Editor’s Note (February 7, 2022): Following publication of the below article, an anonymous writer published an essay claiming to have tricked this article’s author—freelance writer Seth Simons—into believing that a forum user known as ToxicCisWhiteMaleFat was comedy club owner Cris Italia. Although The New Republic was unable to reach the anonymous writer to verify the claims in that essay, all indications are that Mr. Simons was catfished. Thus, we have updated the article to remove references to the “mole” mentioned as a source, as well as all language suggesting that Mr. Italia might be ToxicCisWhiteMaleFat—the evidence for which, it is now clear, was bogus. To the extent that the article linked hateful speech to Mr. Italia, any such attribution was in error. This article did not meet TNR’s standards, and we apologize to Mr. Italia and our readers for not fact-checking it more thoroughly.