‘I kept getting calls at my workplace’: Woman says ‘strange things’ started happening after exposing ‘suspicious’ Etsy listings, sparking conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory TikToker @woahthatsstrange alleges in a viral video that a strange, bald man stalked her at her nephew's basketball practice. She uploaded the clip to a new account, which she says she was forced to create. This was after a series of allegedly strange events followed a particular TikTok she made about allegations surrounding the website Etsy featuring portraits of children. They were allegedly being sold for tens of thousands of dollars a piece, and she says the reveal culminated in her original account being deleted.
The TikToker doesn't specifically name Etsy in her new video and instead refers to the website as a "third-party selling" website, but several other folks on the platform reference Etsy as a place helping to facilitate sales about the trafficking of children. In the TikToker's deleted video on the subject, she also names Etsy as the website where the alleged portraits were being sold. As of this Saturday, her clip has amassed over 177,000 views.
@woahthatsstrange I just wanted to let everyone know i have a new account #creepy #scary #scarytiktoks #ufo #uap #ufoキャッチャー #ghost ♬ Suspense, horror, piano and music box - takaya
She begins her clip by speaking directly into the camera, "Hi, I'm Woah That is Strange and this is my new account. A few days ago, I shared some f*cked-up things that were being sold on a third-party selling website. And I made a video about it and exposed it to the world because people needed to know what was going on. The video reached almost 4 million people in two days. And it wasn't an assumption, it was in plain English what was happening on this website."
She claims that despite having an account that was in "perfect standing" and rarely getting any account violations, and even being asked by TikTok to do commercial work for the application, her account was permanently deleted after sharing the Etsy video. The Daily Dot has reached out to TikTok to inquire into Woah's account ban.
It's a result that many viewers believed was a move conducted by powers that be that don't want this kind of information getting out.
"But my nearly perfect standing account got banned today," she continues. "...And without any warning whatsoever they banned by account permanently today."
Her account being erased wasn't the only weird thing she says has happened—shortly before TikTok removed her account, she says she received weird phone calls on her workplace phone with someone just breathing creepily on the other end.
"I would answer the phone with my company greeting and nobody would respond they would just breathe on the other end and then hang up," she says. "It happened four or five times before I just stopped answering the phone and then two hours later my account was banned."
The basketball practice incident, she says, occurred around 24 hours after posting the Etsy clip.
"And then the day of posting the video, I went to my nephew's basketball practice and a man showed up twenty minutes after practice started," she says. "He was dressed really nice and he was bald and he was really, strange looking. And when basketball practice was over he left without a kid."
She says the man looked at her several times for the duration of the game.
"I just want to say that I am not diving any deeper into this," she concludes. "You got your point across, but this is my new profile so if you wanna follow me on here I'll be posting daily like always."
Several viewers who weren't privy to the video that she was referring to asked what she was talking about. There were several TikTokers who employed similarly vague language in their comments. It appears that they are referring to $3,000 "pizzas" that were being sold on Etsy, which they claim was code for child trafficking transactions. In a since-removed video by Woahthatisstrange that was reuploaded by another TikToker, she shows the alleged listings, with one portrait of a girl going for $35 and another seemingly identical listing going for $50,000.
Newsweek reported on the listings, which were uploaded (but now appeared to be removed) from a now-scrubbed user named MICHELANJELO who is, as of now, nowhere to be found on the platform. The outlet also reported on other accounts, highlighted by the End Wokeness X (formerly Twitter) account which shows a photograph of a young girl in "Children's Overalls" that is advertised as a "rare find" for $35,210.
This first image was uploaded by an account called AsbelKidsClothing, which appears to have removed its listings from Etsy. The next is an AI-generated image of a young child holding up a slice of pizza and winking towards the camera. The price: $4,000. Buyers were promised a "pizza megafile" that was "encrypted and ready to go." This image was being sold by Lala Babe of YummyYumPizza, which is also no longer selling anything on the platform.
@hizzle4shizzle ♬ original sound - HeatherHizzle
These allegations are often wrapped up in the Pizzagate pedophile ring conspiracy, which, despite being criticized as entirely made up and later discredited by several news outlets, has persisted.
Other folks who responded to Woah's TikTok believe that she is onto something as a result of referencing the Etsy conspiracy and that there are individuals intentionally attempting to scare her into silence.
This wouldn't be the first time that a TikToker got wrapped up in a conspiracy theory many believe threatened and eventually claimed their life. Andrew Dawson, who gained prominence on the platform uploading humorous, slice-of-life type content, one day posted a clip of what he thought was a "giant" standing on top of a mountain he viewed while driving on the highway. Over a matter of months, he was allegedly accosted by a "CIA" looking individual for attempting to investigate the phenomenon and in a matter of months, it was reported that he died.
Woah said that she will back off from covering this topic online in what appears to be a bid to avoid the same fate for herself and her family. The Daily Dot has reached out to Woah via Instagram direct message for further comment.
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