White knight

Artist's conception.

“	Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?	”
Bonnie Tyler, "Holding Out for a Hero"

White knight is a term used to describe someone who goes on the internet to help or defend someone else against other people, out of pity, compassion or ulterior motives. White knighting of Chris is especially prevalent because of the unprecedented amount of abuse he has taken, which in turn is caused by Chris's total inability to heed the white knights in his life.

Counter-trolls are those who take Chris's side to spite his legion of trolls. Some do this because trolling one gullible idiot is less satisfying than trolling trolls, who actually have the ability to understand what is going on. Others have decided that Chris has jumped the shark and are trying to make everyone else leave him alone to put a stop to an old meme. Counter-trolls are not to be confused with anti-trolls, who fight trolls in order to get closer to Chris and troll him themselves.

In the broader internet trolling community a wide range of people, from neutral observers to even his greatest trolls, are accused of being white knights. This is mostly due to CWC's "fans" discouraging Weening and A-Logging, acts which, to outside observers, could be misinterpreted as an attempt to reduce trolling. Many of these outside observers are also confused by the tendency of Chris trolls, including his most prolific ones, to try to get Chris to improve his life, as they don't know Chris well enough to know it's nigh on impossible to get him to improve using the "soft touch". So when the label "white knight" gets thrown around, take it with a grain of salt.

A meta-topic within the broader Chris saga has been the merits of attempting to help Chris stop being such an epic lolcow, and whether he is deserving of such assistance or even beyond help. The consensus on forums such as the talk page for Chris's Encyclopedia Dramatica article, /cwc/, PVCC, and #sonichu is that Chris's racism, homophobia, and narcissism make him beneath contempt; and that he has consistently refused to take advice given to him in good faith. White knights and counter-trolls are considered to be wasting everyone's time and trolls have little patience for them.

Motives

Pity

Following the release of Chris's first nudes and the 21 October 2008 video in which he reacted to the loss of his medallions and Blanca, many people, including trolls, felt sorry for him. They had not expected it to be possible for him to be trolled so hard or for him to appear so shattered.

Empathy

The internet is full of autistic people, man-children, and self-absorbed morons. Many of them are right here, fascinated with Chris. All of them see something of themselves in him, whether it's his all-consuming need for female companionship or his fervent belief that his homemade comics matter. A lot of white knights have made at least some of the mistakes Chris has made and have since wised up. They think they can help improve Chris by offering the benefit of their experience.

Circumstances beyond Chris's control

Chris fails to identify people, a possible sign of prosopagnosia. Julie and her brother Max used the same voice, and yet Chris couldn't recognize that they were the same person. Pictures of different women were used to depict Blanca, and yet Chris thought they were the same person. Chris believed that pictures of Megan Fox were of Vanessa Hudgens. In high school, Chris memorized his appearance in the mirror because he had trouble recognizing himself. Since he's never "updated" his self-image, this is a possible explanation regarding why he denies being fat.

Chris' autism also means that he thinks, and sees the world, in simplistic, binary terms; he cannot "read between the lines" or detect sarcasm, or practically any kind of nuance or subtlety. He interprets Family Guy as being against homosexuality. When two male acquaintances exchanged sarcastic homosexual remarks, Chris concluded that they were gay. It is also thought that his decision to go tomgirl was at least partially due to him taking advice to "get in touch with his feminine side" literally.

The trolls are even worse people than Chris

Another frequently heard line of reasoning is that the trolls have gone way too far, and have demonstrated that they're even worse than Chris, or at least equally pathetic. For example, BlueSpike's sadistic abuse of his control over Chris outraged even trolls. The less sophisticated bulk of the trolling was the work of A-Logs and weens, who are frowned upon even by trolls, and rightfully so. And, of course, who really has no life here: Chris, or the people who obsessively document and debate everything he does?

For the sake of Barbara's sanity

At this point in time it is safe to say that Chris's remaining parent has been just as fatigued as Chris by the actions of trolls. Some argue that Snorlax should not have to suffer for his wrongdoings, and therefore think that Chris should be left alone just so she can enjoy the last few years of her life in peace.

Reasons against white knighting

Chris could have ended the trolling whenever he wanted to, but didn't

All Chris had to do to end the trolling was to stop responding to it. If he would have done this small step, he never would've got all this attention from the internet. The trolls had nothing personal against Chris; they just decided he was a worthy target after reading his crappy Sonichu comics and seeing his tard-rage over his page on Encyclopedia Dramatica. As soon as he would have quit responding to their provocations and quit posting videos of himself throwing fits on YouTube, the trolls would have eventually just moved on to someone else. Instead, Chris tried to "fight back" against them, in turn revealing more and more of his personal information, until eventually the trolls knew all of his contact info and all the details of his life.

That was when the trolling went past a point of no return, spilling into Chris' personal life so much that there would be absolutely no way for him to ever disassociate himself from it. Even when he was away from the computer, he would find himself subjected to trolls calling his cell phone, sending him mail, and following him around in public. While the obsessive trolling was nothing less than shitty, the fact still remains that Chris was the one who allowed them to have such control over his life; thanks to him always overreacting to every little provocation and in turn handing over all his personal information to them.

There is also the theory that Chris does things for trolls to mock him merely for the attention.

Chris lacks empathy himself

See also: Chris and death and Chris and his Ego.

Chris cannot put himself in your shoes or accept that you have been where he is. He has no "theory of mind": if you used to be as shy around women as he is today, in his mind the fact that you aren't shy anymore makes your experience inapplicable to his situation. To Chris, the fact you got over it and he hasn't yet makes the two cases entirely different. He doesn't want to solve his problems by trying what worked for you, he only wants you to pity him for having problems, until he magically dreams up his own solution. In recent years, many have even began to opine that Chris doesn't even want help; as can be observed in his frequent outbursts on Facebook, what he really wants is to exploit his own misfortune to get pity, attention and gifts. It is also theorised that he would not want help because complaining about his lot in life has become such an ingrained part of his routine.

RocketFox: My father died of liver cancer and cirrohosis a day ago ;~; he drank a ton and it hurt him - I'm only 11 and I dunno what to do ;~;

Chris: RocketFox, you will soon recover from your father's accident, I guess it is; DO NOT DRINK Alcohol yourself; STAY OFF THAT JUNK.

Chris's interpretation of the death of RocketFox's dad as an accident shows that he didn't even bother to look up what cirrhosis is. Immediately after this, he started talking about a sexy dance. And eight months later, he was filmed enjoying some Long Island Iced Tea.

Chris's reactions to suicide are very telling. After hearing that he caused Ryan Cash to die, Chris marvelled at the fact that he had incited suicide, right after he tried to publicly console Clyde Cash. When he heard that he made Sarah May attempt suicide, his reasons for her to stay alive were "I'd feel terrible" and "I'd just cry." When Chris broke up with Ivy, he somehow concocted, in his head, an assumption that she had committed suicide. Even after having lost so many dear friends to suicide, he still had no problems telling Clyde and Jack Thaddeus to kill themselves. People who have had to deal with suicidal people, or have lost relatives and friends due to suicides wouldn't exactly find this amusing.

In the 22 February 2010 edition of the CWCipedia's "Common Questions", Chris listed the top ten worst things to have ever happened to him. The deaths of "two True and Good Women who [he] had friendships with," PandaHalo and Sarah Jackson, ranked seventh. Those tragic events ranked below getting banned from a game store, finding out two people from said store were posting info about him on ED, and having his personal websites hacked.

On 1 November 2009, Chris made a video involving Clyde being as "weak as the Twin Towers" and used his mouse cursor as a plane flying into them.

When Rashid Ali Abdul, an Iranian fan, told him that her country's religious authorities sentenced her to death by beheading for reading Sonichu, Chris simply said that he was "sorry" and that the situation was "pitiful".

While some of this can be attributed to Chris's autism, a condition that often results in a lack of empathy, most autistics can at least learn how to express empathy through a combination of carefully reading the emotions of others and thinking about how a situation affects other people, but Chris refuses to seek serious counseling or psychiatric help for this sort of thing, and was clearly given little-to-no help with his autism as he grew up.

Autism does not excuse a terrible person

Chris knows he has trouble understanding non-verbal social cues due to his autism, and yet he still jumps the gun on interpreting other people's intentions all the time.

Autism, in and of itself, does not create a failure as massive as Chris. A majority of autistics manage to get psychiatric help for their problem and/or are able to develop social and emotional skills so they can cope with their disability and lead rewarding and rich lives. While Chris acknowledges he has a problem, he has never done anything more than see the pastoral counselor at his church, who is not a professional trained in the treatment of autism spectrum disorders, and whom he eventually dismissed anyway.

After he maced a GameStop employee and said it made him feel "badass", a deeply concerned troll going by the name Renee tried to convince him to go to see a psychiatrist. In response, Chris took this as a personal insult, and wished "Renee" and her boyfriend a slow demise in a house fire. Not only does this demonstrate that Chris holds his ego in higher esteem than his mental health, but it is also quite staggering that he would wish death in a fire upon someone after he narrowly escaped the same fate. Moreover, it is worth noting that Chris remembered that Renee had told him in the past that she already had a boyfriend. Compare his reaction to this well-meaning request by Renee, to his compliance with bizarre requests from, say, Jackie. This shows that regardless of who you are or what you want to say, Chris only cares to listen to you if you have a china and aren't already taken.

Chris is fully capable of understanding the consequences of his actions. He has a sense of morality, even if he often ignores it in favor of his own selfish interests. He has been held accountable for his own actions in a court of law, twice (and rightfully so). His racism, homophobia, and chauvinism have nothing to do with his autism.

Chris is beyond pity

Chris's mood is all over the place, even between videos posted shortly after each other. From "Thank you for your support" to "Goddamn womanizing raping...trollin' stupid pickle-suited...nigger!"

Chris often reacts to provocation aggressively, which is quite an understandable (if not acceptable) response to trolling. However, "provocation" in this sense doesn't necessarily mean harassment or trolling. Merely disagreeing with Chris's opinions, asking him why he does what he does, or as evidenced above, trying to expose him to reality can provoke an attack, up to and including threats of violence and death. When Chris is annoyed, frustrated, or overcome by desire or lust, he's capable of doing unpleasant things. Moreover, when Chris loses it, he doesn't think of the consequences of his actions at all, and his expressions of outrage are completely out of proportion to the provocation — often more outrageous in themselves than whatever the trolls did.

Chris has insulted little kids during card games and scared some of them away from The GAMe PLACe. Mimms and Lucas, who frequented the now-defunct store and knew Chris in real life years before he was discovered by ED, couldn't list any redeeming qualities he possessed.

Chris has sexually harassed two women in real life. The former made it explicitly clear to him that his inappropriate touching and comments to her were unacceptable, but he continued anyway, convinced that eventually she would learn to love being molested by a mentally ill manchild and would become his sweetheart from the ground-up. He bragged to the latter about how he learned to keep his hands to himself after the fallout with Megan, then faceplanted in her breasts.

After Megan cut ties with Chris for uploading a picture of him fingerbanging her to his ED page, he did not apologize, but rather explained to her (in a terribly naïve way) how a handjob works, under the misguided assumption that she merely was upset because she didn't recognize the sex act being performed, or in the hope that she would rationalize what he did on this basis. He then had the nerve to say to her, "I am hurting SOOOOO MUCH MORE than you can be." Why? Not because of the picture, but because the trolls were being mean to him. Yes, him. Based on his ED edits, he was more concerned with people thinking he was fingering his imaginary twin sister than he was with defending Megan's honor.

Years later, Chris would go so far as to totally demonize Megan for rejecting his 'good intentions', posting her address up on his Facebook profile in the hopes that trolls would find it and punish her for him. On 3 and 4 October 2013, he took this even further, posting an unbelievable multi-part tirade about Megan on Facebook, wherein he accused her of being the leader of a vast troll conspiracy against him and claimed to have consorted with a fictional character Megan once made for him, who supposedly told Chris that Megan should never have been born. As if this wasn't enough insanity on it's own, Chris proceeded to demand that Megan fix his entire life, and he, in return, would give back her confiscated superpowers. You just can't make this up.

After each of his online relationships ends, Chris starts looking for a new sweetheart right away, even if she died. No matter the setback, his ego just keeps getting bigger.

In mid-July 2009, he addressed a person named "SonichuIzCool" on YouTube. SonichuIzCool is probably the only genuine fan of Sonichu discovered to date, someone who tried to defend Chris and his comic. She was also genuinely mentally disabled. In his YouTube message, Chris called her "naïve and slow in the mind." He told her she had to "come out where [he] can meet [her]." Another side of this incident is that his YouTube account had been recently hacked, and he had managed to recover it this time, thus avoiding whatever damage the trolls might have caused. After he posted this video, though, he got his account suspended due to his own actions. SonichuIzCool didn't step down, and responded back with a video that criticized his actions. To date, Chris has never issued a response to that, thus meaning he was dismantled by a slow-in-the-mind.

In early November 2009, in his attempt to blackmail Clyde Cash, Chris went so far as to mock 9/11. When feeling angry at Clyde Cash, he not only thought it would be a good idea to blackmail him, but used the destruction of two skyscrapers full of people after being hit by airliners full of jet fuel and terrorists as a metaphor for how weak he thought Clyde was. When people got angry, he tried to fix things by turning the World Trade Center towers into cake candles. To the best of anyone's knowledge, Chris was never coaxed or encouraged by an outside source to use the Twin Tower images. He came up with this reprehensible idea all on his own.

Happily forever after.

In January 2010, a "fan" named Mike Jackson asked Chris for advice, whether he should watch porn with his family and buy a prostitute for his son, Mike Junior, or not. Chris, being such an "expert", encouraged him to do so. When "Mike" got back to him, the news wasn't good; Mike Jr. ran away with the prostitute, and the seemingly bereft father begged Chris to make a YouTube video asking his son to come home. Unfortunately, Chris was under a lot of stress, and could not make the video. Chris was next contacted by Mike's "wife", who told him that after discovering that Mike Jr. had married the prostitute in Las Vegas, Mike Sr. died from a sleeping pill overdose. Chris didn't even give a damn about the obituary linked by Mike's widow, offering her his infamous canned response in lieu of even pretending to give a fuck, then later responded to Mike's son's grief and anger with all of three words: "I am sorry." When called out later, he denied having ever spoken to Mike, much less read his obituary. While this was all obviously trolling, Chris's nonchalant reaction to his hypothetically ruining someone's life and tearing their family apart doesn't exactly paint him in a good light.

Chris cares only for himself

Chris spends your tax money on luxuries and steals from his parents to buy random video games he'll never play, and even DLC for games he doesn't own. He has the basic skills necessary to hold down a job, so long as it didn't require him to do much interacting with other people, and programs exist specifically to find appropriate jobs for the mentally challenged, but Chris hasn't even tried since being fired from Wendy's. He's never going to get a job now, of course - what with his various run-ins with the law, his growing local reputation for public tantrums and violence, his social security, and the fact that he's in his thirties, and has only been employed for a month or so in his entire life, over a decade ago - but he missed a lot of opportunities while it was still possible. Had he made the right choices, he could've been on a career path and out of his ancestral cesspool by now.

Further reinforcing his selfishness and laziness, Chris and his family strongly agree it's better for him to hole up in his room and get paid for doing absolutely nothing than to accept the challenge of finding gainful employment in the real world. This is based on the false assertion that Chris can earn more on disability than from a job. By taking advantage of the government through vastly exaggerated claims of an easily manageable illness which they refuse to help Chris treat, Chris's parents are assured a steady income in the form of his room-and-board payments, and don't have to worry about Chris getting in trouble with the law again when he has another breakdown in public.

But just in case you needed any solid proof of Chris' outright selfishness, it basically came straight from the horse's mouth during his trial. When asked if he understood that he'll be paying his court fees:

“	"Yes. My mother will be taking care of that."	”
Chris.

Keep in mind that the money being used to bail him out of a mess that he caused is coming out of an ailing old widow's purse while Chris nonchalantly throws his own money away, as evidenced by his PSN activity mere months later. Also, in 2013, he further hammers this point home by complaining about having to take care of Barb with Bob's passing, concerned more about his free time and Michael Snyder taking his money away.

Chris is not a good net citizen

“	I will have NO DISCUSSIONS GOING ON BEHIND MY BACK ON MY OWN WEBSITE WHATSOEVER!	”
Chris, on reader participation via Twitter.

Chris is more concerned with spreading his own honest content than being a good net citizen. On the internet, his demeanor is comparable to that of a spammer: who cares about things like terms of service and account suspensions and masses of pissed-off people as long as his message gets through? He won't participate in the communities of the sites he posts on. This is not mere passivity in those communities, which is generally tolerable; he deliberately opposes such participation. Most people, while not bothering to contribute to communities, would at least not make deliberate efforts to hinder them. On deviantART, YouTube and Flipnote Hatena, he disables all comments, probably because he knew he'd not get any praise anyway, yet this ignores the fact that open commenting is part of the nature of these sites and disabling comments should be done only if it's being used for flagrant abuses of the system, like spam, excessive trolling, and votebotting. He regards YouTube purely as a video publishing venue and not as a tool for engaging in discussion with his "fans". He created his Wikipedia user page purely to spread his own message, and did not come to the site to participate in building an encyclopedia. If the site owners block him, he just comes up with another account or a sockpuppet. Thoughts of apologizing, getting old accounts reinstated, or the possibility that people who block him might be trying to send him a message never cross his mind.

Chris's behavior on the CWCipedia provides many more examples of his selfish attitude, such as the banner ad crisis in late 2009. He doesn't understand what it really means that the website is neither hosted nor paid for by him personally, and what sort of things the administration typically does on a website like his. He can't or won't understand simple principles like "webhost's house, webhost's rules," or "beggars can't be choosers," but instead believes that since the site has his name on it, it should be run according to his every demand.

Chris will reject your advice

What are you going to tell Chris that his favorite teacher didn't tell him 20 years ago?

Someone carefully explained to Chris why he is a sexist. In response, Chris got angry. He is only interested in a guide on how to attract women without first making any changes to himself. Most ridiculously: he denies being overweight.

If you ever get some free time, read Vivian Gee's AIM chat. Vivian actually used to be a counter-troll, and warned Chris several times that PandaHalo was a troll. Chris fell for Panda anyway. She then tried to talk some damn sense into him over AIM. But Chris proved to be so goddamn stubborn, she actually tossed the towel and became a troll out of spite. In her words:

“	i've tried for 3 hours now; it's like fighting a wall, i can't beat the wall no matter how hard i try.	”
Vivian, thoroughly summing up how it feels to try to smack some sense into Chris.

Not only has she long since joined the troll ranks, but Chris even began berating and sending threats to the woman who was once his biggest defender ever.

Chris will reject your disclosure of the truth

• Hanna was a real-life troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Lori Lopez was a real-life troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Blanca was the name of more than a few trolls, and Chris fell for it.
• PandaHalo was a troll, and Chris fell for it, despite Vivian's warnings.
• Robert Simmons V was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• JK Productions was a troll pretending to be an entire video game development company, and Chris fell for it.
• Sarah May was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Sarah Jackson was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Shigeru Miyamoto was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Julie was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Ivy was a troll, and Chris fell for it, despite warnings from the counter-troll that must not be named.
• Vanessa Hudgens was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Emily was a real-life troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Kacey was a troll, and Chris fell for it. She also married Liquid Chris.
  • Kacey's dad was a troll, and Chris fell for it.
• Jackie was a troll, and Chris fell for it. Twice.
• Catherine was both an internet troll and a pseudonym used by a real-life female troll, and Chris fell for it and even went as far to molest her.

See a pattern here? Back in the day, Chris would've simply dismissed any attempt to open his eyes to the obvious as an attempt to "ruin his relationship/business partnership for the lulz".

As of 2012, however, it seems that Chris has done a 180 on this, where, out of sheer paranoia, he believes that anybody and everybody is a troll, even when he has no sane reason to reach that conclusion.

Surprisingly, even in 2014, it was revealed that his latest girlfriend, Catherine, was a troll construct. While the community observing Chris are no longer impressed by such weening, it still shows that even after more than 6 years of trolls leading him around by his duck, Chris has learned absolutely nothing.

Chris's normal life is often weirder than the trolling

Chris won't take your advice, so he will fall for trolling. Trolls do some bizarre things and Chris believes almost everything. But even if Chris had no white knights or trolls, his life would still be out of the ordinary.

The things Chris achieves when left to his own devices are sometimes even more jaw-dropping than what the trolls think up. His previous brushes with authority figures and his creepy behavior during his outside leisure time are good examples.

Chris asks for it, and always recovers

Hellbent on spreading his version of the truth because he's TRUE and HONEST, Chris cannot realize that his edit warring on Encyclopedia Dramatica was practically a squeal begging for more trolling.

TMI is a tactic Chris uses that backfires without fail. Since Chris insists on revealing the most minute details of his life to everyone he meets, the trolls always get more information to fuel further acts of trolling. White knights cannot stop our hero from being honest.

Chris doesn't get embarrassed either. Oh, his nudes and lewd acts are all over the internet? No big deal! All adults do that kind of thing, so what's the problem?

Chris managed to fully recover from the depressing 21 October 2008 video mentioned above (and quite quickly, too) and proceeded to fail even harder for months. Likewise, despite professing great emotional distress, he bounced back from the loss of Kacey in a matter of hours. He even bounced back after being verbally abused by a room of trolls, one of whom went so far as to tell him to go kill himself. Whatever the trolls say or do to Chris, he always does or says something worse to someone else, and he always bounces back anyway, so what's the problem?

True, true.

Chris has made himself an outcast

High school and college are where people are given their first and often only chance to become a functioning part of society. They gave Chris an even greater chance because he's autistic. They lent him a friendly, caring hand and opened themselves to his friendship, males and females alike. And what did Chris do? He refused, by choice, to associate with anyone who wasn't female, young, white, in the Charlottesville area, and willing to mother him forever more.

When the dean gave him a chance to reform his behavior, he kept going with his bullshit, threw a particularly deranged tantrum in her office, and was rightly kicked out of Piedmont Virginia Community College for a full year. What did he learn from that? He learned that Mary Lee Walsh was an evil hag with a personal vendetta against him. He was given several chances to learn that his loitering and soliciting were not appropriate behavior in a public place, and what did he learn? He learned that mall cops are Jerkops, that Virginia is for Virgins, and that his Love Quest was a matter of him against the world, with the world in the role of the villain. After he was kicked out of The GAMe PLACe (where he was again given far more leeway than most people ever would have been given, out of misguided pity), he was barred from the last place in Ruckersville that was still open to him, and left with only one place: his home.

Now, it's too late for Chris. He has been offered friendship and care time and again, and every time without fail, either drives his friends away with his entitlement and perverse, bizarre, bellicose behaviors, or dismisses them for trying to get him to behave like a responsible adult. Complain as he might, his own actions put him here, and while the realisation and acceptance of this may change the situation, he refuses to do either. Try as they might, neither white knights nor trolls have the power to save Chris from his own delusions and cognitive dissonance, only he does.

The stresses of white-knighting

In order to get close to Chris, white knights have to spend at least as much time and effort as trolls to get up-to-date and to thwart the troll output. Most have to lie and pretend to be a single girl to even capture his attention. This, combined with Chris's habit of pushing away anyone who tries to connect with him, is enough to make any sane non-psychologist crash into slumber.

Chris will not even read your message

The spam filter is a powerful innovation of good ol' America Online. Any e-mails sent to his address will be left unread and deleted. Even back in the days of the Mailbag, any emails submitted to it, if they even got published, would've been given one-word replies and ignored.

The trolling will not cease

Even if white knights get to Chris somehow, there is no endgame in which Chris will be free from trolls before his death.

In school, Chris was trolled by his classmates. He was even trolled by one of his real life friends. In college, he was trolled by friends who grew sick of his bullshit, and by girls annoyed by his "attraction methods" and rampant, unabashed sexism. If Chris quit the Internet tomorrow, he would still be trolled by a society that refuses to tolerate ignorant manchildren flouting its rules.

If everyone trying to create his next fake sweetheart suddenly got bored and quit, Chris would unconsciously attract new trolls to take their place, and we all know weens are more than willing.

If Chris isn't assigned a custodian after Barbara dies, his story will probably end when he falls victim to some con artist who swindles him out of his monthly tugboat and perhaps his home. If Chris does get assigned a custodian, he will continue his antics until the custodian kicks him out or bans him from the internet. If the custodian bans Chris from the internet, that's Chris trolling himself.

If Chris gets institutionalized, he will attract real-life trolls at the mental hospital. If Chris ends up in prison, he will be trolled there as well, if he's lucky.

If the entire world reforms and decides to leave Chris alone, his own sense of victimization will override any benefit. Consider that Chris felt persecuted simply by observing males who had more success than himself. He regards legitimate assertions of authority as rank brutality. Adam Stackhouse managed to upset Chris to a degree that Christorians still find especially impressive, and he did it without even knowing that Chris existed at the time. Bleak as it is, unless Chris embarks on a program of radical self-improvement, and manages against the odds to shake off both his legions of abusers and seamy reputation, he will forever feel like a thoroughly-kicked autistic.

The trolling helps Chris and, indeed, others

If Chris were just some random nobody on the Internet, he'd be doing nothing but playing vidya and occasionally drawing unsellable art until Barb died. Then he'd be institutionalized. He'd remain without social skills, a job, success or future.

Instead, Chris's antics have become a cultural phenomenon that, without exaggeration, is something extraordinary, unique, and which likely won't be replicated in any shape or form for years to come. Chris has secured his place among such luminaries as Gene Ray and John Titor, and unlike Gene, you can actually comprehend what Chris is saying most of the time. Chris's interactions with the world through his websites and YouTube have drawn in a considerable number of people from around the world who are participating in an unprecedented, continual piece of performance art of a kind that would have been unheard of only a few years ago. He brings entertainment to thousands of people all over Earth, an accomplishment that most could never dream of achieving--the kind of thing that would give Dane Cook a stiffy just to consider. His internet fame is actually a sort of success in its own right, and may bring him further success. There are thousands of people out there that are so fascinated by him that they study and document his life on a daily basis.

One could argue that if Chris eventually "retired" from this comedy act by actually coming to terms with his problems, seeking professional help, and completely reforming (and selling media rights to his life's story to the highest bidder, like all sensible people would do), he could live the rest of his life secure and probably moderately well-off. The audience would give him a standing ovation for entertaining them for as long as he did, and move on to the next piece of tragicomedy brought to us by the emerging Web technologies. We have seen far more messed-up celebrity stories already; Chris's tale is at least quite different from the norm and engaging.

What's more, the trolls provide him with an actual social outlet to learn and grow, even if he generally opts out of doing either. Instead of being an unemployable, fat bedroom-dweller that nobody has ever heard of, he's an internet-famous unemployable, fat bedroom dweller, and this by itself increases his chances of getting friends and a girl. He may even end up employed, too, possibly appearing in an advertisement or sponging off royalties from any biographical medium, whether it be a book, movie, or TV series. He could even become the next William Hung if he put half an ounce of effort into it.

In fact, recently, Chris was paid by a Japanese noise band (albeit a really obscure one) to produce artwork for their album cover (that didn't feature Sonichu or himself for a change). This is but a taste of what he could achieve if he had the common sense to stop his crusade against a cartoon character's arms (and landing himself in court over it) and instead focus on expressing and coming to terms with his problems through his art, or at least doing something productive that he's arguably good at (i.e. outsider art).

Also, Chris's perversions, flaws and constant failure have made his life into something of a cautionary tale to other autistic people, and he has inspired hundreds of them to self-improvement. Really, no matter how dire his circumstances come to be, he's accomplishing a pretty good thing here.

Chris treats "fans" and white knights like crap

If you try to white knight him, his response is merely to block you on YouTube, AIM or any other messenger service and never respond. He accuses practically all white knights of being trolls. Quite ironic, isn't it? He screams "I'M STRAIGHT!" when you tell him up front that you're a guy. When you tell him his current "girlfriend" is actually a troll, he'll accuse you of wanting to "break up the relationship for the lulz." He'll be rude, won't listen and won't read between the lines. He will always bite the hand that feeds him, so you should just let him wallow in his own self-loathing.

“	Whatever.	”
Send Chris a 400-word, well-reasoned email, get a 1-word reply back.

“	You can go f*** yourself.	”
A not-so reasonable reply to reasonable criticism.

Chris doesn't treat his so-called "fans" much better. Even aside from the SonichuIzCool incident mentioned above, Chris has severe problems answering questions from his fans, and will often react in a hostile manner to everything he sees as negative or offensive. His Mailbag is the most obvious example. He hates being corrected, and tenaciously clings to his misinformed beliefs; his insistence that Asperger's Syndrome and autism are unrelated is a good example of this. When, or if, he's having a good day and manages to answer questions from fans at all, he often gives them very brief, one or two word answers that do not elaborate on anything, or outright ignore parts of the question. Not only is he terse, he's also slow to act; for example, it took him three days to realize that a video he uploaded had no audio on it whatsoever. He also promised that a spectacular fan creation would be officially featured in the Sonichu comic, and it ultimately was, over a year later.

Most webcomics have a specific schedule that they have decided to follow. Many webcomics fail to live up to them, some less, some more, some for good reasons, some have no excuse whatsoever. Chris didn't have a set schedule for the comic for the longest time, but then agreed to update the comic on a daily basis, a schedule which even the most well-funded webcomic artists would consider particularly demanding. In February and March 2010, there have been few updates to the comic. When the inevitable complaints about schedule slip started to come, Chris snapped at his fans by saying that inspiration takes its time, forgetting that it was he who decided daily updates were the way to go. As the "Great Director Chandler", he could have the power to decide what schedule to follow, but instead, he chose to attack his fans.

Chris' upbringing doesn't justify his actions

The shitty way Borb raised him may be an explanation for why Chris is so fucked up, but it's not an excuse. Plenty of people have bad childhoods, and abusive or incompetent parents. However, these people don't use that as an excuse for whatever bad things they do. As these people get therapy and move on, Chris, on the other hand, remains dependent on the same people who screwed him up, and doesn't even try to move past his childhood. Instead, he escapes into a world of fantasy and pornography, and when confronted by reality, he will use all the mental gymnastics at his disposal to twist reality to seem how he wants it to seem. There's also the fact that Cole Smithey grew up in the same household with the same parents, and yet he lives a relatively normal, successful life. Meanwhile, Chris behaves like an overgrown child, draws art on par with that of elementary schoolers, stuffs his face with fast food, gets in trouble for his persistent failure to regulate his own behaviour in public, and generally is extremely antisocial.

Chris' life would still be a disaster even if the trolls never bothered him

Today, Chris is a total human trainwreck, slowly losing the last of his sanity as each day goes by. While the systematic trolling of him throughout the last few years has doubtless contributed to his degrading mental state (especially his extreme paranoia and distrust for almost everyone), the fact still remains that his life's horrible state is mainly caused by factors outside of the internet. He would still be a lonely outcast, as his poor upbringing gave him such warped views of the world and led him to engage in such bizarre behavior that he drove away every person he tried to connect with. He would still be living in unsanitary conditions due to Barb's hoarding and the fact that his house has not been properly cleaned in the better part of a decade. He would still be banned from all of his favorite hangouts due to his loitering and hostile behavior to other patrons. Also, at the core of it all is how Chris decided that he would be better off living off government handouts while he sits around playing with toys and video games instead of getting a job and heading down a career path, which would have been his one-way ticket to escaping the cesspool that is 14 Branchland Court and living a fulfilling life, not unlike that of his half-brother. Instead, he decided to remain dependent on his elderly, emotionally disturbed parents; look how well that's working out for him.

True to his word (for once), Chris all but abandoned the Internet between July 2012 and 2013, save for sporadic ramblings on Facebook. Despite this, quite a bit was revealed about how well he was doing independent of troll influence. He alienated himself from his church, earning a ban from the new pastor (undoubtedly because Chris wouldn't shut the hell up about the trolls). After being banned, he even dismissed Rocky as an effective counselor (keep in mind that Rocky once bailed him out of jail, which is quite an extraordinary act of kindness, counselor or not), and went so far as to accuse God of being a troll. He continues to this day to describe his life as isolated and lonely, with nobody willing to talk to him, a scenario many have tried and failed to warn him about. He even earned some ire from Anna, his biggest white knight for making anti-homosexual statements on his Facebook page, he even chose to argue with her instead of trying to piece together why a lesbian friend of his would find such statements offensive. As a coup de grace on all of this, Chris ended up trolling himself in the grandest fashion by revealing an Imgur account made of all of his previously hidden Facebook posts, despite trolls (save for the one who started it) being completely in the dark about it.

Even if all of that doesn't convince you for some reason, consider this: Chris came this close to being thrown in jail on 28 October 2011, and it's possible he'll end up there at last with the more recent 26 December 2014 incident, both of which involved the assault of innocent retail workers trying to protect their customers from him. Both times, he did this on his own initiative, with no prodding from the trolls. And make no mistake, everyone was thoroughly disgusted by Chris's actions, none were eager to defend his pepper-spray assault on an innocent employee, even those who helped support his Sonic Boom Protests before.

If we were to be extraordinarily generous and assume that none of the disasters which have befallen Chris since the trolling efforts began in earnest would otherwise have happened, the facts still indicate that Chris's life would have been a complete mess. Chris was discovered by the internet at large in late 2007, by which point he had already been suspended from college, and banned from the Fashion Square (twice), along with his local branches of Wal-Mart and Target, only avoiding criminal charges for the ruckus he caused at the latter because the state didn't feel it was worth the effort to pursue the case. As recently as two months before the "official" start of the trolling of Chris, he was making death threats against Adam Stackhouse and his preteen sister, for the former's unwitting disruption of Chris's plan to lose his virginity with Megan, something that she had made clear she had no interest in doing. It may be a depressing conclusion to arrive at, but there's never been anything that anyone outside of the confines of 14 Branchland Court could have reasonably done to prevent Chris's life from being a trainwreck.

Chris's white knights are making him worse

A quick glance at the comments on his Facebook statuses should confirm this. Even after he committed a felony by assaulting a GameStop employee with pepper spray on Boxing Day 2014, then posted a long-winded, obviously dishonest tirade painting himself as an innocent victim on Facebook, none of his white knights offered anything more than a softly-worded, mild condemnation of his behavior. Some avoided a direct response altogether, and made some barely relevant comment that conspicuously avoided the main point of Chris's self-serving drivel, probably a feeble and misguided attempt to defuse his rage.

And this is how his white knights react whenever he gets angry about having to face the consequences of his own behavior. It's painfully clear to Chris's trolls and other observers that his white knights are woefully ill-equipped to deal with Chris. The reactions his tantrums garner from them clearly indicate that they remain ignorant (passively or otherwise) to facts that most learned long ago; namely, that the "soft touch" has never worked with Chris, and only serves to reinforce his belief that he should be given whatever he desires (he is even openly stating that he is entitled to a girlfriend), and allowed to do as he pleases, while others shield him from the negative repercussions.

Chris's white knights also habitually feed Chris's belief that his trolls are subhuman bullies who simply want to see him destroyed in every conceivable way because he's such a special, brave little boy. While this is true of some, for the most part, Chris's trolls are just as interested in seeing Chris improve himself as white knights are, if not moreso, even if many are beginning to doubt such a thing is possible. Indeed, many of the female troll personas who "date" or "befriend" Chris have tried to help him see the error of his ways and reform, and continue to do so. It is partially due to the influence of Chris's white knights, who foolishly (and often futilely) try to root out these trolls, that these attempts to help Chris never result in lasting, positive change on his part.

In short, most of Chris's white knights are attention whores, sycophants or both. To these people, going on a witch-hunt for trolls is preferable to actually trying to help Chris, something which, ironically, even Chris's trolls continue to try to do.

Examples

Read: White knight emails

White Knights on YouTube

Among the most notable of Chris's white knights was a YouTube counter-troll who claimed to be a 21 year-old Russian model named Svenka. Via her YouTube account, hottiee96, she released an inordinate number of screencaps from troll conversations on Sonichu IRC, including private conversations between Chris and Panda. She also released an image of the Man in the Pickle Suit who would later steal Chris's first date, Emily. Were Chris less thick-skulled and even slightly willing to accept irrefutable evidence, Svenka may have made somewhat of a negative impact on the organized trolling effort against Chris, but ultimately she was ineffectual. Svenka also had a unhealthy obsession with the CWCville Library's original curator, Arjen Van Dierten.

On 6 May 2009, YouTube user xThexPinchx/NorthxStar7/ThePinchisDaBomb tried to blackmail major trolls, claiming to have information on them. He was easily called on his bluff by someone who had not trolled Chris at all. The Pinch has also threatened BlueSpike saying he has information from his friends, forgetting the fact that BlueSpike has no friends.

White Knights on Facebook

In recent times (since 2012), Chris has taken to using Facebook as his main means of expressing himself. Inevitably, this has not only attracted the attention of trolls, but, in 2013, a slew of White Knights as well, in particular, a William Elliott Waterman, who taunted the trolls to come after him instead of Chris (Spoiler: Nobody did, because nobody actually cared what he had to say.) Anna and Kim are two of the most notable ones on his friends list, both of whom try to offer constructive advice whenever Chris nosedives into a rant...when they're not busy kissing his ass, especially in the case of Anna.

However, as we've come to expect of Chris, anybody who tells him something he doesn't want to hear are people that needed to be brushed off until they stop saying those mean, awful things to him. A good case in point is his anger-laced tirade in September 2013, when he got thrown out of Walmart and started calling names. The white knights typically chimed in with their support...until he revealed that he vandalized an Xbox One display in the store. Several of them then told Chris that this was not right of him to do, and that the manager had every right to throw him out. His response to that?

“	They do not. And if they do, they are most in the wrong, because they are most abusive and overzealous of their "authoritative power" that never has existed ever.	”
- Chris's response to Chris Rhodes

White Knights in Real Life

Aside from the most obvious example, an old classmate of Chris from Manchester High School came online and attempted to defend Chris. Once certain details became known, however, said classmate quickly backpedaled on this once he realized that the majority of what happened was Chris' own fault.

TV Tropes

The TV Tropes article on Sonichu used to have a white knight message as the first text of the article, with a link back to this very page. It was eventually removed due to TV Tropes' website policy changing later on--in other words, said message would no longer be allowed on the website. The message is reproduced below:

“	Hey Chris! If you're reading this: you seriously need to get help from licensed professionals, before the stuff you do gets you thrown in prison or forcibly committed. And we're sorry, but you have no real fans - the people you think are your fans are really either trolls or laughing at you behind your back. Every. Last. One. Please listen to us - for once.	”
- Concerned tropers

Unfortunately, the editor in question fails to realize that their message, while well intentioned, will do absolutely nothing and Chris will simply ignore it even if he does fully read and input it for better development. Thank you for your time.

Conclusion

As good as your intentions may be, there is no conceivable way any old e-friend can reach Chris at this point and change him for the better, certainly not by continuing to ass-pat and pamper him, which is precisely what fucked him up so badly in the first place (as this wiki evidences copiously). Your efforts will unfortunately fail, and he will just brush you aside, seeing no difference between you and the trolls, for daring to tell him anything he does not want to hear. With each new incident he causes, it is increasingly obvious that little short of professional intervention, the intercession of GodJesus, or a horrifyingly close brush with death will change him.

Though the trolls have certainly tried to be a positive influence on Chris, even they are now largely admitting that Chris is well beyond our aid. They have spent years trying to pierce Chris's many insulating layers of self-deceit, egotism and sheer stubbornness. It is worth bearing in mind that it is these people, not the white knights, that are the closest thing he has to friends, and that some of them have been at this for nearly a decade. With all the never-to-be-released material they're sitting on, they know him, and if they can't make Chris change, what on earth makes you think you can?

To conclude, with Chris's paranoia, detachment from reality, outlandish behavior and bellicosity all becoming steadily more severe, and with interventions by trolls and white knights alike failing, the best we can hope for is that Chris causes some sort of trouble that leads to him receiving the help he needs.

See also

• A-Logging
• Weening
• White knight E-mails

External links

• White Knighting article at Encyclopedia Dramatica.