Suicide of Ronnie McNutt
Viral spread
Screencasts and downloads of the livestream were posted online, beginning its proliferation on the web. The video of McNutt's suicide was posted by users across social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, often in the form of bait-and-switch content which would unexpectedly display the video alongside innocuous content. Variants of the video appeared in TikTok's "For you" page, so that users would scroll upon it without warning as the suicide automatically played, with the apparent intention of frightening or upsetting viewers as a form of trolling). The #ronniemcnutt hashtag had 15.6 million views on TikTok within the first few days after the suicide.
Viral spread
According to Heavy), Facebook also initially refused to prevent the spread of recorded video of McNutt's misfire and suicide, but later agreed to remove the videos from its platform. McNutt had not expressed any intent for the viral spread to occur; Steen said that he did not think McNutt started livestreaming with the intention of killing himself, adding: "When you go back and follow his digital trail there is this beautiful telling of his life on various social-media platforms. He had a history of getting on a streaming service and talking."
Viral spread
Though the platforms worked to remove the videos, new uploads of it would appear from separate accounts, while links to the video also began to appear in Reddit's true crime communities. As TikTok caught onto the video with its algorithms, uploaders evaded detection by placing the video after unrelated, innocuous imagery.
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