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Feb. 13, 2024 - Epoch Times
37:43
[FREE EPISODE] Chaya Raichik, ‘Libs of TikTok’ Creator, on Indoctrination & TikTok Narcissists
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I think gender ideology in general is very narcissistic.
It's like, these are my pronouns.
This is my gender.
Let me talk to you about how I want to be referred to and how you should refer to me.
And the whole idea of an app where you go online and you just film yourself talking, I think that it's a really good match, those activists and TikTok, because TikTok is really a platform for narcissists.
Today I sit down with Chaya Rychik, creator of the viral Twitter account Libs of TikTok.
She was doxxed in a controversial Washington Post article last year.
They create this content and then I put it out there in their own words and they don't really want us to see it.
They want to just live in their bubble where everybody agrees with them.
So I'm posting this content and they just can't handle it.
This is American Thought Leaders and I'm Jan Jekielek.
Kaya Rychik, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
It's so great to be here.
Thank you for having me.
So, of course, as many of us have, I've been following your account, Libzov TikTok, for quite some time.
And there were many times when it was actually kind of unavailable for a whole suite of reasons.
The first thing I want to ask you is, when these Twitter files came out, and when Elon Musk took over Twitter, these Twitter files came out, what was your reaction to what you were seeing?
It was very emotional that night when I saw the Twitter files.
But my first reaction was I just felt entirely vindicated because for months I had been growing my Libs of TikTok Twitter account and I knew I wasn't violating the rules.
I was very careful to follow their guidelines.
And then I kept getting suspended.
And it was so frustrating.
It seemed like every other week I was getting another suspension.
And then the Twitter files come out.
And it says the Twitter employees were saying that I never violated the rules and they were just looking for any excuse to silence me.
So I felt vindicated.
It was a great feeling.
And I know that a lot of other people also were mentioned in the Twitter files and I'm really happy for them because it really meant a lot.
Why do you think your account was getting so much attention?
I think lives of TikTok is really effective.
We just showcase what the left themselves are saying and their views don't hold up to scrutiny.
So they create this content and then I put it out there in their own words and they don't really want us to see it.
They want to just live in their bubble where everybody agrees with them.
So I'm posting this content and they just can't handle it.
But you do provide commentary on some of these.
And some of it's pretty pointed.
I've been scrolling your feed recently.
So as far as the actual videos, there's no editing.
As far as the commentary, it is very, very minimal commentary.
It is probably the least commentary you'll see from any account my size.
How often do you get people sending you content?
So my content now is sort of half and half.
Half is what I find and half is what people send to me.
So I get a lot of messages.
I get hundreds a day and I have desperate parents Who want me to help them expose the wokeness in their schools.
And I have, you know, people sending me TikToks sometimes.
So it's really, my platform really is about giving a voice to people who don't have a platform.
So I'm able to share the stories of a lot of really concerned citizens.
That's amazing.
And so do you do this all alone?
Do you have a team now?
Or how does this work?
Pretty much just me.
I spend basically all day, every day, going through all of my messages and going through TikTok and choosing what to post and how.
And a lot of the stories require research.
I do have someone helping me a little bit part-time, but hopefully we could expand.
You did different things with your Twitter account before you seemed to settle on Libs of TikTok.
And I guess I want to talk about the evolution of that.
What was your thinking?
So I joined Twitter, honestly, just for Trump, because his tweets are really funny, right?
We all miss the mean tweets.
So I joined Twitter for that, and I was just starting to get into politics.
It was during COVID. And then I stumbled across TikTok, and I saw all of this really bizarre content.
And I was like...
I need to show this to people.
People need to see this.
People need to see what's going on.
So I started posting the videos to Twitter.
That's really how Libs of TikTok started.
And then I changed the name to Libs of TikTok.
It just came to me one day.
I didn't think about it too much.
And the rest is history.
So basically, when you started, you wanted to more consume content, and then you started experimenting with different things.
I saw you had some health freedom-related things early on as well, right?
Yeah, I wasn't looking to go viral or to be famous.
It was more just having fun.
I had met some people through Twitter, and we kind of would just change our usernames and sort of just have fun with some of the ideas.
That were floating during that time.
So I changed my username quite a few times before changing it to Libs of TikTok.
So as we go through this, I want to pull up a few posts that you made and get you to comment on them a little bit.
You know, here's one just actually recently, January 16th.
Teacher laughs about bringing political unrest in her school by pushing pronouns, showing up with purple hair, and mocking the Bible.
I have my first day as a sub today and there are many things I'd like to talk about but today I would like to talk about how I am the political unrest that Cedar City needs.
And I just realized that my Hydro Flask is in this video and that's my I don't care what the Bible says sticker which I forgot I left up at the front of the classroom when I was in the back office.
So you know how is it that you go about choosing these things?
So I go to TikTok and I spend about 15-20 hours a week on TikTok and I have very high standards of quality for my content.
So Most of my content, I want it to have a message.
I'm not just laughing at people.
All the videos have an underlying message.
For this specific one and most of the ones that feature teachers, I think it's really important to show what is going on in classrooms across America.
What is it that you see on TikTok?
From these classrooms, I mean, yeah.
So there's a lot of indoctrination and grooming going on in classrooms.
TikTok in general, I think, is a cesspool for activists to target children.
I think TikTok was designed to attract youth and their algorithms are very sophisticated.
And it's been discussed that it's also sort of a weapon, right?
TikTok is owned by China.
It's sort of a weapon to destroy us from within.
So I think TikTok is really the center for targeting kids with radical gender ideology.
Explain to me what you mean by grooming, because this has become a controversial word, right?
Yeah.
Up until recently, if you write it on Twitter, then you were banned.
Grooming is tearing down childhood innocence by confusing children with gender ideology about their identity.
And we're seeing a lot of that in schools, in other institutions.
Let's talk about TikTok a little bit.
Yes, of course, on this show, we've covered extensively how TikTok does actually function as a weapon for the Chinese Communist Party and may well be amplifying the types of things which foment social chaos and so forth for the benefit of the Chinese regime.
Well, for starters, you see a lot of what you described, I think you just said, as toxic content or really terrible content, 20 hours a week of it.
How do you deal with that?
It's tough sometimes, I'll be honest.
It's very dark.
It's very depressing.
It's scary.
But I think it's so important.
I push myself to scroll and to find content to show people what's going on in classrooms.
It's not just teachers.
It's every single field.
We have these activists.
Just in general, the mental health crisis in America, I feature a lot of videos that show that.
Well, because there's a few questions about these videos, right?
Some people ask, and I've had this question myself, like, why are some of these folks kind of admitting what they're doing on camera publicly, first of all?
Because a lot of it is, they're saying, I'm doing something very subversive, for example.
A number of videos that you featured, you know, actively, they talk about how they're hiding things from parents, for example, and so forth.
Why do you think people are posting these things?
TikTok attracts narcissists.
And the whole idea of an app where you go online and you just film yourself talking, I think gender ideology in general is very narcissistic, right?
It's like, these are my pronouns.
This is my gender.
Let me talk to you about how I want to be referred to and how you should refer to me.
So I think that it's a really good match, those activists and TikTok, because TikTok is really a platform for narcissists.
They love seeing themselves talking, they love seeing themselves on camera, so it's perfect.
Hello everyone!
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The magazine is filled with incredible stories of iconic Americans, breathtaking American landscapes and historic architecture, and a celebration of American innovation and enterprise.
It's a magazine for everyone who loves this country, including me.
I always tell people that I'm a rare Canadian American exceptionalist.
You can check it out at AmericanEssence.com Another thing you mentioned, you talked about gender ideology and LGBTQ, and that's not necessarily the same thing.
Like, for example, right, I'm thinking of there's an account which basically seems actually kind of somewhat aligned with what Lipsov Takai is doing called Gays Against Groomers, who would probably also say, well, we're part of the LGBTQ community, right?
But they're definitely against gender ideology.
Do you ever communicate with folks like this?
Yes, I've been in contact with that account.
I think they're doing something really important and they don't align with LGBTQ, I don't think.
They align with LGB. Their whole thing is LGB without the T and obviously everything else that comes after that.
The acronym keeps getting longer.
So I think there's a need for that because there are a lot of people who just are gay and that's fine and they just want to do that without being lumped in with all of the activists.
I see.
So when you're talking about this, you're talking about the specific people that have this gender ideology orientation.
Exactly.
I see.
Okay.
Well, that's interesting.
It wasn't necessarily obvious to me before.
When it comes to TikTok, I've had an interview with, I believe it was January Little John, whose basically daughter was transitioned in the school, socially transitioned without her knowledge.
Right.
And one of the things that she talks about is there's these accounts on TikTok where basically people encourage confused youth.
If you basically do all the things that will make you trans, follow the trans ideology, we'll create this family for you and so forth.
It's a very, very warm, safe space.
Do you see this kind of content?
I see a lot of that content.
I think they specifically target children who already have something else in their life, which is bringing them down.
There's been reporting how they target autistic children or they target kids from broken homes because they entice them and they say, look, join our community.
You'll feel loved.
You'll feel accepted.
You'll get attention.
So I think they do prey on confused children, children who are struggling to begin with.
Also children struggling with gender dysphoria, which is a real struggle.
I really feel for children who are struggling with that.
So instead of helping these kids with their issues, they're instead saying, oh, come join us, we'll affirm you, and you'll only have love and acceptance.
So it sounds good for a child.
You know, from what I understand from studies, most of that gender display will resolve on its own, right?
That's what I believe, and I've read a lot of similar, yes.
I want to talk a little bit about your background, you know, before Twitter, before TikTok.
Like, just back when you were in Brooklyn, you were in real estate.
You have a regular job, but then things change.
So I quit my job to run Limbs of TikTok.
I'm a Hasidic Jew.
And there's a concept in Judaism that every single person is in this world for a reason.
Every person has a purpose.
And I feel that through running Libs of TikTok, I feel like this is my mission now.
And I'm very empowered to continue doing it.
And how is it that you ended up working with Seth Dillon?
So around the time that I was doxxed, Seth reached out and he kind of offered support.
He shared how he believed in my mission.
He believed in what I was doing and he wanted to help me.
So we now work together.
Seth is one of the most incredible people I've ever met.
Definitely the most incredible person I've ever worked with and I'm so grateful to have him.
Let's talk a little bit about this doxing, because that's when you definitely got a lot of attention.
What happened there?
So my account was anonymous, like most Twitter accounts.
And then The far-left media sent their little minion from the Washington Post to come dox me.
I think they thought that it would intimidate me into silence or scare me.
Obviously, that was ever going to happen.
Taylor Lorenz from Washington Post shared my name and my location.
And then, obviously, I wasn't anonymous anymore.
And I think that it was very...
Stressful, chaotic, overwhelming.
Never imagined this would happen.
But I think that silver lining is Libs of TikTok's influence skyrocketed.
Our follower count tripled.
We got so much bigger.
And the whole point of Libs of TikTok is just to show the content.
So if more people are seeing it, that's a win.
So I think there are good things to come out of everything, and I think that is one of them.
The idea behind the account, right?
You're saying you just want people to see it, right?
But what do you think that accomplishes?
So there's a few things, but number one, when it comes to things like radical gender theory, critical race theory, We've been told by the far left that it's not happening.
The drag queen entertainment for children, we're told, oh, it's not happening.
These things are not happening.
It's a right-wing conspiracy theory.
And then I come in with...
First-hand evidence of teachers and drag queens talking about these things and saying, yes, I'm doing this.
The other thing is that my account really is just centered on protecting the innocence of children.
That's the main focus.
And I do that by showing what these people themselves are saying they want to do, how they want to tear apart childhood innocence.
And we need to do something about it.
I know that a lot of legislators have used Libs of TikTok's content in order to bring up legislation to protect children.
So I'm really grateful for that.
I heard that it played some role in forming the Parental Rights and Education Bill in Florida, for example.
I don't know if you've heard that as well?
Yes.
Did people contact you about that specifically?
I heard from people on DeSantis' team that the videos inspired the creation of and helped to pass the bill, yes, because they thought of the bill, they wanted to do it, and they had to garner support for it in the Florida House, right?
And...
How can you get support for it if you don't have the proof and the evidence that it's actually a problem?
I've been told that they were able to use some of the content from Libs of TikTok to help get support for the bill.
Going back to the doxing, I'm just remembering, I think you said that Governor DeSantis also offered you a place to live.
Is this right?
It was the day I was doxed and Someone from DeSantis' team called me and she said, you know, the governor wanted me to give you a message that you're welcome to come stay in the governor's mansion if you need a place to stay, if you need to hide.
And I was obviously really touched.
I mean, he obviously has a full plate.
He's very busy.
He's the governor of one of the largest states.
And he took time out of his day to make sure that I had a safe place to go.
Why do you think he did that?
I think I actually had the opportunity to meet him a few times in person and I was kind of like the underdog and he was like looking out for the underdog, which I think is a really good quality.
I was working alone, you know, now people saw my background through Through the the doxing story and it was clear that I didn't have backup.
I don't really have a lot of resources.
I'm a total outsider who just decided to make a difference to come in and to do this work.
And I think he felt like he wanted to step in and help me because of that.
Did you need to hide?
Like what what what happened?
What was what was the reaction?
So I did need to hide.
It was confusing because the question is, you know, now my name is out there, so what comes next?
It's kind of making quick decisions and trying to figure out what to do.
So for a couple days after, for about a week actually, I I went to stay somewhere else in a secure private location because I didn't know what was going to happen.
Were there going to be people coming and egging my home?
Were people going to...
I don't know.
I had no idea.
So I did go into hiding and thank God nothing happened.
But I had to take the precaution.
And I did get a spike in death threats.
I did file a few police reports.
I did have to do that.
And I mean, even now, I still take a lot of precautions.
I'm going to do whatever I have to do to protect myself.
But I think...
It just shows, like, this is the whole reason I was anonymous to begin with, is because I think the far left has no problem with violence.
I mean, they've shown that.
When you said, you know, a spike in death threats, does that mean that you get them regularly?
Every single day.
Wow.
What's that like?
Some I know are trolls, but if it sounds serious, then I'll file a police report.
I know that the police have visited at least one of the people that I reported.
It just validates exactly why I'm doing this.
Because they want me silenced so badly, right?
Like the doxing and the death threats and all of the lies they make up about me, the insults and the slurs that they call me.
And I think it just shows how important the account is when you get so much backlash and pushback.
I'm never going to stop doing it.
They could call me any name they want.
They could send me any amount of death threats.
I'm not scared.
From these accounts that you've showcased, do people ever reach out to you in a way that isn't just simply Or in a way that you might actually be able to have some dialogue.
Never.
Something that I'm concerned about a lot is that there is this very deep polarization.
It can be left and right.
It can be liberty versus control.
There's many, many different ways in which this polarization manifests.
I kind of wonder, somehow we have to find some kind of common ground.
Do you ever think about that?
So, yeah, the majority of the country, I think, do have a lot of common ground.
There's also the extreme far right.
I think anything too extreme is not good, but specifically with the extreme far left, with their activism and the indoctrination and grooming efforts, I don't want to have anything to do with that.
You talk about the extreme far left, but it would seem, I guess especially on TikTok, that this group has a disproportionate influence.
I think that's exactly right.
They do have a disproportionate amount of influence.
They're very loud, They're very demanding.
They're very controlling.
They demand that we all change our language.
We change our actions.
We change our culture.
They demand all those things.
And so it feels like they're controlling every single aspect of our society because you're not allowed to have any opposition.
We're not allowed to criticize them.
We're not allowed to call them out.
We just have to do exactly as they say.
So, maybe I'll get you to comment on another piece, and this is something from back in September of 2021.
You just titled it, This Insanity is Happening on College Campuses.
Okay, this white man thinks he can take up our space, and this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with it.
I'm going to sit here the whole time and you can find somebody to kick me out.
That's cool, we will.
We're not taking you out, we're asking you to leave.
If you have any consideration for people of color and are marginalized.
Yeah, the whole rest of the campus, the second floor, the first floor, the whole MU, every single part of the campus centers you.
This is the only space that you're not centered and you're still trying to center yourself, which is peak white cis male b****.
And this was, you know, kind of a massive one.
I think this is one of the ones that really kind of gave your account a huge kind of push.
But tell me about that.
So there was a video of two white students in a multicultural center on campus at Arizona State University.
And they got harassed and attacked by two non-white students.
And those students were saying, We don't feel safe with your presence here.
You can't be here.
In the end, the two other students had to apologize to the white students.
They had to issue a statement.
I think they got reprimanded.
And the two white students got a lot of support.
I think there was a GoFundMe for them even.
It just shows, I think, that...
Colleges are a breeding ground for Democrat activists.
I think that's where they really teach them to become activists for the Democratic Party.
If you look at teachers too, where did they learn this?
All these young teachers who are pushing gender ideology onto their students.
Where did they learn that?
They're young, most of them.
They just went through a couple years in college and that's where they learned all of it.
I think colleges are teaching these young people to go out and become activists.
Those students were probably taught in college that they should behave that way towards white people.
In this particular video, you mentioned the students had to walk back what they did.
There was some kind of reprimand.
In another case, you said that your content was used in people crafting the Parental Rights and Education Bill.
Do you have some other examples of how running the TikTok has affected society or changed the discourse?
Yes.
There have been probably about a dozen teachers who lost their jobs after posting videos of themselves on TikTok, bragging about what they were doing to their students.
And then I took those videos, posted it to Twitter, and then they lost their jobs or were placed on leave or were reprimanded, things like that.
I know that there's a lot of discourse now about drag.
I think I helped mainstream it through Libs of TikTok to show how pervasive it is and why it's problematic for children.
And then we saw there was some legislation.
I mean, I think Tennessee, it was Tennessee that proposed a bill that would criminalize drag queens performing for children.
There was a bar in Florida that lost their liquor license after the video went viral.
More recently, again in Florida, they were threatening to Take action against venues that were going to host drag events for children.
There's a lot of people that are very demoralized right now in this country, in this society.
I feel that too.
It could feel really depressing when you realize that so many people in the government are corrupt and it feels like everything is just going downhill in society and in our culture.
But I'm actually really hopeful right now because the first step to fixing something is to realize there's a problem.
And I think that recently there's been a lot of talk about this problem.
So people are waking up.
People are realizing.
And I think things are going to change soon.
Elon Musk has been talking a lot about citizen journalism.
Do you imagine yourself that way, I guess, is my question.
And what do you think?
A hundred percent.
I think that it's not just the government and the three-letter agencies.
It's the media, too.
People are realizing that they're just full of garbage, untrustworthy.
And I think that independent journalism spiked a lot recently, and it's going to continue to spike.
I think Lives of TikTok is probably a really good example of that.
I am with Elon on that, that citizen journalism is so important, and I think it's only going to get bigger.
And the power of the media is going to go way down.
I'm going to pick another one of your posts.
This is a bit different than your kind of normal mode of posting a TikTok video.
But you say, you know, school board member of, I think, Jackson Public Schools has a history of making racist comments.
She says, whiteness is evil and causes trauma, calls white people stupid, dangerous and difficult to be near.
So this is another kind of newer format for Libs of TikTok.
And tell me about this Half my content is TikToks and the other half is other content, screenshots, pictures.
I write articles too on my sub stack, libsoftiktok.com.
And I think it obviously started with just TikToks, but then I kept seeing all this other content and...
I thought it needed to be shared.
So it's still the same idea.
I provide very, very little commentary.
So I posted screenshots from that school board member of tweets that she had sent, and I just summarized what she was saying in those tweets.
It's obviously racist.
This person is in charge of the education of thousands of people, and if I had a child in that district who was white, I don't know how I would feel about that.
I mean, she obviously hates white people, so I don't know how she could be in charge of the education of white people when she hates them and is openly racist towards them.
Are you aware that you're referred to on the Anti-Defamation League's website?
What do they refer to me as?
Well, it says that you attempt to generate outrage and stoke anti-LGBTQ hostility by reposting selected out-of-context social media content created by LGBTQ plus people and liberals.
And of course, Anti-Defamation League is a group that says it's fighting anti-Semitism.
Interesting.
I think I am listed probably on a lot of websites in the same vein.
They label me all kinds of things.
They label me homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, interestingly.
My answer to that is it's not hateful or homophobic or dangerous Or violent, and they call me violent a lot, to post public videos onto Twitter.
What is hateful and dangerous and harmful is sterilizing and mutilating children, exposing children to inappropriate adult entertainment, giving kids pornography in school, confusing children about their identity, Those are the things that I feature in the videos that are actually harmful and dangerous.
You know, this is another thing I wanted to actually ask you about.
When you say pornography in schools, what are you talking about?
So there are a lot of books in thousands of schools across the country that basically have pornographic content in it.
And these books are available to children, to minors.
I featured a lot of that type of content on my account.
And I think it's so important to show what your kids are reading in schools.
And people ask me, you know, what should I do?
I found these books in the library in my kids' school and I say, all you have to do, open up the book to one of the pages and just show them what the book says.
And they can't defend that when you do that because there's literally pornography in the books.
And so people have been showing up to school board meetings and reading from these books and showing pictures from it and that's really the way to tackle this problem.
And when they do that...
The school board members are oftentimes very shocked.
And there are a lot of times where they shut down the parent.
They say, okay, stop reading.
It's too graphic.
There are kids in this room.
It might be illegal to expose children to this.
And it's like, that's exactly the point.
These books are in schools for children.
But they're saying that it's too graphic for adults.
So how does it make sense?
Are you aware of schools having removed that content subsequent?
There have been quite a few that after I have called them out, they removed those books.
And people will say, well, you're getting books banned, Chaya.
That doesn't sound very good.
So whenever I'm called a book banner, I just show images from the book.
And they can't defend it because you just have to show them what's in the books.
It's the most effective way.
And then they have no answer.
Are they going to admit that they want kids to read porn?
The truth seems to be a very powerful weapon.
Exactly.
What do you think the consequences of the truth, in many cases, being lost among some of these legacy media are for society?
Well, I think that the left-wing media is basically just a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.
And it's been going on for a long time.
It obviously got a lot worse in the last few years.
And I think they're just losing all of their credibility.
They're all losing their ratings.
They're dropping like flies.
CNN Plus was totally canceled.
They got rid of...
Brian Stelter.
And we're seeing, I think, a lot of these shows are just plummeting because they're just activists and they're just repeating the narrative that they're given.
What does a positive future look like for you?
In regard to Libs' TikTok or just how I want to see our country?
How you want to see our country.
I would love to see radical gender theory completely eradicated from all our institutions.
I think it's sowing chaos, division, confusion among our children.
And the reason that we're all fighting today is for our children.
Like, what kind of country do we want to raise our kids in and do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren?
So it's so important to protect the innocence of children.
Chaya, any final thoughts as we finish up?
I think that my message is that every single person has the power to make a difference.
Me, for example, I am just an individual, an outsider with a Twitter account and an idea.
And I mean, look what we accomplished.
So if you see something You need to speak up.
Go to school board meetings.
Go to city council meetings.
Run for school board.
Post it on social media.
Send it to me to post.
Well, Chaya Reitschik, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show.
It was such a great opportunity.
Thank you for inviting me.
And I'm glad we had this conversation.
Thank you all for joining Chaya Reitschik and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.
I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.
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