Professional violinist Mia Matsumiya has been saving every message she’s received over the last ten years from online creeps and shared the shocking collection on her Instagram account perv_magnet.

Matsumiya had originally considered making a coffee table book of the images but instead opted for the more public and immediate forum of Instagram to, in her words, “bring to light all the horrific things people say to women online when everyone else’s heads are turned.”

A quick scroll through the account and there’s no doubt it achieves just that.

A sample of the vitriol Matsumiya has had to contend with includes:

Pretty sure that by “heat,” he means gonorrhea. #pervmagnet A photo posted by Mia Matsumiya (@perv_magnet) on Oct 10, 2015 at 9:26am PDT

Matsumiya received the messages on various social media platforms, namely Facebook, mySpace and Twitter, and in total there are over 1000 in the online archive.

While attempting to make light of the situation in her captions, Matsumiya shows how the messaging took an even darker turn. “This guy who would write pages and pages of fantasy stories about coming to my concerts and then raping me in the bathroom,” she told Dazed. “He actually ended up getting arrested for stalking another Asian woman.”

Matsumiya has been applauded for the move by the online community with many taking to Twitter to voice their support, women and men alike:

https://twitter.com/erinwillett/status/656591157376356353

https://twitter.com/ColonelCrockett/status/655216121155457024

Matsumiya herself is astounded by the outpouring of support for the project and also took to Twitter to voice her gratitude.

https://twitter.com/mia_matsumiya/status/656701513373343744

Patrick Culhane

Article by Patrick Culhane

Leave a comment

Subscribe to the uInterview newsletter