Nicki Minaj fans have been on the hunt for “Stephanie Bell,” who has a warrant after allegedly swatting the rapper.
via: HotNewHipHop
Police officers responded to reports of a shooting at Minaj’s home in what is the latest “swatting” attack on the rapper. While “swatting”, the act of calling in fake police emergencies to the homes of famous people, has been around for some time, Minaj has been a fairly consistent target as of late. Minaj recently called out her latest attacker, saying a “warrant is in the system” for their arrest.
That warrant has since made its way online, identifying the suspect as “Stephanie Bell”. This has led Minaj’s fans to scour social media for any and every account linked to Stephanie Bell that they can find. The only problem is it’s a pretty common name. This means a lot of completely innocent Stephanie Bells are now under siege from rabid Minaj fans.
“I’ve never been so angry at another Stephanie Bell. You’re fucking it up for the rest of us,” one Bell wrote on social media. “Why y’all still in my inbox. Stop dick sucking,” angrily proclaimed another. Meanwhile, the Barbz have declared all out war against Bell. “Stephanie Bell, your days are numbered,” warned one fan. “Stephanie Bell is finished. She better pray the cops get her before us,” added another. However, this has led to a lot of random and unnecessary harassment of innocent people.
At the time of writing, it does not appear that the correct Stephanie Bell has been tracked down. Unfortunately, that means that every other Stephanie Bell may want to close their DMs and take a little social media break for a couple of days.
There are clearly account lists being distributed by fans, leading to waves of coordinated harassment. And that’s just not cool. At the end of the day, it’s fun to be in a fandom but a line is crossed when you start attacking completely random people online because of their name.
