Update 10/09/24 11:00 A.M. ET: This story has been updated to include a quote from McWhorter addressing accusations about his past.
The first thing you notice about Michael McWhorter is his long, salt-and-pepper beard, which is so impressive it deserves its own social media account.
The second thing you notice about this unique influencer is how cagey he is in revealing where he actually lives—“just say south Florida”—due to how many death threats he regularly receives. The vitriol he inspires comes mainly from the far right, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who follows him on TikTok, where he’s attracted more than 6.5 million followers within six years under the TizzyEnt handle for exposing racists, misogynists, abusers, and road-raging Americans whose ugly and sometimes violent interactions are caught on camera.
He’ll receive a video from someone in his DMs and ask their permission before posting publicly about it. “Who is he?” is a common caption (and yes, most of the suspects are men) on posts where he solicits help from his passionate following. He often later posts updated videos with the person’s name and the fallout from their deplorable actions.
This kind of public doxing has led to these perpetrators losing their jobs and, in some cases, facing criminal charges. He brings detective-like skills to his videos, pointing out identifying labels on work uniforms or tattoos that could lead to the person’s identity. But, in a conversation over Zoom, McWhorter is quick to deflect credit to his many fans.
“I don't think that I am anything special,” he told Complex. “I don’t have any power and I don’t think I'm all that unique. What I do have, for whatever reason, is a lot of really great people who follow me. Nothing I do could be done without those followers helping.”
Take the case of the Tesla Terrorist, as this attacker was colloquially nicknamed. In several incidents in early 2023, an unknown man driving on L.A. freeways angrily smashed cars with a pipe, reportedly threatened several women with the same weapon a year prior. When a victim, who wanted to remain anonymous, sent a dash cam video of one such road rage incident to McWhorter, he immediately thought, “This guy's only been doing this and hasn't been found out because people who know who he is are probably are scared of him.”
In January 2023, McWhorter used his platform to share the video and asked anyone who could identify the pipe-wielder to send him a DM. He promised to keep their identities hidden from the public and received three messages within 24 hours. He said, “One of those three people was a guy who went to high school with him in upstate New York. That guy was never going to see all those news broadcasts in Los Angeles.”
Once McWhorter could confirm the man’s identity, he sent the details to police officers, a relationship he’s cultivated over the past few years when the crime caught on camera is especially egregious. Nathaniel Radimak was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison, though new reports suggest he could be released earlier thanks to parol.
“What I do with law enforcement is give them a beach ball that is just floating in the air, and all they have to do is reach up to smack it,” he said.
What consistently motivates McWhorter, who works as a film director and music video editor, is ensuring the targets of his videos face consequences for their heinous actions.
“It’s just trying to right a wrong,” he explained to Complex. “[The] top priority is someone who is actively harming others, physically harming them, or defrauding people out of money. Even when it’s someone maybe just hurling racist or homophobic slurs, people often fail to realize in many of those instances a crime has been committed.”
He’s identified white supremacists hurling N-word slurs at a group of kids and found the real name of a man who randomly pepper-sprayed drivers in Long Beach. His outreach to the public is often instigated by a lack of police action once a report has been filed to law enforcement.
“When it's a random encounter on the street, even if they have it on video, law enforcement seems to often say, ‘Well we don’t know who that person is, so there isn't much we can do,’" he said. "So, I found I could help people by figuring out who the person is."
His approach to finding perpetrators riffs off of similar techniques used by geolocation specialists such as JoseMonkey, a TikToker with 1.8 million followers who asks anyone to send him a video of themselves so that he can “find them” based on identifying structures or signs. While McWhorter will use that approach for some vids, he’s mainly reliant on his followers across the world to ID the people in the videos he gets.
On YouTube and TikTok, several users have posted about McWhorter's past missteps, such as misidentifying certain suspects and sharing jokes that veered into vulgarity. In response to these accusations, McWhorter told Complex, "When you reach a certain size people will post about you because it gets them views...I'm a very different person today than I was 15 years ago, I'm even different than I was five years ago, and that's part of growing and learning to do and be better. Even though much of the stuff people say about me is made up, or misrepresented it seems disingenuous to get too upset about it because the reality is if I go back far enough in my life I'd probably find a time where if I didn't say or do those things, I would at least stand by and say nothing as others did and that really isn't any better."
He knows he’s entering dangerous territory, as someone may be mistaken in identifying an attacker. “But just like journalists, I have checks and balances on my work, and I don’t take one person’s word for it," he professed. "I need corroboration from another party."
In fact, McWhorter, who was raised in Florida’s Palm Beach County, told Complex that he would prefer to hang it up and focus primarily on his full-time job where he edits music videos for legendary artists such as Beyoncé, Meek Mill, and The Pretty Reckless. “I would love nothing more than for everyone to stop acting horribly toward each other, especially on camera," he said. "I'd love to never do another one of those videos."
He might not have to, if several proposed Hollywood projects are green-lit. TizzyEnt’s visibility has led to actor-producer Greg Grunberg working with McWhorter on developing a reality show riffing on his online sleuthing, while a scripted series “involving a very well-known showrunner” is in the works, McWhorter said. “Both are moving along pretty well, but I can’t confirm anything right now,” he added.
What he can confirm is that he’ll continue exposing the scummiest people whose infamous videos put them in TizzyEnt’s crosshairs. His wide reach will continue to be his greatest asset. “Really, the Internet is one big small town, and when you have a lot of eyeballs on your feed like I do, well, that town gets really, really small,” he concluded.
