After backlash of being seen carrying torch at Charlottesville rally, Massachusetts native Matt Colligan says he has left the United States
Matt Colligan, on left, with Anthime "Tim" Gionet in Charlottesville, Virginia.
By Kristin LaFratta
Matt Colligan wants the world to know he is not a member of the Ku Klux Klan, nor a neo-Nazi.
The Massachusetts native received national attention last month when he was identified in a viral Daily Progress photograph by Andrew Shurtleff. The haunting image of stern-faced rally-goers carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville became the target of Twitter account "@YesYoureRacist," run by Logan Smith, communication director of left-wing political action organization in North Carolina. Soon after he was identified, internet vigilantes widely shared the phone numbers of Colligan and his family. A family member's address in Southborough was posted online. Death threats were received.
Seeking to put distance between him and the white nationalist rally, and to protect his family from receiving more death threats, Colligan says he has moved more than 6,000 miles away from his home in the Allston/Brighton area.
"I decided to distance myself from them, distance myself from everything that's going on right now. And sort of hide out in a place that might not have seen my photo," he said in an interview. "I might stay out here for maybe a year or so."
While he agreed to speak with MassLive on his political views and decision to move, Colligan declined to provide photographic evidence he was living outside the country.
Five days after speaking with MassLive, Colligan claimed on Twitter he was leaving Japan. He now says he's living in Mexico.
Shortly after allegedly landing in Japan, Colligan told MassLive over a series of six private Twitter messages that Japanese residents were "a happy people" and a "homogenous society."
"This is what America needs ... a people who look talk and act similar ... diversity is our weakness," he wrote.
In a later interview, when asked if he believes diversity is bad for society, Colligan replied, "Did I say that?" and then said, "no not necessarily."
He said his original message was "something good to note," and that he believes many of America's issues stem from open borders. He also said he moved to Japan because the country's demographics and culture look different than that of the United States.
Whether in North America or Asia, the man who goes by @Millennial_Matt on Twitter remains active on social media.
In his purview, Colligan is a comedian with an agenda to spotlight the importance of free speech.
To his critics, the 20-something is an attention-seeking, far-right activist who operates under the guise of first amendment heroism.
His YouTube and Twitter accounts showcase perverse humor, mocking transgender people and the Holocaust. In several videos he displays swastikas; in others he says "Hitler did nothing wrong" next to recognizable figures such as actor Shia LeBeouf and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who appear in separate videos to be posing under the pretense that Colligan is a fan taking a selfie.
Colligan initially said his jokes are meant to attract attention, and then added that they are meant to highlight revisionist history.
"A lot of the jokes and comedy that I base around the Holocaust in general and swastikas and things of that sort," Colligan said. "It's sort of one of the edgiest things you could do, right?
"We're living in 2017 where everything's almost been before, and so I found a niche and an opportunity to be able to make fun of some extremely touchy subjects. And reach an audience that way." He added, "I wouldn't be talking to you if I hadn't joked about the Holocaust at some point down the road. It's intended to get some eyes on me so that I, you know, can talk to the world I guess."
His intended purpose of such "jokes," Colligan said, is to spark a dialogue between people across a spectrum of beliefs.
His shot at informative satire is a fairly new undertaking. Not long ago, Colligan was walking around the streets of Boston and Cambridge, canvassing on behalf of women's reproductive rights. He believed in and persuaded others to believe in progressive causes, including helping poorer people gain access to reproductive health care.
"When I started working there I was fairly young. And I didn't really have an understanding of history as I do now. I didn't really look into things for myself," Colligan said.
To those who knew him, Colligan's seemingly 180-degree political flip appears to have occurred over the past two years.
"I don't think he was ever into this stuff before Trump started gaining steam, and it seems to parallel Trump's rise," said Dicky J. Stock, a former friend and neighbor to Colligan when the two lived in Brighton between 2012 and 2014. They lived in adjoining homes, each with about five male roommates.
Stock, 30, now lives in California. He said when the two lived next door in Brighton, Colligan would come over and drink beers on the porch and host punk band shows in his basement.
"Within the past year and year-and-a-half, I started seeing bits and pieces of the white pride stuff," Stock, said over phone. Stock said their last encounter was last February, at the Silhouette Lounge in Brighton on Super Bowl Sunday. He remembers a drunken, friendly dispute over politics that ended in the two acknowledging that "politics is whatever."
Two other sources who wished to remain anonymous also said they knew Colligan when he lived in Boston, and were unaware of what they viewed as his white nationalist tendencies.
"We would talk and share our frustrations about people who would waste their time and energy being anti-choice and homophobic and racist," said one woman who knew Colligan as a canvasser. She also said she noticed a change in his online presence over the past year and a half.
While he is not a unique case - the lives of numerous self-identified internet trolls previously restricted to dark corners of the internet have since cropped up following the rally in Charlottesville - the Massachusetts native is adamant his irreverent personal branding is all in the name of free speech, and calling out those who oppose it.
"If freedom of speech is met with violence, then we have lost ourselves as a country," Colligan said. "I honestly believe, and it's part of what I do, part of the soul of my work and my comedy, my message, you know. It's the meaning I exist. It's the reason we're talking right now. And freedom of speech is the most important right that we have as Americans."
Whether sincere or an attempt to disparage criticism, that American-born passion is driving Colligan's pleas for monetary donations. On a "Patreon" fundraising webpage, he asks for money so he can explore "the Marxist psychosis gripping almost every living being in the United States." Once receiving triple-digit funding each month, donations dropped to under $10 after he received national and local attention in August.
http://www.masslive.com/news/boston/index.ssf/2017/09/massachusetts_internet_troll_t.html#incart_2box
Behind the torch: Massachusetts resident identified in viral photo taken at white nationalist rally in Charlottesville
White nationalist demonstrators walk into Lee park surrounded by
counter demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/08/the_man_behind_the_torch_massa.html
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