Trial-by-internet: Beauty guru lashes out against rapist dad

Warning: The above video contains content that may be disturbing to some people.

Brie Lybrand, a YouTube beauty guru from New Orleans, is usually bubbly and upbeat when she posts a video. This week instead of her usual makeup tutorial, Brie posted a video reacting to an email from YouTube indicating that the man she says raped her as a child started subscribing to her videos. That man, she says, is her father.

“When someone subscribes to you, if you have your notifications set, it tells you. It sends you a little email,” says Brie in her video, “Well, I just got an email, saying that the man that raped me for the most of my life subscribed to me.”

The video is twelve minutes long. Her pain is heart-wrenching as she details nine years of pain and torture. Halfway through, she shows us how she keeps her sanity even though she is constantly afraid that her father will come back and hurt her: her gun collection.

One way viewers can see this video is as a young woman taking back her security after the most terrible experience of her life.

While the first reaction is an outpouring of sympathy for this young survivor, some YouTube commenters acknowledge that she is an aspiring actress and could just be trying to get attention.

“I think I became an actor because I had to escape my reality,” says Brie.

Should we be skeptical?

“I don’t know what it would be, for extra hits, her acting reel,” says Jake. “It looks real to me.”

Dori believes this woman, but thinks there are bigger problems with the video. Everywhere the video has been re-posted online, commenters have copied down the contact information for a man with the same name as her father. They ask readers to call him at his office phone. It could be the same man, but it could be someone completely innocent and unrelated.

From this story it seems that anyone can post an individual’s contact information on the Internet and get an instant reaction from angry readers: a trial by Internet.

If she is faking, she is the best actress in the world – and a terrible person.