One of the many mysteries surrounding the Epstein saga is Jeffrey Epstein the man. Beyond simple hedonism, his motives seem inscrutable – and how did he make his money anyway?
The latest cache of released Epstein files has shed new light on his character. Part of what emerges is Epstein the compulsive video gamer, who was banned from online play due to abusive behavior and who liked to cruise anonymous online forums for odd genres of pornography.
A December 2013 automated email to Epstein from Xbox Live (the online multiplayer feature for the Xbox console) informed him that he had been banned from the service due to “harassment, threats, and/or abuse of other players.” Trash-talking comes with the territory with online gaming, but Cockburn would have thought that a social lion like Epstein, navigating the halls of power, might have considered the antics of “pwning n00bs” beneath him.
Even more interesting was Epstein’s use of 4chan – the infamous anonymous internet forum. In May 2017 Epstein sent his last known girlfriend Karyna Shuliak an email with the subject line “amazing animations.” Enclosed was a link to a 4chan thread featuring user-made videos of the animatronic characters from the horror video game Five Nights at Freddy’s in flagrante delicto.
He also sent Shuliak a link to “/u/,” the forum’s yuri board – yuri being a genre of Japanese anime and manga centered around lesbian relationships between female characters.
Significantly, it was revealed in this latest tranche of emails that Epstein met with the founder of 4chan Christopher Poole (who styles himself “m00t”) in October 2011, when Poole was but 23. Little about the encounter or their subsequent meetings is known, but on the day of his first audience with Epstein Poole chose to relaunch the /pol/ – “Politically incorrect” – board. For the uninitiated, /pol/ was the essential forcing house for the alt-right and for the acerbic brand of meme culture that many argue helped bring Donald Trump to power.
There are now people in American public life who often seem to imply that Epstein is the omni-cause that explains everything. Cockburn is beginning to think they have a point.
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