By Paul Serran
Everybody wants a piece of the NXIVM story. And some newbies not only want their entire cake, but they want to eat it too. And the results can often be hard to digest.
Take this blogger called Grace, for example. No family name to speak of, just the handle gracetopia. Her bio describes her as ‘just a messy bitch who is here for the drama‘, which I would very much like to disagree with – but can’t.
Grace apparently caters for an audience who finds anything longer than a tweet to be too exhausting. She tells us that she read ‘a LOT’ about NXIVM, and wrote a collection of (…wait for it) NINE articles, and – wouldn’t you know it – another instant expert is born.
I’m all for more and more people spreading the NXIVM story around, and I would be willing to overlook her poor writing skills were it not for the fact that she is unkind to Frank Parlato, who is a dear friend of mine, who has been 11 years in this war and who paid a hefty personal price for his role in the takedown of the ESP/NXIVM scam and the DOS sex cult.
Grace explains to us how she ‘decided to rethink my ambitions and see what happens if I just try to be someone who writes, and here we are.’
Her 9 article ‘oeuvre’ is an ‘attempt to make one semi-cohesive narrative out of the mishegas that is NXIVM/Keith Raniere.’ She hopes it provides ‘a basic narrative for those who are interested‘. She must be commended – she does sound semi-cohesive.
She doesn’t like the Frank Report, but praises it. She doesn’t believe in Parlato’s sources, but mentions information from it IN THE INTRO of her series. That’s almost coherent.
She finds her 2600 word intro to be so long it’s almost the unabridged ‘1001 Nights’. Wow. She also has multiple ‘content warnings’ about how sickening the content may be, before inviting the reader to ‘grab some snacks’. What?
Nine articles for the ‘participation trophy’ generation.
Maybe we should cut her some slack: she is obviously writing for the ‘participation trophy’ generation. Look at this ‘Content Warning’: ‘Please ensure you are in a good mental headspace before reading, regardless of whether you consider yourself to have any specific triggers.’
And she proceeds with a turn of phrase that is pure William Shakespeare: ‘A lot of fucked-up shit happened in NXIVM.’
One of the really bad things included in her NXIVM expose is – brace yourselves – that Keith Raniere believed that there are two genders. Really.
‘And what I find extra-fascinating about NXIVM is how truly bonkers it all is, and how much there is. Most other cults I’ve looked into I could sum up in, like, a paragraph or two. This 16,000-word treatise I’ve written on NXIVM is the summary.’
She has written a treatise – or is it a summary?
After her admittedly incomplete research, she got to the realization that ‘[t]he depth of the insanity surrounding NXIVM and Keith Raniere is just mind-boggling, layers and layers, an onion with no end.’ Oh, ok. More Shakespeare. Whatever.
The guy on stage is Vanguard. He’s talking to his followers.
While it is true that some parts of what she wrote are entertaining, she reveals herself to be just a newbie by the way she treats this blog here, believing that it deserves a ‘Dishonorable Mention’.
She says the Frank Report ‘utilizes a lot of exclamation points’. That is her half-assed way of suggesting that we can’t write properly here, and are just sensationalist.
But she has to immediately admit that the FR ‘became the place on the internet to go for anti-NXIVM information. The Frank Report was posting about DOS before the New York Times.’
‘Colorful’: Parlato doesn’t mind being criticized – but I do mind Grace’s uninformed nonsense.
Grace has a way with words: a bad way. When she finds a word she likes, she sticks to it: ‘Parlato’s a colorful character [..] His colorfulness, and his deep hatred for NXIVM, make me dubious of anything that can just be sourced to The Frank Report. […] The Frank Report, for better or for worse, is colored by the colorful character behind it.’ Color much? She is ‘dubious’ about his work, but she quotes facts sourced by him alone on her intro? This girl is not a pro.
Sometimes, her absolute lack of information is just pathetic: ‘[Parlato] is not unbiased. (I mean, who is honestly, but he is really biased.)’ WHAT? Who else you know, I ask the dear readers, that has extended a platform to Raniere and the holdout followers of NXIVM? No one.
And also: who would not be biased against a multilevel marketing scam that degenerated into a sexual slavery, fire-branding cult? I know I am.
I don’t believe that Grace’s unacceptable lack of kindness to Frank comes from her being nasty, but rather from the fact the she is not nearly as well-informed as she believes to be, and also that she writes under the yoke of the politically correct mandates of her inane generation.
She finally reveals her beef with Frank: ‘He’s also pretty misogynistic.’ Oh, she thinks? Frank has helped free countless women from sexual slavery. Grace has helped not one. But hey, Frank is ‘muh misogynistic’. He may even be suspected – the horror! – of sharing with Raniere the heretical belief that there are two genders!
The newly self-anointed expert writes: ‘He goes for the jugular, the dramatic angle, whatever will get the most hits and hurt NXIVM the most. Is what he writes true? Possibly, some of it. But the style of journalism just hits me the wrong way, and I can’t help but be dubious [here’s that word again, synonyms are out].’
Let me examine one part of this claim: ‘Is what he [Parlato] writes true? Possibly, some of it.‘ Oh, no, dear Grace – oh, no. In his podcast, Mark Vicente, who IS an expert on NXIVM, said he believes that 90% of the content in the Frank Report is true. And Vicente is not that sympathetic to Frank, so I believe he takes Frank down a notch from the real level of 99% veracity in this blog.
In the end of her disgraceful account of the FR, she writes: ‘Basically, I just don’t like the vibe. Am I prejudiced? Maybe. The great thing about Frank Parlato is I’m sure he doesn’t give a crap what I think of him.’
This is actually the only time that gracetopia gets something really right. Frank doesn’t mind being criticized in the least. He probably gets a kick out of it. However, I do give a crap. If Grace were a kickass writer with top notch information, I could overlook the rudeness to a man who endured an all-out attack by the Bronfman legal machine, and lived to tell the story and help others.
As it stands, she is just a ‘semi-coherent’ newbie wannabe with faulty information.
By Frank
This photo above marks the end of Paul Serran’s comment. The photo that says “The End.” That’s the end for Paul in this post.
I have to make this painfully clear because there is one dunce who can never figure it out.
Now below is a picture of Grace. She doesn’t like my style.
Grace [above] writes:
I have not watched Investigation Discovery’s The Lost Women of NXIVM. I looked it up and saw the victims listed, and I saw that it was based on Frank Parlato’s journalism, and I suspected that
a) it would not provide me with much new information and
b) it would be a little schlocky and in-your-face, which isn’t a vibe I’m interested in.
I fully admit that skipping this documentary is due to my own biases, and I may watch it eventually.
So Grace also sums me up in another section she calls:
DISHONORABLE MENTION: THE FRANK REPORT
Here is what she writes:
I’ve been promising to talk about Frank Parlato for a while, guess the time is now. Parlato worked for NXIVM and the Bronfman sisters briefly; like many who left, he ended up entangled in lawsuits. He also started a blog called The Frank Report, which utilizes a lot of exclamation points and became the place on the internet to go for anti-NXIVM information. The Frank Report was posting about DOS before the New York Times.
Parlato’s a colorful character, who you can see in Episode 7 of The Vow. “The greatest chess people, including myself, we don’t need a board,” he says. His colorfulness, and his deep hatred for NXIVM, make me dubious of anything that can just be sourced to The Frank Report. He is not unbiased. (I mean, who is honestly, but he is really biased.) He’s also pretty misogynistic. As far as I can tell, Parlato is the primary source for the “Raniere slowly poisoned Pam Cafritz” story as well as the “Sara Bronfman slept with the Dalai Lama’s assistant” story. He goes for the jugular, the dramatic angle, whatever will get the most hits and hurt NXIVM the most. Is what he writes true? Possibly, some of it. But the style of journalism just hits me the wrong way, and I can’t help but be dubious.
The Frank Report, for better or for worse, is colored by the colorful character behind it. Basically, I just don’t like the vibe. Am I prejudiced? Maybe. The great thing about Frank Parlato is I’m sure he doesn’t give a crap what I think of him.
Hey, you know, sometimes a person can redeem themselves with a single truth. This Grace bitch did it when she said the last thing she said about me.
The great thing about Frank Parlato is I’m sure he doesn’t give a crap what I think of him.
I like the kid. She’s trying, and that may be “misogynist” to call her a kid or whatever else little people try to use to put down my greatness.
So here’s a shout out to Grace. Keep on doing what you’re doing. One day you may have something really important to say. And even as it is you didn’t do bad at all. Pretty good try at almost a damn good summary of NXIVM.
You only forgot to give more credit to the guy who ‘but for’ him NXIVM would be alive and well and you wouldn’t know about them, for they would not be famous and you couldn’t write about them.
I am referring to their publicist turned enemy. Me.
