I was born 'Joseph Howard Symons.'  

However, for the past few decades, I have gone under my AKA stage name, 'Joe Symon.' 

I am an actor, singer, composer, lyricist, broadcasting host and pianist. I have been a proud member of Actor's Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, and ASCAP.  My career has taken me all over the map - from cruise ship performing to summer and regional theater jobs to musical direction positions and more. In my 40s, I was introduced to a new live-streaming app called Periscope. It was a way for me to sing and play the piano for a multitude of live viewers and monetize my shows using PayPal as a tip jar.  That money was very much accounted for and I paid my fair share of taxes on it. I had a wonderful time, interacting with my viewership and the chemistry was invigorating. I then branched out into doing more of a daily reality live streaming show on Periscope several times a day.  Everything from singing in the street, interviewing quirky strangers, to doing tours across the Nation as well as Mexico. My trips were paid for by the viewers and I would livestream all the adventures.  Most people were very happy and felt that I was offering them legit entertainment. However a small group went after me, citing that I was a 'scam artist/fraud' who was taking money from people who didn't have it.  That blew up into calling me a pedophile, a cocaine addict and more.  From there, it spread onto other sites like Twitter, YouTube and Reddit.  There were accounts made of me with Nazi Swastikas, pictures of my mother, photoshopped pictures of me attached to sexual, filthy, images.  One particular hater assumed the identity of an elderly Asian woman and tormented me when my ex-partner and I were grieving over a dying pet.  We had a GoFundMe account to get her tested and treat her, and we were brutalized for doing so.  This horrific human being made jokes about cooking Asian Broth with our poor cat's head floating in it.  I cried and cried.  Then I cried some more.  The pain of being bullied, humiliated and slandered publicly was beyond imaginable. My parents now caught wind of what was happening and they were heartbroken and devastated.  We couldn't fight it, as lawyers were costly and we figured if we ignored it, eventually it would go away.   Numerous times, I tried to ignore it but I was unsuccessful.   One day, I woke up to a new level of nightmare, when someone created a board on the site known as Reddit.  I had never seen anything like this.  Many, many pages of comments from anonymous people, calling me all kinds of names and claiming that they were each personally rejected or hurt or scammed by me.  One viewer spread rumors about me that I had a second brother in my family who had disowned me and that she was reporting me to the FBI for scamming people out of money.  That viewer went on to spread lies about me all over Twitter and Reddit.  The lies went on and on. I often reacted to the comments that were flying at me during my broadcasts and I surely did not handle it well.   I am an emotional guy, a creative spirit and temperamental soul.  Along with artistry, comes passion.  When I saw what was being said about me, including a select few broadcasters on Periscope doing whole hour-long shows about me, calling me a scam artist and "piece of s--t" and worse, I reacted.   I was told to try and ignore.  "Don't fuel the haters" I was told.   I am here to tell you that...

That is easier said than done.

I never had anything like this happen in my lifetime and I wasn't equipped to deal with the incessant hatred and cyber-mobbing that was beginning to gang up on me and inflict my daily life.  The hateful emails and comments about me spreading all over social media was relentless and nonstop. I would press the Go Live Button and lose my temper, yelling at people, usually inserting horrific obscenities.  The problem was that I forgot that internet lives forever.  However, when you livestream on Periscope, you don't expect people to record you and then post it all over the worldwide web.   Everything was always taken out of context.   Everything.   If you watch my entire live streaming shows and my rants, it would all make sense and any common-sensed individual would know that I was in the right.  How I handled it was vulgar at times and unseemly.  I found it very hard to stay calm as the comments came in one by one, flooding my broadcast with hate and obsessive harassment.   The most often behavior that set me off explosively was having my personal home address posted in the broadcast itself, as well as posting my parent's personal email address and home address.  Yes.  I am not making this up, nor could anyone conjure up all the things that happened to me. 

In short, I spiraled into madness and became a monster version of myself.  I was angry, upset, volatile, and offensive in my wording. After being relentlessly harassed on Twitter by someone, I found out where they worked and I filed a complaint that a registered nurse of theirs was spouting horrific statements about me.  After having a certain female actress in Manhattan do countless shows about me, rallying up mobs of haters, I lost my cool and emailed the theatre where she was performing, telling her of what she was doing to me all day before she left for the theatre.  I am not proud of my behavior, but you can understand how livid I was.  I had no other way of getting them back and/or trying to scare them enough to stop.   It only made things worse, therefore I regret those moves.  

Let it be known that I often apologized, much of the time when I didn't have to (my supporters were furious that I kept losing my dignity by being the one to apologize when they never did.)  Eventually, almost every single disgruntled viewer accepted my apology and many of them came back to being supporters and peaceful viewers.  It was only a tiny select few, a small handful, that would not stop no matter what I did to modify my behavior.  The Reddit Board became about a small group of people (one of them had multiple troll names, so it was actually less than it appeared.). This small group was led by two people who really made it their mission to publicize the Reddit Board, getting hundreds of people to click on it.  This caused the real damage which got it to the top of the first page of Google Results of my name.  

In addition, this one 'anonymous' hater went so far as to email my talent agency more than once and scaring them so much, that they were forced to drop me from their roster.  Another person actually called my Housing Company to claim that I wasn't fit to live there. Luckily, they knew it was a scam call and they brought me downstairs to discuss it but it was immediately dropped.  I fought back by anonymously texting a small handful of these haters and trying to scare them back, but it didn't last.   Why?  Because I couldn't do it.  I didn't have the heart.  Every time I tried to create a troll account, I would put out a few tweets, then take it down. I wasn't good at it.  I couldn't hate back.  My conscience wouldn't handle it more than a few hours.  (Which leads me to wonder how these people do this all day long for months at a time, even years.)

Fast forward to the current day.   This past week, I have lost my job.  It is a musical direction and vocal coach position at a very reputable Theatre Academy for Children.  One of the parents did a google search on me and saw the Reddit Board and and understandably was very upset.  The school was forced to let me go and I have lost all of my work with them for 2019 and beyond.   They were very upset in making that decision, as they knew what had happened and how I was the victim, not the perpetrator.   I understood that it was a business and I became a liability since these haters wouldn't stop clicking on these Reddit Boards, which made those links stay at the top of my Google Results.  

The most damaging thing that's on those Boards are clips of my live streams, losing my temper, cursing, flying into a rage and looking like an all-around crazy person.     Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a good man, a kind heart, a giving soul and a dedicated, tenacious artist.  

The haters promised me that if I left live streaming altogether, that they would stop going after me and take down the content.  Most of the boards went private but one particular anonymous troll has continued to keep up all the video clips.  I have now lost my job and my agent representation in the past 12 months.   The damage has been done and it's too late to get my agent back or my job with the Theatre School (which I loved so much.)

However, it's not too late to get my name back.   I'd like to return to myself -- to the real Joe Symon -- Joseph Howard Symons -- who my friends of 30 years plus, can stand by me and endorse me as nothing less than a well-intentioned human being.  

I would like to add that due to this being a public campaign?  I'm quite certain this cyber mob leader will take down the videos temporarily to save his own self -- however, that's way too late for me, obviously.  So if you don't see the clips, that would be the reason. The proof is in all of my files, so that's not an issue.  

On behalf of my family, my friends and of course, my own self -- I need to get my good name back.   My Google Results must be cleared of this nightmare for good.   That will take a permanent solution which costs money.  I have reported hundreds of posts and videos, only for it to be reposted somewhere else.  It's endless.   When I consulted with this attorney who specializes in this area, he informed me that there are more drastic options to pursue to make sure I have a clean, new slate.  A future I can be excited about instead of dreading what will come next for me.

I am well-aware it's about to get worse,  before it gets better.   Whoever hated me then will now come after me in droves. And I'm ready to tell my story, complete with details of what I did wrong and how I could have handled it better.  Now that I have outed myself as imperfect, I have nothing to hide.   That is in stark contrast to many of these people who hide behind anonymous screen names and feel they can ruin my life and get away with it.  

I will continue to fight this and will never give up.   And I hope you will join me in this fight.   No one person or small group of people should be allowed to ruin your name forever.  

I can't thank you all enough for even reading this long blog.  I know how we all get inundated with campaigns and requests for funding.  

But I have no other choice at this point.   

This first stage of fees includes the initial large retainer fee for this attorney (who specializes in revenge videos and internet harassment), plus the donation processing fees.  There might be extra costs in the near future, but this will get my case started immediately.