Men like Simon Leviev and Kyle Rittenhouse are not celebrities. They are criminals. In this day and age, men who commit crimes and atrocities come out of it and gain managers, shows and platforms, purely to say controversial things or enact some sort of public revenge on those who wronged them.Â
Kyle Rittenhouse travelled across state lines with a gun and murdered 2 people, injured another at a Black Lives Matter protest and was found not guilty. Kyle Rittenhouse is suing Whoopi Goldberg for calling him a murderer and is now getting on talk shows to talk about his experience. He is not a fun addition to your talk show to spice up the hour with some controversial talking points. Â
Simon Leviev is the criminal known as the Tinder Swindler. He took advantage of women and scammed hundreds of thousands of pounds out of them. Now he has a TikTok platform, a manager, a website selling business advice, and is trying to get a dating show. There are memes all over the internet about him and even I couldn’t tell you the names of the women he manipulated. That’s not right. This man isn’t a celebrity or a funny story, he’s a deeply disturbed conman who ruins peoples’ lives. Because we heard the story on Netflix, suddenly people think it is okay to sensationalise and profit off of these women’s suffering. Â
So much of the blame here can be traced back to capitalism. Everything must be sellable and able to be made funny on TikTok or Twitter. Some things aren’t funny, some things are terrible and should be condemned, not made light of. These men certainly shouldn’t be given platforms, because what does this tell others who want to go and shoot up a park full of innocent people? Or threaten women until they send them their life savings? It tells them it is a career move. Murder is not and will never be a career move.Â
When we sell criminals as actors and entrepreneurs, there’s a very dangerous ripple effect that results in things like corrupt reality TV stars becoming President of the United States…Â
Simon Leviev is barely viewed as a criminal; he is essentially a TV personality. The fact his victims were women play a large part in that. We already know how little crimes against women are taken seriously in our society. This is a current example of that. The victims of The Tinder Swindler are painted as naive and stupid, and they are still paying off their debts, while Simon returns to his lavish lifestyle. Society doesn’t take female pain seriously. Â
In a similar vein, how many other shooters do you know are allowed on daytime TV? Probably none, and probably none that had white, male victims. People of colour’s pain is systemically ignored and capitalised on, and Kyle Rittenhouse’s freedom makes that very clear. And what is he doing with his freedom? Suing a black woman. Someone with so much hate in their heart, who is clearly a danger to society, should not have an agent who manages their calls for career opportunities.Â