Hall of Shame

Shadow Dragu-Mihai vents his feelings

By DTL
Posted 2020-08-13

I regret to report that Stage 32 permits stalking, bullying, and threatening behaviour by its users, and possibly by its employees and / or workers.

 

From: "SJA" <sja252001@yahoo.com>
To: "Damian T. Lloyd" <damian.lloyd@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 20:18
Subject: Fuck you, go away

You’re a nasty piece of shit. I feel so sorry for someone who must denigrate others in a sad attempt to salve their damaged psyche.

Why don’t you fuck off Stage 32. No one takes you seriously. Sooner or later users will come to the same conclusion others have and not fall for your inane, mean-spirited, baiting bullshit. You have nothing to offer except the stink of your fetid bile.

You’re what’s wrong with online life. Crawling out from under a rock to attack and slink back under. I despise you, fucking assclown. Of course, like a good sociopath, this won’t reach you.

Do the world a favor and eat a bullet.

XXOO,
A. Friend

Well that was rude. Who is this coward, hiding behind a burner account to wish violence upon a stranger who posted something they disagree with on the Internet? What are they, twelve?

Oh well; there are all kinds of weirdos out there. If you can't take some rando abusing you from time to time, what are you doing on the Web?

*   *   *

Perhaps that individual is also this individual: on July 22, 2020 a user created the pseudonymous account “Dumband Annoyed” [sic] on Stage 32 seemingly for the sole purpose of harassing me. This user went through literally every single post on which I had commented, leaving abusive comments directed at me by name.

This harassment was so egregious that a couple of other users posted comments wondering who this person was and why they thought they could get away with such flagrant violations of Stage 32’s standards of conduct.

I filed a complaint, and the account and all its comments were deleted. That seems an appropriate and proportional response, so thanks are due Stage 32’s moderators for that.

*   *   *

On July 23, my account was terminated without notice. I received the following email almost immediately (screenshot):

From: "SJA" <sja252001@yahoo.com>
To: "Damian T. Lloyd" <damian.lloyd@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2020 16:52
Subject: Stage 32

Goodbye, asshole.

Hey, it's SJA again from back in March! How've ya been, SJA?

This email raises an interesting question: How did SJA know that my account had been terminated? I had not told anyone; Stage 32 had not told anyone. I can think of no other way SJA could have known this except that they have insider knowledge of Stage 32’s actions.

As I said above, I can take no position on whether I deserved to have my Stage 32 account terminated; that’s not my call to make. I recognize that Stage 32 has the legal right to terminate any account at any time for any reason or no reason.

But this appears to be a case of a Stage 32 staff member abusing their power to pursue a personal vendetta against an individual user.

*   *   *

I filed a complaint through Stage 32’s feedback form (alas, I do not have a copy of this), and posted the above narrative on my Facebook Timeline. I received the following response:

From: "Stage 32 Customer Service" <support@stage32.com>
Date: Friday, July 24, 2020 12:16
Subject: Re: Offsite abuse from Stage 32 . . .

Hi Damian,

This is Stage 32’s Legal Team. The person you identified is not an employee of Stage 32. They are a member and their account has been suspended. Representing them as a Stage 32 employee in a public forum is libelous. Please remove the post and any other social media posts with the misrepresentations. Thank you.

Stage 32 Customer Service

That is an interesting claim. How did they know that the individual I mentioned was a member? How did they know which account to suspend? My complaint did not provide enough information to identify this person. “Curiouser and curiouser.” I suspect that they were referring to the earlier-mentioned DA rather than SJA; whether they did this accidentally or as a deliberate obfuscation is not something I can say.

The individual in question is clearly more than a mere member if they have access to Stage 32’s inside information and / or the ability to terminate accounts on Stage 32. Nevertheless, I recognize that “Legal Team” (ha!) may be technically correct (“the best kind of correct”) in that this person may not be an employee; perhaps they perform work for Stage 32, but Stage 32 does not pay them for their work. I thus revised my post to replace my initial term “Stage 32 employee” with “Stage 32 worker”. The rest of the post remains online and unchanged.

(I certainly do not want to get any facts wrong. If “Legal Team” will send me a list of my factual statements that they believe to be erroneous, I will review them with my attorneys and take appropriate action.)

*   *   *

Meanwhile, I received the following email from Stage 32 user Shadow Dragu-Mihai containing content serious enough to merit a police report (all errors in original):

From: "Shadow Dragu-Mihai" <shadowmihai@gmail.com>
To: "Damian T. Lloyd" <damian.lloyd@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, July 24, 2020 11:22
Subject: Awwww. . .

Gee did little damian get bumped from stage32?

I wonder why (not really).

Wish I had something to do with it. But . . . alas, I was far down the line of people who had been asking the moderators to bounce you . . . Your bitter, unwelcome, unqualified, sometimes stupid and just plain rude commentary caused this. You did it to yourself. I am guessing it’s a common theme in your life.

One of the other things you did is flag yourself as someone to never permit anywhere near a production. Unfortunately, the dialog has now moved on to whether your puerile and bitter attitude is common in Vancouver . . . too bad I can’t tell them it’s rare in the rainy city . . . oh well.

Have a good life in [street address redacted] . . . as you wait for the teensy Vancouver industry to come back on line . . . and maybe offer up another opportunity to pull out your aging zoom h3 for another no-budget short video . . . No one in the real industry will look at you.

And don’t bother writing back, your addy is filtered to be forwarded with fun notes to gmail security services, and then trashed. I won’t see them.

Ciao little flea!

I do have a few questions:

• How did he know I got “bumped from Stage 32”? At that time, the only ones who knew about this matter were me and Stage 32 . . . oh, and SJA. Does SD-M, despite his denial, have something to do with this revocation? Is he the pseudonymous SJA? Is he DA? Is he more than one of them? “Inquiring minds want to know.”
• How does he know there was a “line of people who had been asking the moderators to bounce you”? Is he making that up out of his head, or does he have insider access to Stage 32?
SD-M's headshot from Stage 32
• What slight does he feel I have inflicted on him that he would go to such trouble to slag me? I don’t remember him from the site at all. He seems to be “HSH Prince Shadow Dragu-Mihai”, who pretends that he “retains the royal title Prince of Wallachia, & is Executor of House Dragu-Mihai”. That's very impressive, I’m sure; I’m not really a monarchist. And anyway, Wallachia hasn’t been a country since 1859. SD-M claims that House Dragu-Mihai is a “revival” of House Dracul, so I think he just likes to imagine that he’s related to Dracula.
• Why does he wish that I “Have a good life in [redacted]” — and mention my former residential address? This is what merited a police report. It goes beyond creepy stalking; I suspect that it is intended as some sort of threat: Look, I can find out where you live. Oooo, scary! I’d better watch myself, or he’ll come to my house and bite me in the neck.
• Why does he mock “the teensy Vancouver industry”? Vancouver is the third-most-active city for movie production in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City. So the prince here literally doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This global pandemic we have going on at the moment has put a crimp in the industry, yes, but we are far from the only place affected; you may have noticed.
• Why does he mock my “aging zoom h3” [sic]? I assume he saw a photo my then-corporation posted on its Facebook page a few years ago (and why is he stalking me?) of my Zoom F8 audio recorder. I quite like the F8; it’s at least two-thirds as good as a Sound Devices recorder, and for one-third the price. I own other old gear, too: I still have my Tascam DR-60D . . . and my Zoom H4n from back in the DSLR boom of the ’naughties. Gear is cool (but beware of GAS!).
• He's gonna sic “gmail security services” [sic] on me? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah! “I don’t think it means what you think it means.” GMail's security team is not going to come my house and bite me in the neck. Oh, SD-M, you do make me laugh . . .

I think that SD-M was offended by some thing(s) I said that reminded him that, despite his posturing as a decades-long movie-making success, he has only a handful of middling credits to his name — most of them comedy Web-serieses created by minor YouTuber Levi Otis. We all try to portray ourselves as the biggest deal possible, but this guy may be taking it a bit too far.

He’s never done anything noteworthy or anything that has broken through. He’s never had a principal role in anything major. His venture Facet.TV is defunct, and the domain name has been taken over by some cybersquatter. The Independent Producers Guild appears to be SD-M’s own attempt to promote (and profit from) independent movie-makers, and the same goes for Stage and Screen Innovations; notice the physical addresses are the same for both ventures. This guy’s trying to be a one-man conglomerate . . . and to get other people to pay for it.

A personal theory

Of course, I can’t prove any of this . . .

I think that all these individuals are SD-M. I think he performed some kind of legal services for Stage 32 (his website says he has a BA in Law and has practiced as an entertainment attorney). I think he terminated my account. I think he is “Legal Team”trying to intimidate me into retracting my post.

True, SJA and “Legal Team” do write better than SD-M under his own name; for example, they use fewer ellipses and they capitalize properly. That may be evidence against my theory.

As I said, I can take no position on whether I deserved to have my account terminated. But stalking, bullying, and threats of violence by Stage 32 workers and / or users is not acceptable under any circumstances. Stage 32’s users, employees, partners, and advertisers should be aware of the conduct of Stage 32’s employees, workers, and members.

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