pirate_anon

Wannabe-Matrixite Cultists:
Tyler Durden and Neo’s Rise

Tyler Durden is the headmate of the narrator of Fight Club.
He runs a soap business, along with the underground titular fight
clubs. Draven’s Tyler rarely appears, mostly inspiring little things
behind the scenes.

As for Neo, he stays busy during Constantine and House's
tenure. 2004 was the start of his cult; 2005-2006 was his rise.
Somewhere around this time, under the name K.
"Thomas" Draven, Neo starts up Zero-One Web Design (Draven,
Unknown Date D). It gives only two examples of past work for
clients, and all are mediocre to poor at best. Neo can't bear to let
go of his neon-green-on-black color scheme even when
inappropriate, such as on a skateboarding movie site, and the
scrolling icons are obnoxious and distracting. There aren’t even
margins; the text runs from edge to edge of the browser windows.
Why use these shoddy examples as a work portfolio? Because
they may very well be the only examples of Neo's work.

According to ex-followers, Neo rarely worked for long, and his
posts and theirs are full of his requests for money. His
freelancer.com profile shows an 85% completion rate, and an ex-
follower reported having to finish one of those gigs for him. All
of Neo’s ten reviews come from only four people, ranging from
roughly October 2005 to July 2006 (Draven, Unknown E).

Judging by the numbers, it’s possible that Neo may have only
done thirteen jobs, and not completed three of them. The
highest paying of those gigs is for roughly $150.

So mostly, Draven is dependent on others: followers,
relatives, and Trinity's SSI payments. As someone who is on
disability myself, I know from experience that SSI payments are
only about $700 a month, so when Neo claims, “I have a job, and
Trin makes almost more than I do,” that’s disingenuous at best
(personal communication, 2006 April 29); they’re barely clinging
to the poverty line and constantly in financial trouble. An ex-
follower reports how vital a patron was to their survival: “they
have a history of escapist behavior. All they needed was someone
to fund everything so they wouldn't have to work, or deal with
the ‘real world’ more than was absolutely necessary. In Maine,
this was his [Draven’s] Aunt and Grandparents" (personal
communication, 2006 April 6).

By March 2005, when Constantine appears, things with
Smith I are getting rocky. An ex-follower explains, "Draven
wanted Smith 24/7, and that meant [being] on AIM chat or LJ as
much as Draven could twist his/her/their arm to do so. I'm sure
there was no resentment about it at the beginning, but [Smith]
had an IRL life, job, school, responsibilities. And the cult
situation nearly imploded those" (personal communication,
2017).

Finally, Smith I bolts. "S/he abruptly left the group on
April 7th, 2005, citing that [Draven] was controlling and
emotionally abusive," an ex-follower writes (personal
communication, 2006 September 26). "In our conversations,
[Smith I] told me that relationship with [Draven] also caused her
to miss a great deal of school, effectively setting her back one
semester towards getting her bachelors' degree [...] [Draven] also
told us that [Smith I]'s RL boyfriend discovered her online
relationship and threatened breakup/Bona-Fide Catholic Church
exorcism of the SmithBond if she didn't cut off all ties with
[Draven], [who] frequently snarked and scoffed about her
decision to maintain her real life instead of sacrificing everything
for some guy she met on the internets" (ibid).

Indeed, Neo does not handle the break-up well. "In late
May 2005," the ex-follower continues, "[Smith I] started emailing
me about alleged harassment that she was recieving [sic] on LJ
and across other forums, supposedly from [Draven] and [Trinity]
and certain cronies of theirs [...] I didn't want to believe it was
them [...] until [Smith I] traced the IP to a connection in a suburb
of Seattle, address and everything. I hadn't told her that they'd
moved."

In August 2005, when Smith I creates an Agent Smith
Community on Suddenlaunch, Neo and his followers bombard
her with threats to sue her and take the community down. An
intrepid ex-follower is able to track the threat to one of Draven’s
current followers—Matrix, the follower Trinity will later berate
for not being near the phone during Draven’s heart attack. The
threat reads, "Karma coming back to bite you in the ass, was all
ofthis [sic] sh*t being smeared on Fandom Wank. […] This board
[is] being reported to the Suddenlaunch administrators because
these so-called 'cult leaders' - recent local friends of mine -
happen to run a 501(c) not-for-profit corporation, filed under
charitable and philisophical [sic] purposes. Neo also happens to
co-run a martial arts academy affiliated with the corporation"
(ex-follower communication, 2005 April 28). The rest are eight
paragraphs of personal attacks on such topics as Smith I’s ego,
artistic output, and sense of victimization.

I'll cover the nonprofit status and the dojo/monastery
later; right now, let’s focus on the threat’s first statement. I don't
know what Fandom Wank post the threat references; I couldn't
find it. However, I did find two Fandom Wank posts that Neo
and his followers made in retaliation with the intent of trolling
Smith I (Littlebottom, 2005; Crowd, 2005a and b). Apparently
Neo sees turnabout as fair play.

The first Fandom Wank post involves too much link rot
for me to make much sense of it, so I'll be focusing on the later
post by Crowd. Crowd admits, "I am on Neo's friends list, and he
is on mine. Likewise I am a member of his LJ community, which I
joined a while ago with an eye toward possibly becoming
involved before deciding that it was not in fact for me." Thus
assured of their impartiality, Crowd goes on to mock Smith I for
"her position that she was under attack from a 'cult' whose
members were dedicated, I say, positively DEDICATED to tearing
her down." She calls Smith I a "fanfic author," never mentioning
the true relationship between Neo and Smith I, or the ensuing
break-up.

In the guise of mocking Smith I for paranoia, Crowd
straightforwardly lays out exactly what Neo and his cult have
done to her. They post a letter Smith I sent to the members of
their community, which reads:

"This cult-like group who has been harassing us recentky
[sic] is lead by two individuals, a transgendered 29-year-old
woman [REDACTED] Brennan who claims to be 'Neo' from the
Matrix Trilogy and [his] fiancee, a 23-year-old woman
[REDACTED], who claims to be 'Trinity'. 'Neo' and 'Trinity'
claim to be Neo and Trinity from The Matrix Trilogy - and are
100% serious. 'Neo' and 'Trinity' are partners and live in
Washington State..."

All of this is true, except that Neo is a trans man, not a
trans woman (2008 September 26a, paragraph 31). But that is
likely an error in language, not understanding.

Smith I continues on to say, "When someone leaves their
cult, 'Neo' and 'Trinity' take it very personally and become
enraged and attack them, and order people in the cult to do so as
well. It was a peace loving and enlightment [sic] seeking group
once, but now turned into a group who are harassing people who
left them, including me and our Agent Smith Community and
memebrs [sic] as well" (Crowd, 2005b).

I somewhat doubt that the group was ever truly peace-
loving or enlightenment-seeking, but the rest is accurate enough.
Angel sicced friends on all three Buffys after their respective
break-ups, Neo tried to turn the whole soulbonding community
against Ellen when she fled, and now Crowd is harassing Smith I.
The earlier threat to shut down the Agent Smith forum is written
specifically as punishment for calling Neo a cult leader and
discussing him on Fandom Wank!

Crowd even makes a point to say that Neo gave his
permission for this Fandom Wank post, quoting him saying,
"please go crazy. FW is the place for this insanity." And Neo is
proud enough of this to specifically request his legal name be
posted with it! "My only stipulation is this: if you do, please
included [sic] a tiny blurb about how we ARE an above-the-
board non-profit group... and how my name isn't '[REDACTED]'.
[o_O, legally, it's Kurt Draven, until I change it. Kurt Anthony
Draven, in point of fact." He even appears in the comments
anonymously to reiterate this information, making his stance
crystal clear.

For such a short statement, there are a lot of
disingenuousness and lies packed into here. Let’s dig in.
First of all, yes, right before the Fandom Wank explosion,
Neo founded an honest-to-god church, Veritas Zero-One. In
August 2005, it gained nonprofit status (Washington Secretary of
State, unknown), but Draven did not pay for the process; a
follower supplied the money (ex-follower personal
communication, 2006 October 1). That follower showed concern
about it at the time, remembering, "To satisfy my own worries, I
had [Neo] state again that the organization would be in name
only and would only be used to add leverage to the message
when necessary, as I was not actually convinced that it was a
good idea" (ibid). Then, "I discovered that [Neo] was flaunting
his nonprofit organization status as if it made him somehow
superior to his detractors. I hadn't seen him at his worst before
then, and I was infuriated by how he made no attempt at all to
rise above the stings to his pride and practice what he preached."

So for Neo to claim he's a reputable nonprofit is highly
misleading. The person who donated $300 to make it happen
specifically requested he not use it as a beating stick. In fact, they
left for_zion not long after, in part due to him going back on his
word! So that is nonsense.

And it's true, Draven's legal name is currently Kurt
Anthony Draven. But it wasn't always; as stated previously, that
name seems to have been chosen as a composite of system
members at the time. Robin Brennan wasn't their birth name
either; that was apparently Robin Hood. I went and looked up
his high school graduating class, and sure enough, the name that
Smith I gives is listed as a name who graduated the same year as
"Kurt Brennan Draven" (citation available upon request). The
whole school had roughly 800 students, so the idea that Smith I
could somehow confuse Draven with another student who
attended the exact same school and had the exact same age and
last name stretches credulity.

If he was truly worried about his identity being spilled,
Neo easily could've asked Crowd not to post it on fandom_wank
and i_wank. He could’ve chosen not to wade into the comments
and post his full legal name a second time. But instead, he is so
determined to make Smith I look hysterical and disturbed that
he tries to spin the whole thing as her lying, when in fact, he's the
one lying about everything! Ironically, I probably never would've
known his original name if he hadn't been so dogged about
drawing attention to it!

And that’s not all. Draven will not just use their legal
name as fuel to gaslight, stalk, and harass an ex, but they will then
whip right back around and claim that if anyone actually
mentions this name, or the post referencing it, then Draven is the
true victim of stalking, doxxing, and harassment, not Smith I! By
this logic, his spraying his personal information everywhere is a
legitimate defense against being harassed, while posting Smith I’s
information everywhere is totally deserved self-defense.
It’s not the first time Draven do this. Years later, they post
their state ID publicly on their Livejournal; they censored out
their first name, but their last and middle name are still clearly
visible (2008 December 15). It’d be one thing if they were young
when they did these things, but they were twenty-seven at the
time of the Fandom Wank post, thirty when they posted their
state ID.

To boggle the mind even further, in posting Smith I's letter
in its entirety, Crowd ends up also posting the links to Smith I's
evidence. Most of it has been deleted or lost so much context as
to be incomprehensible, but one post contains comments where
an anonymous jerk flames Smith I with, "Some of us […] are
getting really dam [sic] sick of seeing your posts plastered
everywhere [...] It's become a waste of my time" (Anonymous,
2005 May 30). When Smith I responds, "Then, you'll just have to
skip reading my posts, don't you Neo?" A different commenter
comes back with, "I hate to tell you this, but that IP is coming
from Washington, not New York," to which Smith I replies, "And
Washington state is exactly where you and 'Trinity' moved to,
'Neo'. Now. Leave me alone. Stop harassing me." The mysterious
Washington anonymous disappears.

On the whole, Crowd's post is merely a prolonged act of
reality distortion, in the guise of mocking Smith I, and the
commenters seem to agree. One named ecchaniz0r says, "Let's
see. Wannabe-Matrixite Cultists versus singular ficcesr [sic]. The
asshats making the INTARWEB SUE U threats are the fappers
here" (Crowd, 2005 August 29b). The community turns on
Crowd, and Draven will come to deeply regret posting their legal
identity on a community devoted to mocking weird people.

Despite the flaming and public shaming, Smith I is the
lucky one. They get away from Draven, make a clean start, and
from what I've heard, devote themselves to charitable works. For
all Neo's mockery, they achieve more than he ever will--and on
some level, Neo is aware of it. "Smith cared," an ex-follower told
me personally (2017). "Smith was our real leader. [Neo] never got
over that, and never got over his paranoia that he might be losing
followers to Smith's camp daily, even months after Smith 'left.'"
Years, as a matter of fact, seeing as Draven brings it up two years
later in his “Article to End All Articles” on Truth of the Spoon
(DK, 2007).

Smith I may have left, but Trinity stays, and Draven treats
her abominably. Just two months after Crowd’s explosive post
and Angie’s miscarriage, Trinity posts, "Week before last, Neo and
I were having a really bad fight. The stress of our lives was getting
to the both of us, and not really having anyone else to vent at, we
were venting at each other in that way that only people who love
each other more than anything else can. We screamed and yelled
and made each other cry in heartbreak" (2005 October 13). After
"three days of non-stop fighting," Trinity leaves Neo, only to end
up going back. "A few days later, a cop showed up at our door,"
she writes (ibid). "They had been sent by someone to do a
wellness check on me... *eyeroll* Not going into it. We were
worried that they might have been there for another reason that
I'm also not going into. Don't worry, nothing anyone needs to be
concerned with. Neo sent me into the bathroom and told me not
to come out."

Strip away the emotions, the talk of love and stress and
feelings, and you have a woman describing three days of being
screamed at, to the point that she leaves and the cops are called,
and then being sent to hide in the bathroom. Not to mention
that "other reason" that Trinity mentions, which is the date with
the Kitsap Superior Court over that charge of "unlawful detainer"
(Goldberg, 2005). This might be the first time that she gets
dragged into court over Draven, but it’s far from the last.

Six months after Smith I’s departure, Trinity starts
channeling her own Smith (2005 October 7). As far as I can tell,
Neo treats him exactly the same as the first Smith, and they
continue their kinky Jungian shadow relationship as though the
partners are identical. They fulfill the same metaphysical needs
Draven expect from all their doms: "Neo and Smith were always
the Balance. The Yin and the Yang. The Dark and the Light. The
One and The Zero. The Beginning and the End," Trinity writes
(ibid). "The two of them complete each other 'literally' [...] they
have sex and are probably the most functional gay couple that I
know [...] they are naturally perfectly balanced to begin with."

Even as she writes this, Draven, Trinity, and Demos are in
the process of getting evicted due to the unlawful detainer case
and John Constantine spending the rent money on tattoos.
Trinity reports their plan to head back to Maine on October 9th,
but “we're about two hundred dollars short for our train tickets
[...]. We've sold everything we have [...] I know that we're guided
by the Source, but we're still not in great situation here."

Over time, Draven will claim multiple times that they
never solicit donations and make no money from Neo’s Mission
(DK 2007, Chapter 6 “In Summation,” paragraph 16; personal
communication 2006 April 29). This is codswallop. Sometimes
they ask outright (2008 September 26a and b). Other times, they
have Trinity do it (2008 November 19a; 2017, May 29). Most of
the time, though, they don’t have to; they and Trinity will merely
report being on the edge of financial disaster and followers,
caring for their friend and leader's welfare, will offer money,
web-hosting, their cars, and their homes. Neo thereby gets
money without the indignity of outright asking, but it's splitting
hairs to act as though he's not relying on that generosity. One ex-
follower reports, “I had $300.00, which I sent them. They used
this to get a hotel room. When I got paid again, I sent them
another $500.00, which was supposed to be for train tickets back
to Maine....except that they didn't get on the train, because [Neo]
‘was sick.’ [Trinity] would call every other day asking for still
more money, which I sent. Finally, I got a loan and sent them
$800.00 - most of which they blew, the rest of which they used
for bus tickets down to Dallas, since they'd used too much to
make it to Maine. I later found that most of this money had gone
to finance [Neo]'s vicodin habit” (personal communication, 2006,
March 26).

The household is happy for the “voluntary donations.”
They move to Dallas, and move in with a follower named Seven.
The crew starts proselytizing quickly; in December,
Trinity posts that the whole household is “putting together fliers
to leave/pass out places around the DFW [Dallas-Fort Worth]
area" (2005, December 17b). She urges followers to do the same,
saying, "this doesn't have to be a major thing. Just slip a stack of
cards or whatever into your school bags, purses or wallets and
put them up while you're out and about. If all of you could just
do this a couple of times... there would be breadcrumbs for
people all over the country to find... Maybe even all over the
world if we got EVERYONE involved."

What do these cards and fliers look like? I don't have
images, but I have found slogans from rough drafts back in April.
(Demos, 2005 April 23). One is made up almost entirely of
recycled song lyrics from Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of
One, reading,

"The Power of 'One'..."
"Begins with believing;
'Then starts in the heart'
'flows through the soul'
'and changes the world.'"
'BE that One...'

Another says,

"I've talked to him...
Thomas Anderson."
'After the battle I call'
'"One plus negative one"'
'he is here and has taken'
'up the sword for us all'
'to fight a silent war in this world.'"
(Quotation marks not added; there are so many I just left
them as is.)

The Pokémon lyrics become prophetic, but more on that
in Tony’s chapter. The important thing is, the slogans are made
entirely of bread crumbs and bait. “One plus negative one” is a
reference to the battle between Agent Smith and Neo, their
metaphysical “balance,” while “Thomas Anderson” is Neo’s
original name in the Matrix. The slogans are specifically intended
to call the franchise to mind, to get someone to believe in Neo as
a savior, a crusading knight. There’s no hint of concrete actions or
ways to improve the world, asides from, "FREE your MIND."

Demos even notes that it's intended to be sly, to avoid turning off
potential followers with flat honesty: "here I promote Neo in the
most indirect way possible, but I leave them with a morbid
curiosity about a figure they Know too well, but never have
'heard of' in that way. And the only way to quell that: give them
a site...and they are sure to follow. ::grins::"

Like that of many of Draven's followers, Demos's story is
sad. A spiritual seeker, he got sucked deep into Neo's cult in his
late teens, and in June 2005, he left home to become, according to
Neo, "a student of our philosophy" (2005 October 6). Ex-
followers report it a little differently: "basicly [sic] dem ran away
from home because of some fight he had with his mom, ended up
moveing [sic] in with neo and trin... finaly [sic] he got a job to
support neo's broke ass and with his first pay check he went and
got a bus ticket back home" (personal communication, 2006
August 7). Demos ends up living with the crew for roughly six
months, just long enough for him to end up in court for the
unlawful detainer case and get visited by the cops on a separate
matter (Demos, July 27). Another ex-follower reports that he
“went from being a new age dreamer type to a full-on alt right
white nationalist. [...] he proselytized to me about white
genocide and lambasted social justice warriors, and I blocked
him on facebook” (personal communication, 2017).

Right before Demos escapes, in December, Neo ends up in
the local news. "Suspicious Device Reported Near Dealey Plaza,"
the headline reads (nbc5i.com, 2005). "Device Determined to
Contain No Explosives."

It appears that Neo created "a green, plywood maze with a
rodent inside running on an exercise ball. Attached to the ball
was a kitchen timer with wires hooked up to a small circuit board
or computer hard drive." The art project also includes doomsday
messages with words like, "Not enough time," and "Judgment is
near"; another newspaper article supplies, "Open your eyes
before it's too late" (Hashimoto, 2005). The Dallas Bomb Squad is
pulled in and "determined the device contained no explosives"
(nbc5i.com, 2005).

Neo doesn't do this alone. Followers help. "I still hate it
that we did that," one later tells me (personal communication
2017). "We left a live animal in possible distress for up to an hour
[...] What if it froze? What if they put it down? IT WAS A LIVE.
FUCKING. ANIMAL. Draven didn't even care. I had an anxiety
attack all the way home and freaked out so badly that I cut
myself. Draven just sneered like 'that's not even a cut' and cut a
huge gash in his stomach to show me what a real cutter was
capable of. He threatened to cut me or my tires after that."

But the art project isn't enough. Neo embarks on a new
series of projects, despite his proclaimed cancer, heart attack,
encroaching blindness, multiple sclerosis, and fibromyalgia.
Come the new year, he starts his podcast, called "Radio Zero-
One," or "Kismet Radio" (2006 January 18); the archives are still
available on iTunes. A few months later, he starts trying to make
his AI chat-bot as some grand statement on the rights of sapient
machines (2006, March 5), releases his second computer game,
Devil Theory: Synchronisma (2006 April 21a) and creates his
Youtube channel, NeoExMachinae-- the same name as the
Neo/Smith slash comm on LJ (2006 April 21b).

In February, Neo claims to have had "a half vision inspired
by 'the spirit of Tyler [Durden]'” inspiring him to say, “We need to
make soap" (2006 February 9). It becomes his primary
fundraising effort for a monastery/dojo (citation available upon
request). An ex-follower described the goal as such: "His dream,
apparantly, [sic] was to have all the redpills [followers] come
together at the Four Corners and create an all-redpill community
dedicated to spreading and living by the message. This was
gradually toned down to the founding of a martial
arts/philosophical training center in his city of residence.
Hearing things like how he would finally be able to build the
giant swoosh, swoosh machine arm that he saw in his visions and
how he was starting on the dojo development by designing the
uniforms first was finally beginning to make me feel very tired of
it all" (personal communication, 2006 October 1). Perhaps this
explains the "martial arts academy" mentioned in the threat to
Smith I.

Like many of Neo's ideas, the soap venture doesn't go
well. "It was ACTUAL LYE SOAP. It felt and smelled terrible,"
another ex-follower later tells me (personal communication,
2017). "He was selling this stuff on ebay. Under the name of, I kid
you not, 'Paperst Soap Company' [Paper St Soap Company was
Tyler Durden’s business in Fight Club] [...] As usual, he lost
interest after a week or so, and ended up not fulfilling orders."
Indeed, a complaint/joke among ex-followers at the time is, "All
that, and I never even got the soap."

And where does all of this soap get made? Seven's
apartment.

Seven is another one of Draven’s “children.” “He told me
he'd thought about ‘Adopting’ me,” Seven reports, “after which he
had a short meltdown over AIM because he was concerned
about the fact that I didn't seem as overjoyed by the prospect of
finding my ‘Dad’ as he thought I would/should be. I was still
trying to get my mind around the idea that I'd actually ‘found my
Dad,’ but [...] was sort of freaked out by the whole idea” (citation
available upon request).

At first, Seven is devoted to the household, but as time
wears on, they realize that Neo has no intention of paying any
rent or utilities (citation available upon request). He relies on
Trinity's disability payments for money, but because she didn't
register the move to Texas with Social Security, her payments
stop. And even at the best of times, Trinity is apparently
unreliable with money. "[Trinity] kept telling me that her family
had gotten on forever somehow by not paying their bills, that I
always had money as long as I had checks, that going into the
hole was nothing to worry about," one ex-follower states
(personal communication, 2006, March 26). Another one
predicts, "Trin's going to end up getting hauled in for bad checks"
(personal communication, 2006 May 22). Indeed, by this point,
she already has.

When Seven asks Neo to pay his way, things get ugly. Neo
"threatened me with a goddamn KNIFE because I asked him to
pay his half of phone bill when we were living together, (because
threatening people with physical violence when they piss you off
is NORMAL FUCKING BEHAVIOR according to him)" (citation
available upon request).

Seven reports him to the cops, runs out of money, and
leaves the cult after the household is evicted in May 2006. House
retaliates with a horrific email which includes the lines, "Even
rapists and murderers have a right to medical care. [Except, at
this point in my mind, for you. Have Mommy take care of you. I
hear potato peelers are good for those pesky genital warts.] Let's
HOPE you NEVER meet me in a dark fucking alley" (citation
available upon request).

The cops refuse to take Seven's accusations seriously, and
Neo faces no consequences (citation available on request). He
quickly moves on to another follower for financial support,
persuading a twenty-year-old college student to "run away to
join them in the new hotel room that they are now holed up in,"
according to an ex-follower (personal communication, 2006 May
28). "They are using her as a bank account, they are using her as a
free cab service, and they convinced her to change the security
code on her bank card so that her parents couldn't cut it off."
Apparently she isn't the only young person that Neo has his eye
on either; that ex-follower also states that Neo "kept trying to
convince [20-year-old], [REDACTED] who is 18, and
[REDACTED] who is 17, to all move away from their parents and
[...] into the ONE BEDROOM apartment."

Combined with Draven's behavior towards their other
teenage followers, not reassuring, and the ex-follower reports
Draven seeing his young “children” as potential sexual partners:
“Draven regarded [REDACTED] as a ‘spiritual son’ but the subtext
was that there was also an attraction and it probably would have
turned sexual real fast. [REDACTED] was 16 at the time, in early
2006” (personal communication, 2017). It seems that Draven
treats parenthood as a sexual kink dynamic; this will only
become more pronounced later on.

Fortunately, on June 14, 2006, the ex-follower reports that
the 20-year-old’s local relatives "prevailed upon her to get the
fuck out of that situation. Thank God" (personal
communication). Deprived of the follower’s money, Neo sends
Trinity to demand her disability back-payments, which save
them from homelessness for the rest of the month.

Despite being financially unstable, living in a hotel, and
ostensibly on death's door, Neo still keeps his ears pricked for any
sort of criticism and relentlessly tracks those who've left the
group. An ex-follower reports, "he actually goes out and LOOKS
for LJ posts and forums with mentions of himself so he can join
and flame his detractors if they say something critical. [...] he
actually begged me on AIM to help him find a linked reference
on a forum once that he couldn't find but that his Site Stat Tool
insisted was there [...] He was practically in tears about the fact
that he couldn't find it, that people were talking about him and
he couldn't see what they were saying or respond to it" (personal
communication, 2017).

These aren't just ex-followers of Neo either. One of the
only signs of Buffy II's online existence after Deadjournal is a
Johari Window she creates around this time, where friends and
online passerby can pick positive adjectives to describe her.
Angel appears to say (with deep bitterness and sarcasm) that she
is "clever, loving, dependable, proud, self-assertive, trustworthy"
(Buffy II, 2006). At the time, I wasn't sure it was the same Angel,
but an ex-follower later claimed that he "harassed/flamed her via
IM from my computer on at least one occasion while he lived
with me" which was around the same time (personal
communication, 2008 January 8).

In May 2006, someone with the screen-name of Birgit
Riddle (not an ex-follower, but a friend of one) writes a Batman
fanfiction, Conspiracy Fears with a mental patient named Mr.
Andrews that seems to have been based on Neo (AKA "Mr.
Anderson") and his cult activities. Like Neo, the character
"started making devices that looked like bombs and had messages
saying that the end was near, but instead of containing explosives,
they only contained [...] mice." The story ends with Andrews
becoming a victim to the supervillain the Scarecrow and
spending "the rest of his days in Arkham [Asylum], screaming or
babbling incoherently."

Even though Neo is never directly named, and the
reference would only make sense to someone already familiar
with him to begin with, Neo takes it as a personal attack. He
somehow tracks the fic down and leaves a review saying,
"Reported. Have fun with that. ;)" (2006 May 11). His attempt to
get the story deleted is a failure.

Ordinary ex-followers also get the brunt of his wrath. An
ex-follower relates a conversation with a friend joking about Neo,
being careful to never mention him by name. Even so, he appears
to comment with a guilt trip: "Have a very satisfying life. I won't
read or answer any other e-mails from this post. Too busy, you
know, with that tumor thing" (2006 July 4). He even mocks her
for possibly thinking he's stalking her, even though there’s no
other way he could’ve found the conversation: "Don't worry, the
scary Matrix crazies aren't hovering and trying to OMG ONLINE
STALK YOU. [Smith I] syndroma [sic], ahoy. I was bored."
With such unrelenting harassment, threats of violence,
and reminders that he's watching them, most of Neo's ex-
followers go quiet, at least publicly. Even now, it's very difficult
for me to find any public condemnations of Neo, and I suspect it's
because of how he treats any sort of criticism. Still though, word
travels through private or locked channels, and this will facilitate
Neo's fall later on.

But let's pull back from Neo for a moment and focus on
the other headmates from 2006-2008: Hannibal Lecter, and
Edward Elric.