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A federal grand jury convened Wednesday to unanimously indict social media superstar Alex Albot on multiple felony and misdemeanor charges. Those charges include wire fraud, racketeering, battery, aggravated assault, bribery, disorderly conduct, vandalism, public intoxication, driving under the influence, shoplifting, stalking, indecent exposure, and the unauthorized ownership of a koala. Court documents show that the jury took a total of twelve minutes to reach their decision. Ten of those minutes were spent listening to a court official detail the nature of Albot’s individual charges. The controversial e-celebrity made national news last month by committing over three-fourths of the charges he was indicted on in one night, all while live streaming the events.
“He’s a great guy,” one of his supporters, who wished to remain anonymous, told our correspondent. “He really doesn’t deserve the hate that he’s getting. If the people hating on him stopped for a second and actually tried to educate themselves, actually listened to what he had to say, they’d realize that he’s all about really good things like self-love and being the best that you can be, not all this nonsense that they’re trying to lock him up for—that’s just someone trying to have a good time. But guys like me worship Alex. I don’t know how I’d get out of bed every morning if it weren’t for him. He talks all the time about how as men we have to fight against ‘the strategic softening of manhood.’ He says if a man can’t follow his natural impulses, whether that’s getting drunk in public, fighting, or crashing your car into a shopping mall, whatever the case may be, then he’s acting against his own evolutionary instinct. So, what, you’d rather have us go back to being monkeys again?”
Albot, who is twenty-three, first gained popularity as a foulmouthed and deeply opinionated live streamer on the Twitch live streaming platform in 2019. He became known for his almost daily rants about the “alpha male mentality,” the respective positions of men and women in society, and other subjects that generated a fanbase consisting mostly of men ranging from teens to the middle-aged. In 2021, he began selling online instructional courses centered on what he calls “activating the masculine potential,” or “AMP-ing.” It is a term that his critics have called a catch-all for any and all potentially harmful gender-centric ideology he chooses to distribute to his followers.
“To AMP, so to speak,” wrote Dr. Jennifer Mintz, a women’s and gender studies professor at the University of Oklahoma in an acclaimed op-ed for Mother Jones, “is to do whatever one’s puerile, power-driven heart desires. AMP-ing could mean using misogynistic language on the Internet. It could mean going outside and urinating on the first person you see. It could even mean swindling thousands of teenage boys by promising them a course on how to be more effective misogynists that they’re never granted access to, and then using their money to illegally purchase a pet koala bear you have the audacity to name ‘Bobby Brown.’ Keep in mind that Mr. Albot is in his early twenties. He really had to reach back for that one.”
The “swindling” in question refers to the wire fraud and racketeering charges associated with the reported $800,000 Albot fraudulently acquired from his supporters. Purchasers of “The AMP Attitude” course paid $150 (later bumped to $199.99 without notice or explanation) for a collection of instructional content that everyone but his supporters are convinced never even existed. “Getting robbed was obviously a part of the course, though,” said one undeterred fan of Albot’s who also wished to remain anonymous. “That’s what the low-AMPlitude types don’t understand. He took our money and taught us how to take someone else’s money. Now I’m just waiting for the next part of the course to start.”
Albot could face up to twenty-five years in federal prison for his offenses. He tweeted prior to court proceedings that “America is witnessing the death of the justice system before its very eyes. I’ve never done anything but try to teach people how to live freely. Now they want to restrict my freedom for it. Think about it, America—is that really such a crime?” In an unexpected but ultimately well-received move, the official Twitter account of the United States Department of Justice replied, “Yes.”