Crime Junkie - INFAMOUS: #ChallengeAccepted

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

When two women are violently murdered five years apart and half a world away, advocates look for a way to call attention to the serious and growing issue of femicide in Turkey. The campaign takes off -- but while it gains momentum, it loses its original meaning. This is the real story behind the viral #ChallengeAccepted campaign that flooded your Insta feed in the summer of 2020. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/infamous-challenge-accepted 

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And the story I have for you today actually came to my attention, not through fan suggestions or for me just getting like obsessed like I do sometimes, but actually from a hashtag. Brett, do you remember last summer there was this challenge going around where women were posting black and white photos of themselves with the hashtag challenge accepted?

Yeah, actually I have a very vivid memory of like sitting in your office being like, what? Yeah, is this? Yeah, so it was supposed to be this whole women's empowerment thing where you showed your support for the women around you by posting a black and white selfie and then you would tag someone to nominate them and so on. Right, like a chain letter, but make it insta. Right. Well, it went totally viral. I mean, like tons of celebrities posted, Carrie Washington, Jennifer Gardner.

I mean, it was everywhere. Yeah, I'm like, we're not celebrities, but we both got nominated to do it as well. And again, I remember having this conversation with you and being like, this can't just be it. Like, what's missing? What am I missing about this? Right. So like, don't get me wrong, women supporting women. Yes, like all the clappy hands. But I just had this feeling like, where is this coming from?

Who's behind this? And honestly, when I started digging, I kind of expected it to be a marketing campaign for like Dove or something, but that wasn't it at all. It turns out we were missing something because when you and I actually looked into it, we learned that the message behind the black and white selfie kind of got totally bastardized and the real meaning got completely lost in the mix. Hashtag challenge accepted was about something much darker than those beautiful black and white photos would have you believe.

The challenge actually started in Turkey in the summer of 2020. And the whole point was to call attention to the issue of domestic violence and femicide as a way to help rally support and hopefully to get the attention of Turkish lawmakers. Now, this is not a new issue in Turkey in 2020, just like it's not a new issue here. But there was a catalyst and the story I want to tell you today is the story of two young women whose violent deaths sparked a movement whose purpose was lost. But that was felt around the world.

These are the stories of Pinar Gultekin and Uskajan Aslan. It's late afternoon on Thursday, July 16th, 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey. And a woman named Sebel is trying to reach her big sister, Pinar. Pinar is 27 years old and a full-time student. She's six years into her studies in economics at a university that's about a full day's drive from where Sebel and the rest of her family are in Istanbul. Even though they're not physically in the same town, Pinar and Sebel are super close. They talk all the time and actually like several times a day.

The last time Sebel spoke to Pinar was a couple of hours ago at around 3 p.m. And at the time, she said she was just leaving her apartment for the mall. They made plans for Sebel to call her back, which she's trying to do. But Pinar isn't picking up. And it's not even that she's not picking up. Her phone is actually rolling over straight to voicemail, like the phone is off. Now my first thought in that situation might be like, oh, like her phone ran out of battery. But there is just something about the whole situation that's making Sebel's sister

spidey senses kick in. Oh, I mean, totally. I couldn't tell you the last time I let my battery die or even turned my phone off or for my sister or you or any other person I care about. Right. Like I'm also very much the kind of girl if I am turning it off. It's so weird that I let people know, listen, you cannot reach me for the next like five hours.

No, I actually remember you texting me from Eric's phone being like, hey, I actually forgot my phone somewhere. Not dead. And I'm letting you know that I am okay. I'm with Eric. We're fine. Right. Which was also sketchy, but we can talk about that later.

Right. In this situation, Sebel tries not to panic right away. Things happen. It's probably fine. And so she just keeps trying to call every so often, hoping that one of these times her sister is going to pick up. But in between these calls that are going straight to voicemail, Sebel tells her mom that something is up so she can start calling and trying to reach Panar too.

Call after call after call is placed as the sun starts to dip rolling into the night. And they still have not been able to reach Panar. So at this point, there's no denying that those spidey senses are right. Sebel knows that her sister is missing. Now if this was happening here, they would probably just call police and file a report. But according to a story from MSN.com by Jesse Stevens, Sebel and her mom actually make the trip from Istanbul to the coast where Panar lives to report her missing in person. Yeah.

So they're like going out and like doing the work. Yeah. And it's not clear to me whether that's how all missing person reports are filed there or if they just wanted to be there to actually physically search and try and find her as well. As soon as that report is filed, police start looking for Panar, starting in the last place she told Sebel she was going, the mall. Now luckily in 2020, the mall and everything around it is covered in security cameras. And they're hoping that if they can find Panar on video, they'll be able to track her last

known movements and figure out who, if anyone she was with. According to Saban News, law enforcement hits the surveillance jackpot with this request because it turns out there are more than 100 cameras capturing video, not just at the mall, but at all the restaurants and gas stations and workplaces in that area too. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, they've got their work cut out for them for sure, like going through all of this. But I mean, but you at least have those resources or accesses.

Exactly. So if Panar was at that mall, they are confident that they're going to spot her. At about the same time, they also request a copy of Panar's phone records. And it's not super clear to me whether their first lead in this case came from security footage or from those phone records. But what I do know is that there is one person who stands out to them right away. And that's Panar's ex-boyfriend, Jamal. And listen, from what I can gather, Panar and Jamal didn't have a like break up and

let's stay friends kind of relationship. And I say that because of something Panar's brother told BBC News Turkey. According to that story, Panar met Jamal when she was single and trying to make some new friends in this town that she was living in, all the way away from her family and all those friends that she grew up with, she was kind of on her own, right? So she's looking to make new friends. The two hit it off and they end up dating. The problem for Panar is that Jamal left out one tiny little detail about his life.

He was already married. Oh, oh, sorry. Did he just like forget to mention that? Yeah. And once she found out that he had a wife, Panar broke things off with him. So you know, not an ideal, awesome way to end a relationship, but whatever. He is hardly the first guy to cheat on his wife and lie to his mistress. And at this point, police just want to talk to Jamal to see if he has any insight into

where Panar might be. Now, I have to tell you, media coverage on the actual investigation into Panar's disappearance is pretty slim. Or at the least, like what I can access here from the United States is kind of few and far between. Do you mean like in terms of what's actually available or what's actually translated into English or? Well, so that's some of it, yes.

But like when I research American cases, I'm usually able to piece together a timeline of the investigation without too much digging. Like people here are obsessed with the nitty gritty, right? I mean, so many of us are crime junkies. Yeah, like a whole nation of us crime junkies. Right. And I think our appetite for true crime definitely plays a role in that. So what's different about the coverage in the cases we're talking about today is that

there's really only like passing information about police doing their jobs or what they did. And really, there's a much heavier focus on social and political issues. So it could just be a difference in journalistic style between the US and Turkey. I mean, there is definitely still lots of coverage about, you know, arrests and trials and that kind of thing. But I also wonder if maybe there is no time right now to obsess about how police find bad guys there because everyone is too busy trying to literally change the laws to save their

lives. I mean, totally. Obviously, we certainly have our share of social issues here, but, you know, true crime is basically an American pastime at this point. So I'm not surprised here that media coverage here is more of a deep dive into the, you know, true crime angle. Right. So, you know, I don't have all of the details that I normally would about, you know, who

they talk to, potential suspects, that sort of thing. But I do know that at some point they track down Jamal and question him. But he says he doesn't know anything about Pinar's disappearance or where she might be except they do know that that's not entirely true. Because police are still reviewing those 100 cameras worth of surveillance footage from the mall and the businesses, seeing if they can spot Pinar among all of the other people on the tapes and bingo. They did find Pinar right where they expected her to be at that shopping center.

But there's something else too. There is someone else and it's someone they weren't expecting to see. When police review the security footage of Pinar at the shopping center that day, what they learn is she was not alone. They also see Jamal, which means it looks like he was the last person to see Pinar before she disappeared and he was lying about that. So the police confront him again and according to a story published in Dubai English, his story changes.

It's not clear how his story changes, like from what to what, but it does. And not only that, he starts now to contradict himself. But there's something else because when the officers watching the surveillance footage turn their attention to Jamal, when they start tracking his movements on the Thursday Pinar disappeared, they see something that strikes them as a little strange. They follow Jamal's movements from the shopping center to a gas station nearby. Okay, but like gas stations aren't weird or suspicious? No, but the fact that he's at the gas station isn't the weird part.

What's weird is that he isn't there to fill up his car like you might assume. He's there to get two gas cans and police want to know why. So they confront him yet again. This time they do it with CCTV footage in hand, footage that shows him with Pinar at the shopping center and footage of him buying two full cans of gasoline nearby. And wouldn't you know it, his story changes yet again. According to coverage from Fourier Daily News, Jamal tells police that he and Pinar made plans to meet up at his workplace that day so he could take her to his country house.

And Jamal said that he was hoping that him and Pinar might be willing to start things up again, maybe rekindle their romance. So is he still married or has his status changed at this point in time? No, he is 100% still married with a family. But I guess that, you know, maybe he's hoping Pinar had softened her stance on extramarital affairs or whatever, but the truth is she hasn't. So she tells Jamal that she doesn't want anything to do with picking things back up with him romantically.

Now, he tells police that would have been fine with him, except according to him, Pinar threatened to tell his wife about their relationship unless he paid her to keep quiet. So according to him, she was threatening to blackmail him? That's what Jamal is telling police, but like this is his story, right? Not V's story, remember? Based on coverage in The Guardian, Jamal tells police that he was so enraged by the whole thing that he just couldn't control himself, which is how he ended up beating Pinar until she lost consciousness, at which point Jamal told authorities he strangled her to death.

Oh my God. Jamal goes on to tell police that he disposed of Pinar's body by putting it into an oil drum, something he said would be used to burn trash. And then he dumped the gasoline on top of her and lit the entire thing on fire. Okay. So at this point, he's at his country home or whatever. So are there, I mean, obviously different country, but my parents live in the country and they still have neighbors.

Were there no other people around to see this? Well, there had to have been people nearby, actually, because according to that BBC Turkey article I mentioned, an elderly neighbor saw the flames and actually was concerned enough to give Jamal an earful about fire safety. I mean, this is Turkey in the middle of July, so it is hot and dry and definitely not a good time for a barrel fire. But despite all of that, it doesn't seem like that person had any idea what was really going on.

Oh wow. Once the fire was out, Jamal dragged the whole thing into the woods and tried to hide what was left by covering it in cement mix. After he confesses, Jamal tells police exactly where to find Pinar's body. And when they do, in the early morning hours of July 21st, it's exactly as he had described. And unfortunately, the remains were too badly burned to even confirm or refute his story with a cause of death or a time of death. Police notify Pinar's family later that day and the news of her murder spreads like wildfire

to her community who had mobilized their own resources to help look for her, to the media, and all across the country. There is no doubt that the news of Pinar's death is shocking. But women in Turkey, they are not shocked because the rate of femicide and that's women being killed because they are women is so high and growing so much over the last decade that this kind of violence has become not just like the exception but the actual rule over there. The Guardian reported that 474 women were murdered in 2019 alone, with most of the perpetrators

being intimate partners or family members of the victim. But there's an even more disturbing trend amid all of this senseless violence, which is that the perpetrators of the violence, their attackers, their killers, they are blaming the women for their own deaths and that is exactly what Jamal has done too. He says that it's Pinar's fault. It is Pinar's fault for threatening to blackmail him. It is Pinar's fault for making him so angry that he couldn't control himself. And he says it's even Pinar's fault that he was unfaithful to his wife in the first

place. I'm sorry, we have to stop. I have so many questions and also so much rage. What? This is one of the most like clear and terrible cases of victim blaming I have ever seen. Yeah, because here's the bottom line. It doesn't matter what Pinar did, whether she did or did not even blackmail him. It doesn't matter what any other women did or did not do, said or did not say, even

if Pinar rejected him completely, again, even if she threatened to blackmail him, no one invites violence and no one deserves to be murdered. But this kind of victim blaming runs deep in Turkey. There's an article written by Joanna Kakisis for NPR News about the situation in Turkey and in it, she quotes a local man giving his view on domestic violence. And, Bert, I'm going to have you read this. He says, quote, I would say it's 70% the fault of men and 30% the fault of women. Women make it worse for themselves by either being meek, which makes men feel more aggressive,

or they overreact, which triggers the men. End quote. Okay, cool. So damned if they do, damned if they don't. Great. And you see this sentiment reflected in the way that justice is even served or not served as the case seems to be so often. While the laws around domestic violence in Turkey seem really good on paper, perpetrators

of domestic violence mostly just get a slap on the wrist when it comes to a sentence. Barajal Eski wrote for The New York Times that in a lot of cases, all a man has to do to get a light sentence is just show up in a suit and tie during his court appearance. Like, it happens so often and for so many men that Turks literally call it a tie reduction. What? Yes. So, Panar, whose murder was one of so many in Turkey last year, became really a flash point in Turkey for women's rights.

A flash point for protests, for marches. And because this was all happening with the COVID-19 pandemic raging all around the world, what Challenge Accepted did was give activists and organizers a way to engage people in the movement and in the moment without compromising anyone's safety. So was it just that organizers thought it was likely to get picked up or was there more behind it? Well, Beth and McCarron and reported for The Guardian on the 2020 hashtag challenge accepted campaign and said, organizers used the black and white posters purposefully, like there

was thought behind this because that's what is so often seen on the news or on social media after a woman is murdered, this black and white photo of them, something that might be on like a missing person poster. Or a newspaper or something like that. Right. When they posted their black and white photos, people were saying, this is how it started, they were saying tomorrow, this could be me. Wow.

But by the time the Challenge Accepted viral thing arrived here in the US, that meaning was totally lost. It was still about women, yes, but it was much more vague, more, you know, just about spreading positivity and women supporting women, again, all good stuff, but just really vague. But here is what else I learned. The whole concept, the photos, the hashtag, all of it dates back to at least 2016, when according to reporting by Taylor Lawrence for The New York Times, people used it to

spread, quote, cancer awareness, end quote, which is also pretty vague. This is a really good example of when we see something like this on social media, taking a little bit more thought and intention as to like what we're participating in when it comes to activism or social activism. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, again, so much of what we do here at Crime Junkie is we're trying to learn, we're trying to educate, we're trying to advocate. And I guess what I love people to take away is that that's possible without listening

to a podcast. I mean, just look at the stuff that you're participating in on a daily basis and just take a little bit of time to look into why you're doing it, right? Like, again, it's more than a pretty black and white photo because we want to support one another. There's a story behind that. And I think it's important that we recognize the stories that started this stuff and we're really like perpetuating a message that is important and shouldn't be lost.

And being intentional about our actions surrounding these issues. Exactly. So to get back to Pinar's story, it actually doesn't end with Jamal's arrest. There is still one more person on their radar. It turns out Jamal made numerous phone calls to family members on the night of the murder. And when police look into those calls, they're able to put his brother at the crime scene in the days after Pinar disappeared. Now I only found this next part reported in two English language sources, The Sun and

the Daily Star, which are both UK tabloids. So maybe take this with a grain of salt. But in that coverage, Jamal's brother says he didn't know anything about the murder. According to his comments, which I think are from a court hearing, when he showed up at the crime scene, Jamal told him that he was burning spoiled meat from a broken fridge. And the brother believed that? Well, from what I'm piecing together, I guess it wasn't entirely out of left field since a fridge had broken recently at a bar that Jamal managed.

But like, I don't know, if I showed up at your place and you were burning meat in a barrel, I think I'd have some follow-up questions. Yeah. Yeah. Police end up arresting the brother and charging him with destroying or tampering with criminal evidence. And as for Jamal, he's charged with what loosely translates to aggravated murder. And he faces a life sentence.

He's been lobbying for a lighter sentence by telling the courts that he was unjustly provoked. The Horeyette Daily News reported last year that Jamal's wife was planning to file for divorce, change her name and even move to another city. And in a country where requesting a divorce is likely to get you killed, it is a good thing that he's behind bars for her safety. There is honestly no reason Pinar's death couldn't have been prevented. It was almost impossible not to see it coming.

For women's rights advocates, learning about Pinar's death felt eerily like deja vu. And in a way, it was, because while I was looking into Pinar's story, there was another case that kept coming up over and over again. February 11, 2015 was a pretty normal day for 20-year-old Uskajan Aslan. She went to her university psychology class in the morning, hung around campus until about 1.30, and then headed out to a local mall to go shopping with a friend. The two had dinner together and then boarded a mini bus to head home. Her family knows this because even though Uskajan's phone wasn't working at the time, she borrowed

her friend's phone to text her sister and say, hey, I'm on the bus, I'm going to be home in just a little bit, except she just didn't show up. Her family knows right away that something isn't right. This is really out of character for Uskajan. She wouldn't just disappear. Well, on top of that, she sent that text to her sister from her friend's phone saying that she was on her way. That's not something a person would just do if they were planning to run away or disappear

on their own, or at least I wouldn't. Right. And her family doesn't think that she got lost or anything either since Uskajan travels that same bus route all the time. So her family calls police to report her missing that very night, hoping in the back of their minds that maybe there's just been some kind of misunderstanding and that Uskajan will walk through the door any minute. But when she doesn't show up to the university for her scheduled classes the next morning,

her family's worry turns to fear. Police start looking for Uskajan right away. They speak with her friend, the one that she had been shopping with the day before, and she confirms they went to class in the morning, they went shopping, they had a bite to eat, and headed home on the bus. And she tells police the last time she saw Uskajan was on that bus that they both took to get home. Now the friend's stop came first on that route.

And she says that when she got off, Uskajan was still there, still fine, everything was normal. So the question is, what happened after that? Well according to DailySabaugh.com, on February 12th, the day after Uskajan's disappearance, police stopped a bus that they noticed wasn't following its usual route. When they climbed on board, they found smears of blood, which when they asked the driver, he said was from a fight that had broken out. But there was something else on the bus too, something that caught their attention and

combined with the blood made them even more suspicious. They found Uskajan's hat. So police arrested the driver of the bus, a man named Amet, and they arrested two other men who were with him, his 20 year old friend and his 50 year old father. Oh wait, his dad? Yeah, and it's these two other guys, the dad and this friend, who end up telling police what actually happened on the night Uskajan disappeared. Amet's father tells police that his son showed up at the house the night of February 11th,

frantic and begging for help. Inside the minibus he'd been driving that night was a woman's body and he said he needed help getting rid of it. The father told police Amet waited until everyone else had gotten off the bus and Uskajan was the only passenger left, and then instead of taking her to her scheduled stop, he drove in another direction. So he kidnapped her? Why?

Well, based on what Amet's father tells police, he had planned to rape her, but according to Glenn Johnson's reporting for the Los Angeles Times, Uskajan fought back. She had pepper spray on her, and I don't know if he just didn't expect that or it made him more angry or whatever, but when she fights back, Amet stabbed her multiple times and then beat her to death with an iron bar. Oh my god. Amet's father and friend helped him dispose of her body by lighting it on fire and dumping it in a remote riverbed.

But first, they actually took the step to cut off her hands and dispose of them separately because they knew Amet's DNA would be under her fingernails. Oh my god. When police go to the site where Amet's father says they dumped her body, they find badly damaged, burned human remains, I mean, totally unrecognizable. Her friend was actually able to make a preliminary ID based on the clothes Uskajan was wearing the night she disappeared, and this confused me a little. Somehow those must have survived the blaze.

I don't know if they weren't on her, if they were removed. I don't know, but within a day or two, they were able to do more conclusive identification and positively ID the body as that of Uskajan. All three men are arrested and charged with murder, and all three go to trial later that year. Both the dad and the friend tell the same story that I just told you about what happened that night. When they get inside the courtroom, Amet tells a very different story.

During his trial, Amet testifies that he didn't attempt to sexually assault Uskajan and that her death was a complete accident that he says happened only because he had been provoked. So the same defense Jamal uses five years later when he kills Panar. The very same one. And there's a reason for that. Like I said, Turkey actually has some pretty solid laws in place to protect women from domestic violence. But again, the issue is enforcement of those laws.

According to a piece by Christina Asquith for the New York Times, there are literally hundreds of examples of men convicted of murder who had their cases reduced dramatically. This just to a few years by arguing that the women provoked them or God forbid threatened their dignity. I know, but it is an effective defense strategy in Turkey, which is why, according to trial coverage in Huryet News, Amet said that none of this would have happened if Uskajan hadn't attacked him first. His story is that he's basically just sitting there, minding his own business, taking her

home and actually trying to get her home early, he says, by taking a faster route so he admits to not going the normal way. But he says that Uskajan knew the route really well and when she realized that they were off the beaten path, Amet says that she got mad and hit him in the back. And he says he was fighting her off, kicking her, hitting her when she lost consciousness. Wait a minute, didn't you say she had been stabbed multiple times? Sure did, but Amet told the court that when Uskajan lost consciousness, that's when he panicked and called his friend for help.

Remember, this is his 20-year-old friend who was arrested, who testified against him, and Amet said that it was the friend who suggested they kill Uskajan. Like, eventually, Amet admitted to stabbing her, but he said he only did it after his friend said they had to. But I guess, why was the friend, so no pun intended, dead set on murder? Like, I thought he was just kind of the clean-up crew in the situation. Yeah, and this is where their stories conflict. The friend said that he was only involved in disposing of the body after the fact, but

Amet said that his friend was the one who basically had the motive. He testified at trial that he saw that friend with, quote, trousers unzipped as he got off the minibus, end quote. And he went on to say, quote, I asked him whether he had done something to her after he said she was pretty. He told me to keep quiet and threaten to notify the police, end quote. I don't even know what to think anymore other than I'm so disgusted at this entire situation. Well, there's no way to prove any of that, of course.

But some of what Amet said must have rung true for the court, because in the end, both of them are convicted of sexual assault. That's in addition to the murder convictions handed down to all three men. Amet is sentenced to 48 years, the friend gets 46, and the father gets 30. But actually, Amet doesn't serve much of that sentence, because on April 11th, 2016, this is exactly 14 months after Uzkijan is murdered, news breaks that both Amet and his father have been shot by another inmate. The father escapes with injuries, but Amet doesn't survive the attack.

Now how a gun made its way into a maximum security prison, I have no idea. Literally my first question. Thank you. But according to that coverage in the Hurriyet Daily News, the man who pulled the trigger is a former hitman that they call the crime machine, and he was already serving a 50-year sentence for a bunch of different crimes, murder included. So are you saying this guy was hired to kill Amet and his father? Well, this really gets a little complicated for me, because it doesn't seem so, no.

But the motivation was definitely Uzkijan's murder, because later, the trigger man showed up to court wearing a t-shirt with her picture on it. Oh, wow. Amet also read that he had three daughters at home, and so Uzkijan's murder could have just like hit close to home for him. And I think it hits close to home for all of us in different ways. For me, and I'm sure for many of you guys, it's hard not to see myself reflected in these stories.

I mean, these could have been any of us, right? This is how the whole hashtag started. It could be me next. Both Uzkijan and Panar were killed by different men in different years, but for the same reason. For saying no, for wounding a man's pride and for fighting back. Yeah, and honestly, these stories could have taken place anywhere, and honestly have taken place everywhere. You don't have to look very far from your own front door to see examples of exactly

this kind of thing happening to women, I mean, pretty much everywhere. Women deserve to feel safe, and not just feel safe, right, but actually to be safe. Yeah. But it feels like every day we're hearing stories like this one, stories of women disappearing off the street while they walk home, stories of women like Uzkijan and Panar being killed for rejecting someone. And despite all the progress we've made as women in the world, as long as there are stories like this to tell, we're not there yet.

We're not done advocating yet. And that's what women in Turkey were getting at when they started to post under that hashtag challenge accepted last summer. And I think it's fair to say that not everyone who posted these pictures knew about Panar, but really the sentiment behind it wasn't entirely different. These sorts of viral campaigns actually come around all the time, and sometimes it just feels good to find some bomb lighting and snap a selfie and share it with the world. Oh, totally.

That's your thing, do it, girl, but it is a good practice to ask some questions about where these things started. It might just surprise you, because I'm not sure if you remember this, but back in 2010, there was another viral campaign that went around where people were changing their Facebook profile picture to, I think it was like their favorite cartoon character for the week or whatever. I mean, do you remember that? Oh, yeah.

I mean, vaguely. That's a very long time ago, but I kind of remember it, yeah. Well, according to knowyourmean.com, the whole thing started in Greece, with really, it seems like no agenda at all, just like this is going to be a fun thing to do, and people liked it. They started to pick up on it, and then somehow within a few weeks, by the time it landed here in North America, it had taken on a completely different meaning. Changing your profile picture to a cartoon character became this show of support against

child abuse, except, again, no one really knows where that connection came from. It wasn't owned by any for-profit organizations. No one could figure out when it changed. It didn't align with any non-profit organization. No one official was saying, do this, and we'll sponsor X amount of dollars for everyone we see or whatever. Yeah. Next came the warnings.

People started saying that the entire thing was spearheaded by pedophiles as a way to gain access to kids on Facebook. Okay. I definitely remember this part of this, actually. Right. The rumor was, if predators changed their picture to a cartoon character, kids would be more likely to approve their friend requests. Now that everyone had cartoon profile pics, it would be even easier to get through.

Right. You couldn't tell the difference, essentially. Right. Except no one was able to figure out where that came from, either. Facebook ultimately ended up debunking the rumor, like it was actually just a rumor. There was no highly organized pedophile network conspiring to get everyone to change their profile pictures. Don't get me wrong.

I have a hat. There is an organized pedophile network out there, I'm sure. But viral campaigns like this are all around us all of the time. And let's be honest. I mean, it's fun to be part of it sometimes. But if I can leave you with one thing, it's worth doing a little digging first before you just jump on the bandwagon. If you want to see all of our source material for this episode, you can find all of that

on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunkie Podcast. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. CrimeJunkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?