Annaliese Nielsen's Lyft Rant
Overview
Annaliese Nielsen's Lyft Rant refers to a video in which entrepreneur Annaliese Nielsen orders a Lyft driver to take down a bobblehead from his dashboard, claiming that she finds the Hawaiian figurine to be "racist." After the video began circulating in late August 2016, Nielsen was widely mocked as an irrational "social justice warrior" in various online communities.
Background
On March 12th, 2016, Neilsen tweeted that she had been left on the side of a freeway after being kicked out of a vehicle by a "racist Lyft driver" (shown below).
On August 27th, conservative vlogger Lauren Southern uploaded a video titled "SJW Berates Lyft Driver," in which Nielsen aggressively demands that her Lyft driver remove a Hawaiian bobblehead figurine from his dash board (shown below). After her driver refuses, she threatens to put him on "Gawker" and calls him a "fucking selfish dumbass idiot," before he pulls over and orders her to leave his vehicle. Within four days, the video gained over 394,000 views and 5,000 comments.
"No, you will be published on Gawker. You will be like the next internet meme, it's going to be super funny."
Developments
Online Reaction
On August 28th, the Canadian News Agency "YouTube":memes/sites/youtube channel reuploaded the video. Meanwhile, Neilsen deleted her @tornadoliese[3] Twitter account, which was immediately relaunched by an impersonator. Also on August 28th, the video reached the front page of the /r/rage[6] and /r/uberdrivers[7] subreddits. On August 30th, Redditor MarcusJZE submitted the video to /r/videos,[1] referring to Nielsen as a "vocal fry Valley girl."
Neilsen's Response
On August 29th, Twitter user @CassandraRules[5] posted screenshots of a Neilsen's Facebook post complaining about harassment she was receiving, claiming she had been targeted by "Gamergate" and the alt-right (shown below).
Lyft Driver's Response
On August 30th, Southern tweeted that she had contacted the Lyft driver, who confirmed he had been fired for several days following the incident, but was reinstated after he was exonerating by the video (shown below).[4]
News Media Coverage
In the days after the video was released, several news sites published articles about the online backlash, including The Daily Dot,[8] Heat Street,[9] The Daily Mail[10] and The Daily Caller.[11]
Search Interest
Not available.
External References
[1] Reddit – Vocal Fry Valley Girl Assaults
[2] YouTube – Annaliese Nielsen assaults Lyft driver
[3] Twitter – @tornadoliese
[4] Twitter – @Lauren_Southern
[5] Twitter – @CassandraRules
[7] Reddit – /r/uberdrivers
[8] The Daily Dot – Founder of alt-porn site gets kicked out of Lyft
[9] HeatStreet – Social Justice Warrior Abuses Her Driver
[10] Daily Mail – Shocking moment female Lyft passenger threatens to humiliate
[11] The Daily Caller – Woman Becomes Unglued over Lyft Drivers Racist Hula Doll
Top Comments
Pat Bateman
Aug 31, 2016 at 07:21PM EDT
Freakenstein Moderator
Aug 31, 2016 at 04:08PM EDT