Sex, Lies and the Dirty (30 page)

Dr. Phil tells me that what I do is “reprehensible” and “destructive to people.”

He berates me, cyber-bullies me—except it’s on national television. He television-bullies me. I can’t complain because I knew this would happen. It’s not like I came on here thinking Dr. Phil would be kind and cordial and understanding, but then the cameras cut, and something very odd happens.

Nik Richie's debut on Dr. Phil.

When the show goes to break,
the lights on the cameras that indicate they’re recording blink out and the pieces start moving around. Beyond the stage, there are lines of tape stuck to the floor, and the cameras get shifted over on wheel carts to align with the next “mark.” Angles change. The lighting adjusts. A production assistant yells how much time they’ve got to do this, which is about thirty seconds. During that period, a makeup girl comes onto the stage with a white foam triangle and foundation kit.

This girl is touching up Dr. Phil’s face as he says to me, “Nik, thank you so much for coming out, I really appreciate it.”

I nod like,
Yeah…whatever, man.

“Hey, don’t you live in Scottsdale?” he asks, but he’s asking in this genuinely friendly way like the last ten minutes never happened.

I say, “Yeah, I’m in Scottsdale.”

“It’s beautiful out there,” he says, and the makeup girl gives him one final touch-up and bolts off the stage. “Hey, we should go golfing sometime.”

I never get a chance to say yes or no.

The cameras are back on, and so is Dr. Phil.

We talk about suicide.

One of the things not very many people realize about
The Dirty
is that we actively avoid high school stuff. Technically and legally, I
could
post it, but that’s not our demographic. The site was founded on the twenty-one-and-over club scene, so anything high school-related I want nothing to do with. If I get a picture and the person even
looks
like they could be in high school, I pass on it. Although it’s unofficial, that’s always been my policy. Of course, no one tells Dr. Phil this beforehand.

He’s listing names off: Ryan Haligan
⁶⁶
…Jeffrey Johnson
⁶⁷
…Rachael Neblett
⁶⁸
…Megan Meier
⁶⁹
…Jessica Logan
⁷⁰
…Phoebe Prince
⁷¹
…Alexis Pilkington
⁷²
…Tyler Clemente
⁷³
.

These kids, he tells me, killed themselves all due to bullying/cyber-bullying-related instances.

“In my opinion,” Dr. Phil says, “it’s not a matter of “if,’ but “when’ that’s gonna happen based on what’s being posted on
Dirty.com
[sic].”

I’m thinking,
Is Dr. Phil trying to mindfuck me?

Five minutes ago he asked me if I wanted to go golfing.

Now he’s saying I’m about to have blood on my hands.

I have difficulty evoking empathy because I grew up in a time when bullying meant getting the shit kicked out of you and having your money taken. It meant coming home with bruises because you were physically overtaken. You were helpless. Fast-forward to the present, and we’ve got kids offing themselves because of a rumor or some mean thing so-and-so said. Gossip can kill now. We officially live in the generation where hurting someone’s feelings is just as powerful as a loaded gun.

My viewpoint of suicide is black-and-white in that I blame the triggerman, not the guy who sold you the bullets. You don’t commit suicide because of something done to you; you commit suicide because you’re done with yourself. Dr. Phil and I won’t agree there because he’s one of
the many who believe suicide is like murder: it takes at least two people to do it. One provides motive and the other executes.

Currently, my site has no suicides, so that fact that he’s associating what I do with these dead kids pisses me off. He’s speculating, but the audience is eating it up like he’s telling the truth.

Dr. Phil says, “I think it’s a real danger, don’t you?”

I shake my head, saying, “No…no.”

He’s trying to get me to bend. Trying to break me, make me turn on myself. Incriminate myself. Get me to admit fault. But I just keep shaking my head, saying “no” or “wrong” or “that’s not right.”

We go to break.

It happens again.

Cameras and lights are shifting.

A production assistant is yelling out to the crew.

Now Dr. Phil is saying to me, “Y’know, you could do your site a little differently. There’s a few things you could take down, but overall, it’s pretty entertaining.”

I’m like, “Great, could you please say that on-air now?”

Filming resumes, and it’s like the conversation never happened.

The next segment is with a girl that was posted on the site,
and already she’s playing up the victim card. Crying. Wiping her eyes with Kleenex. Dr. Phil asks leading questions to make this girl seem as normal as possible, which is sort of an interview trick to get the jury on his side. This is his star witness, so to speak. The intent here is that when the episode finally airs, everyone is going to think that every post on the site is exactly like this girl: a poor little nobody who took a few modeling pictures. She’s just like you. Nothing special. They won’t think about girls like Leper or Alien because they won’t know any better.

This girl on the big screen behind us is attempting to look sexy or whatever in these modeling pictures. Spray-tanned orange and confident. Live and in person, she’s on the verge of losing her shit again, saying, “That’s my first photo shoot I ever did. That was my very first one.
Obviously
, I don’t have practice,” she explains. “But because of that, I don’t do
anything. Because of you, in a way…and you pretty much ruined my life because of that,” but the last part of that sentence comes out sounding jumbled from the crying.

I tell her, “It’s not because of me; it’s because of your friend or the person that actually submitted it.”

“Who’s the creator of the website?” she asks.

“I am,” I say.

“Exactly! You’re the one accepting all these pictures.”

It’s a faulty argument to begin with. If someone is harassed on Facebook, you can’t really blame Mark Zuckerberg. Fake accounts became extremely popular on MySpace back in the day, but you couldn’t get upset with Tom Anderson. What it boils down to is that 99.9% of any problem is going to be user-related, and it’s not specific to just my site. Pick any YouTube video or Yahoo! News article and you’ll find it: racism, sexism, bigotry, foul language, threats of rape and murder. Just check the comments section. It’s all right there. People are horrible now. Give them the cloak of anonymity and it’s even worse.

Dr. Phil brings us up to speed, quoting what people said about her on the site: “She looks like a tranny…alcoholic…druggie…not up to par… stop giving Washington a bad name…she gave her stepfather a blowjob in exchange for a boob job…she’s got herpes…she could use a nose job.”

People saying whatever they feel like saying with no accountability: this is what the 1st Amendment has become. I’m the one that has to defend it on national television.

So we fight:

I explain that the comments are all third-party. I didn’t make them. The girl reminds me that I did, in fact, make a comment of my own. That’s true. For every post that goes up, I make a comment. It’s not always bad, but I imagine for her it was.

She asks me if I remember the comment I made.

I say it was probably two years ago.

She says that I said she looked like a man, but that doesn’t sound like Nik Richie.

“Shim,” I say. Based on her masculine facial features, specifically, the jawline, I probably called her a shim. I’m not afraid to say it to her face. I’m giving my honest opinion of her looks. Dr. Phil asks me why. Why would I say that?

“When I say something, it’s what I’m thinking. I’m truthful,” I say. “That’s just how I am.”

Lots of people do this. The difference between those people and myself is that I’ll attach my name to it. You’ll know the source. I’ll even say it to your face.

Dr. Phil keeps asking leading questions to make me look like a monster.

The girl calls me a joke, says it right to my face.

And the audience applauds.