Bugging out

Bugman is worried about extermination—his own.

Last week, CityBeat reported on the YouTube sensation, a self-described former gang member and FBI informant who snitched on his homeboys in the Skyline Park Piru gang. Appearing in a ski mask and gang clothing, Bugman had been posting profanity-packed rants, telling gang members that snitches are everywhere—and the only thing a gang-banger can do to escape prison is quit the game.

In essence, over the last month, he created a bogeyman to seed paranoia among the gangs. Last weekend, he published two new videos, and then, as suddenly as he appeared, Bugman vanished. He has removed all his videos from YouTube and cancelled his account.

Bugman, who lives out of state and whose identity is secret, says that gang members have sent him messages saying they are actively trying to track him down, and he’s worried that things like his IP address might give him away. He plans to report at least one death threat to the authorities.

“I expected all that from the get-go; I expected the negative to overpower the positive. But it was just so much negative,” Bugman tells CityBeat in a phone interview. “Even though the negative is directed to Bugman, not me—I’m just a character playing Bugman—it was just too many.”

In regards to his gangland enemies, Bugman adds: “They’re going to live the way they live. I’m going to let them do it, but I’m sure my videos touched somebody. As long as I got the message to one person, I’m good with that.”

What surprised Bugman is how the videos made him feel. He says they took him back to a day when he was wrestling with guilt over betraying his friends. One e-mail in particular from a non-gang member of the Skyline community really penetrated, he says.

“Being a Gang Member is the lowest form of existence in the Black Community and you have joined the lowest of the low, a Gang Member turned snitch,” the anonymous person wrote. “Change comes from the inside, your are [sic] still the same person you were before you snitched!” The author also called him “self-serving, self-centered, narcissistic and under the influence of [his] inflated ego,” and accused Bugman of causing controversy in order to boost sales of his self-published memoir, Bugman: To Snitch or Not to Snitch.

Bugman disagrees with that last claim: He says he has already contacted Skyline’s Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center about donating the proceeds to youth programs.

Fans will be glad to hear that Bugman is considering uploading one more video, which would be a toned-down version of his earlier concepts.

“I’m-a put my video back up there, but it’s going to be edited a little bit where I can message out a little bit clearer,” he says.