courtesy of your AP at [his] High School…I want nothing more to do with you ever again…. You are unreachable…a total shit…a self-centered, ego-maniacal little FAG…a girly boy without a set of balls…Life is gonna fucking CRUCIFY you…"

The student plans to attend D’Amato’s July sentencing and may apply for restitution.

"It’s finally over," he said. "Not only is the mystery of who this person was solved, but also the specter of further harassment by this person is over."


This was not a case of social awkwardness. He was a sick fuck who couldn't deal with his own impulses, so he punished others for fulfilling them.
Without the tools of the internet, he might have been another John Wayne Gacy.
 
I don't take any pleasure in his death, but gets no pity from me, either.

This seems exactly right to me. I wouldn't gloat about anybody's death, even Hitler's. But if maladjustedness ever could stretch into evil - if it's ever appropriate to call anybody "evil" - it was true of D D'A. The more of his story one knows, the harsher one's judgment on him.

David and Dylan's post is a model of grace and class. As for me: we don't know how he died, but if it was suicide, I honor him for his one good deed - making the world a better place by his absence.
 
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