YouTube star Mikayla Raines dies by suicide at 29, husband blames online abuse

This is very sad. I watched some of the videos and the foxes are so cute. Her love for the animals was very strong. I wonder if the people who harassed her will be held accountable.

Who gives a shit what a bunch of complete strangers on the internet think? Instead of ending your life, stop showcasing it online. It's really that simple. There is more to this story.

Watched a couple of their videos years and years ago, but rescue foxes just aren't my thing, they're way too hyper. And I agree with r2, even her partner says there were underlying mental conditions. You don't just kill yourself over negative online comments unless you're a kid or a teenager with extremely low self-esteem.

R2 is exactly the type of asshole who encourages online bullying.

Gaurantee you r2 has never experienced online abuse. And no getting a one day time out here does not count

Who bullies an animal rescue? It's probably majority bots anyway.

Sounds like something else was going on. It's not easy to get 2.4 million subscribers.

Her husband "Ethan said that Raines had been dealing with mental health conditions for much of her life, including depression, autism, and borderline personality disorder."

Can't she report the bullies? There had to be other ways of handling this - but I think something else was going on.

Living your life in front of the camera and on the internet most of the time is absolutely NOT GOOD for someone who has mental health issues. It's too bad they couldn't find another outlet for her, before it was too late.

[Quote] Who gives a shit what a bunch of complete strangers on the internet think?

… he asked, to a bunch of complete strangers on the internet.

Why does he need to let everyone know she killed herself?

Are you serious R9????

[quote]Her husband "Ethan said that Raines had been dealing with mental health conditions for much of her life, including depression, autism, and borderline personality disorder."

Sounds like your typical far-left loon, who are mentally unstable and tend to be rabid animal activists to the point that they anthropomorphize animals and prefer them over people.

A lot of them can't handle any form of criticism, including constructive.

Also see the DL.

YouTube and all social media platforms COULD prevent bullying and misinformation - but they purposefully don't - or don't do it effectively. Why? Because it keeps the trolls engaged and it sparks outrage - which creates more engagement.

They really need to be held to a higher level of responsibility - including account management and the ability of others to 'take over' your accounts. But no - they want all of that sweet revenue with no customer service or anything else - just take the money and leave it on auto-pilot primarily.

I'm tired of online platforms allowing harassment and disinformation. It's disgusting - and yes, they can do something about it.

Look at R11's posting history.

R9, I watched her videos. She was a sensitive, caring soul who rescued mainly foxes from fur farms, but took care of other rescued animals as well. Her Finnegan fox was famous for its laugh. She did not like to make videos, she did not enjoy being in front of the camera—but it’s the best way to raise funds for her rescue.

Supposedly, there were people who trolled her, and there was a dedicated group on Reddit that made her life hell.

Instead of blaming her, blame folks who bullied her.

There was a "snark" subreddit that targeted her and her organization. They have now taken that group private (or possibly deleted all the content). They could still be investigated.

[quote]Sounds like your typical far-left loon, who are mentally unstable and tend to be rabid animal activists to the point that they anthropomorphize animals and prefer them over people.

She was apolitical and completely dedicated to the animals she rescued. It was more than a full-time job.

R11 is an unhinged MAGA foot soldier. Happy to leave that smelly turd in the "blocked" pile, I'm not missing anything intelligent.

We can just ignore obvious trolls like R11.

You can always just not put yourself on the internet.

You first, R19.

Husband Ethan's message:

R13, we all know who the pathetic, rage-filled, self-loathing asshole at r11 is.

Rather hard to do r18, when he’s completely obsessed with this forum, has multiple socks running at any time, and posts about half of the replies here

I’m always fascinated by people who dismiss animal activists as caring more for nonhuman animals than for people, as though it’s mutually exclusive. In my experience, animal activists are generally compassionate people who concern themselves with alleviating all kinds of suffering. They’re usually involved with the elderly, children or homeless.

Meanwhile the “sHE CaReD MOrE aBOUt aNIMalS tHAn PEEeeeoPLe” ones sit on their asses not doing anything for anyone.

No way you commit suicide like this without underlying mental health issues. To care what complete strangers think of you is already a mental problem. She could have avoided the internet for a period of time. Or spent her time getting revenge on the online bullies before killing herself That’s what I would have done. A sad story.

Muriel, we need a clean-up at R12! Please handle now .

r7, even with people without issues, people will usually take a mental health break after 3/4 years and usually quit after 10. I know a few early influencers who have followed this pattern.

Some of her enemies were people involved in various animal rights groups. Remember the weirdos in Tiger King? Jealousy fueled some of the hatred because she was so popular.

r25 Her mental struggles were addressed by her husband. Your lack of empathy is apparent. What you would've done is irrelevant because you would never be doing the selfless work she was doing.

[quote]No way you commit suicide like this without underlying mental health issues.

Wow. Real galaxy brain shit there.

You mean people who commit suicide aren't mentally well? SHOCKING.

Not really sure what point you're trying to make, but having mental health issues, which most of us experience from time to time, does not negate the impact of vicious trolls attacking her for no reason. It does not absolve them of their bad behavior. It certainly doesn't mean that she alone was the reason she took her own life. You're just trying to say "it was all in her head," which is ignorant in the extreme.

Depressed people exist. You would never know it because society demands that we mask our symptoms if we wish to engage with anyone else on the planet. Having depression doesn't disqualify someone from posting online. It doesn't mean when they experience the negative outcomes of their condition, that "it's their own fault" and no one else's.

Empathy is possible. Try it sometimes.

Finnegan "hehehe" Fox is a legend. He's now a senior fox, and snigger if you like, but I felt sad thinking that one day she would announce that he was gone. I never thought that she would leave this world before him (I guess no one did).

Excuse me but I think this was karma because foxes have rabies and worms.

What does the fox say?

I think the husband killed her.

R34 Bullshit

This one is just very sad. I loved the Finnegan Fox videos during the Covid pandemic years ago.

Sounds like she had a lot of pre-existing mental health issues.

This guy is a piece of work. I have no sympathy for her. She decided to stay online. I’m not about to feel sorry for autistic retards who claim to have 10 million imaginary diseases thanks to TikTok diagnosing them. These two sound like narcissistic nutters. Classic Zoomer behavior. He sounds like a male Greta Thunberg.

Social media is a pox

R37 and?

You think her issues were imaginary R38? Big news if true

People who have wild animals as pets are weirdos, anyway. They desperately need to be seen as special.

The fact that she collected foxes and had them live in her house reveals a lot.

Her death does show how depression isn’t always related to your “outsides” or circumstances. She was a physically beautiful white lady with a spouse and child, who founded and ran a charity. But none of that was enough to make life bearable [bold]: (.

He definitely killed her.

[quote]People who have wild animals as pets are weirdos, anyway. They desperately need to be seen as special.The fact that she collected foxes and had them live in her house reveals a lot.

The foxes were not "pets." She rescued them--often with much effort--from the utterly inhumane conditions under which they were kept in fur farms. She gave these animals a good life on the large piece of land she and her family owned and occupied in Minnesota, where they could (can) live and play together. The foxes are kept in spacious enclosures during the night and are free to roam the grounds in the daytime. She rarely let the foxes into her house, with the exception of some of the smaller species of fox (such as the sand fox), and then still only occasionally. SaveAFox was as sincere and admirable a "passion project" as you'll ever find. Feel free to criticize Mikayla, by all means, but you should at least know what you're talking about.

This is so tragic. I followed their channel and was so impressed with their work. They have a little girl too.

I saw a post about them on Reddit claiming there was basically a whole industry of bullies going after her all the time. I can believe it. She was doing such good work rescuing animals — mostly but not all foxes — who was she hurting?! Their operation looked very professional and well run and the foxes were so well cared for.

There is nothing positive in this world that won’t get shitted on.

This was the last video I saw from them. Finnegan breaks into their house after dark.

According to the comments on r46's link the main harasser has been doxxed and it's this guy. Googling him shows that he's also a furry:

“Underlying mental illness” and “YouTube star” pretty much go hand in hand. But my condolences to the foxes.

That’s sad when somebody who’s actually something good dies.

I can’t help but wonder if some of the Reddit trolls have made their way here.

“Mikayla”? Her parents couldn’t spell?

Go fuck yourself, R51.

Sorry but maybe she killed herself because she regretted having a child while in reality, she just wanted pets.

[quote]“Underlying mental illness” and “YouTube star” pretty much go hand in hand.

The videos were all about the animals, though. She didn't put herself in the spotlight. She was not that kind of person. She was a wildlife rehabilitator and knew from a very young age that this was what she wanted to do.

Beautiful photo spread in National Geographic from 2019:

R53, it was her husband’s from a previous relationship.

If your mental state tells you that you can't handle life, that you can't deal with it, that you are suffering and can't find a way beyond it, then you basically are not strong enough to be alive... then you are by design too weak to exist.

While she's done some nice things, in the scheme of time, you have to ask whether her lack of strength advances the evolutionary pool in the right direction. Her own choice shows that she eliminated a seriously faulty gene in our evolutionary progress.

Sometimes all you can do is hit the F&F button.

One of those foxes mauled her. And the husband is lying about it.

A copy of the asshole’s post on Reddit. It’s on Imgur, sorry. And, yes, he’s a furry.

He sounds nervous. Good.

R54 I have no idea who she is and I couldn’t care less. “YouTube star” are the first two words of this thread title and the article cited. If what you are saying is true, then that is a poorly written article.

R61: it's just a clickbait headline. Raines's fox rescue in Minnesota preceded her social media channels. She was a wildlife rehabilitator who happened to also be successful on social media, even though that was by no means her favorite part of her work.

KazeoLion is a tranny and a bestiality nutcase with a preference for cat genitalia. No I didn't make that up. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a pedo as well. That seems to be the unholy trinity for reddit ghouls.

5 seconds of googling to find he made pregnancy fetish art (along with wanting to fuck his cat which we already knew). Trannies like him treat fetish like it's a drug addiction. That woman shouldn't have ever had to encounter this thing online.

No doubt he is a freak. But the YouTuber is not forced to interact with him, if she doesn't want to deal with him she could have closed her channel.

Didn't *

R56, yeah, and your fellow conservatives said homosexuality was "unnatural" because we couldn't advance the gene pool

The eugenicist at R56 was a very easy block.

I want to start by saying, any animal saved is a win AND I am saddened by her suicide.

She had a shitload of issues. How do you think the zoophile furry likely found her? She had an only fans where she did porn and posted nudes with close contact with the animals. Not including or molesting the animals but posing buckass hugging the animals. I have an issue with that. Did she deserve to be driven to suicide for that. absolutely not.

She bought almost all the animals and charged a fair bit to surrender an animal to her. Her husband drives a $400,000 car. Just not great optics. She sells the 'rescue' animals to completely unqualified adopters. People with no yards or in apartments have no place getting wildlife.

She was a borderline hoarder unfortunately and, speaking of borderline, had borderline personality disorder and the accompanying issues. There were what I considered a bit too high number of 'accidents' and coverups.

As with many rescues, she toed the line between legitimate rescue and hoarding nightmare in the making. I have complicated feelings about her but I am sorry she killed herself. Despite all her issues she seemed to frequently have her heart in close to the right place.

Jeez she sounds like a mess. No doubt she drove herself to suicide with so many issues.

[quote]I think the husband killed her.

I hate that this was my thought when I watched his video. Either way, it's sad.

[quote] KazeoLion is a tranny [...] I wouldn't be surprised if he was a pedo as well.

She. Born female, identifies as male.

Not the same thing by any means, but DL has had its own version of "snark" threads over the years, created purely to ridicule whoever the target is of the posters' contempt. It's OK if it's "punching up" and focuses on successful celebrities like Nicholas Galitzine or Sam Mendes (who will likely never see its content), but there used to be unsavory threads here titled "The Contract is Up!". These threads, which ran for a few years, made fun of both Stewart and Pattinson and of a message board started by a clearly mentally unstable frau type who fantasized about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson being a genuine couple and raising a secret baby together. The threads kept tabs on her and her followers and of course mocked them relentlessly. I peeked in once or twice because I was puzzled by the thread title, and the posters didn't seem like "regular" DLers to me. It wouldn't surprise me if those posters left messages on that board and harassed that women, a la "Kiwi Farms."

R62 You may probably be right. But this comes from NBC news. So if they are now “click baiting” by altering stories, that is sadder than her suicide on a grander scale.

R73 It's not really altering the story, because"YouTube star" is technically accurate (she had several million followers). It just doesn't tell the *whole* story ('reductive', as Madonna might have said).

Do you have proof R69/R-C? I usually like your posts, but I find it crazy that she had an only fans. She frequently showed the inside of her house and the living quarters of the foxes, it didn’t look like hoarding. The foxes looked clean, well fed, and had toys. I realize I only saw the official YouTube videos, but an only fans with the foxes?

r75

haha, wrong link, damn phone

and for example

R55: the kid was definitely hers. She even posed while pregnant in one of the pics linked by rescue-chick.