A self-described Iranian animal rights activist and “vegan bodybuilder” from Southern California, Nasim Aghdam had a significant online presence with multiple YouTube channels and social media pages.
But on Tuesday, only one phrase was being used to describe the 39-year-old San Diego woman: YouTube HQ shooter.
Things started to go pear-shaped for the video artist when YouTube introduced new policies, and started censoring videos at the beginning of last year.
In response, Aghdam posted comments on her own site, accusing the video streaming channel of “censoring her videos and not paying her”, reports New Zealand Herald.
She also claimed that her YouTube channel, which had more than 5 000 subscribers, used to get many views but started getting less when the company ‘filtered’ her videos:
“They want you to be their sex slaves not think outside the box they designed for you! Your knowledge is their enemy,” Aghdam, who went under the name “Nasim Wonder 1” on her YouTube channel, said in the video.
YouTube was her main source of income.
The video rant, below:
WATCH: YOUTUBE HQ PERSIAN FEMALE SHOOTER NASIM AGHDAM RANTING AGAINST YOUTUBE pic.twitter.com/9qi42xZNtw
— Divine Neet (@DivineNeet) April 4, 2018
And a screenshot from her website, which you can see in full here:
The artist’s argument was further fuelled by fellow YouTubers, like Casey Neistat and Bite Size Vegan, complaining about the same thing.
More examples of Aghdam’s bizarre work below:
To get her own back, Aghdam thought a trip to YouTube’s headquarters was in order. But instead of rocking up for a civil chat, she arrived armed with a 9mm hand gun and shot one man and two women, before turning the gun on herself:
Officers and federal agents swarmed the company’s headquarters complex just before 1pm Tuesday local time after dozens of panicked employees called 911 to report gunfire.
Witnesses say the shooter was wearing glasses and a scarf when she opened fire.
Upon arrival, police found the woman dead inside the campus with self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said three people were taken to hospitals in San Francisco with gunshot wounds.
A 36-year-old man was in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman was in serious condition and a 27-year-old woman was in fair condition following the shooting.
Her body covered, below:
A few hours after the shooting, Aghdam’s YouTube channels and social media pages were all removed. However, as mentioned above, her website is still live and gives you a sense of what she was all about.
Female mass shooters are rare. In fact, a recent Washington Post analysis shows only “three out of 150 US shootings with more than four victims since 1966 were done by women”.
But police had been warned; CBS Local reports that Aghdam’s father had warned authorities after she went missing that he was “concerned about her recent ire at YouTube”:
He said law enforcement authorities contacted him Tuesday at 2 a.m., telling him they had found his daughter safe in her car in Mountain View in Northern California.
When the family realized [sic] that was near YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, they told police about her recent complaints about how the company was “ruining her life.” They claim police told them they would be keeping an eye on her.
Imagine she had got hold of an AR-15 rifle.
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