The impersonator apologizing for harassing Lindy and making a donation

The impersonator’s apology and memorial donation mark an unusual turn in Lindy West’s account of online harassment: the person who had hidden behind an imitation of her dead father disclosed his actions, recognized their human target, and tried to make amends. The exchange did not undo the hurt or restore West’s father, and it did not grow into an ongoing relationship. Its significance lies instead in the brief reversal it records: harassment that had depended on impersonation and dehumanization was answered by an admission, a donation, and a final conversation between two people.

The article and the unexpected message

The week after the impersonation and harassment, West wrote about Paw West Donezo in an article for Jezebel. She describes that account as having been written with sadness, candor, anger, and evident pain. A few hours after the post appeared, an email arrived from the person responsible. The timing connected the message directly to the act of making the harm public: the account had given the troll a chance to confront what his conduct meant to its target.

The email began by admitting uncertainty about when or why the trolling had started. Its writer said the abuse was not motivated by West’s position on rape jokes, adding that he did not find the jokes funny either. Instead, he described resentment toward West’s happiness with herself, which he said brought his own unhappiness into view. This was his explanation of his motive, not a defense of his actions. He also acknowledged sending insults through two other Gmail accounts, expanding the admission beyond the impersonating account itself.

Admission, apology, and donation

The writer specifically took responsibility for creating a Gmail account and a Twitter account under the name PaulWestDunzo, and said he had deleted both. He called the conduct the lowest thing he had ever done. West’s article, he explained, had made the reality of his actions newly apparent to him: a living person was reading what he had written, and he had attacked someone who had not harmed him, for no reason. He said he was done trolling and apologized repeatedly.

The message also included a concrete gesture of remembrance. The writer said he had made a donation in memory of West’s father, Paul West. Attached was a receipt for fifty dollars sent to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, designated “Memorial Paul West” and assigned to the area of greatest need. The donation did not erase the impersonation or the insults, but it tied the apology to a specific acknowledgment of the loss the harassment had invoked. Rather than offering only regret, the sender directed money to an organization in West’s father’s memory.

West’s response and their final contact

West says that the email still leaves her stunned whenever she reads it. A troll’s apology had never happened to her before, and she knew of no comparable case among people she knew or in the broader lore of the internet. She had also read interviews with scholars of trolling who described public remorse as something trolls generally did not offer. Against that expectation, the email was both an admission of private wrongdoing and a direct expression of regret to the person harmed.

West did not immediately know what to say. Her short first reply asked whether the message was real and, if so, thanked the sender. She then made two truths explicit: the harassment had been deeply hurtful, and she felt sorry for whatever the sender had been going through that led him to behave that way. She wished him well, thanked him for the donation, and told him that she loved her father very much. Compassion in this response did not require her to deny the injury; gratitude for the memorial gift sat alongside a clear acknowledgment of the pain.

The sender wrote once more, confirming that the apology and donation were genuine. He thanked West for responding with more kindness than he believed he deserved, apologized for her loss and for the pain he had caused, and closed by wishing her well. West identifies this as their final contact. The exchange therefore ends with an apology received and answered, not with evidence of a continuing friendship or any claim that the past had been repaired.

Meaning within West’s account of trolling

The episode gives a particular form to West’s refusal to treat trolls as monsters. She had explained that speaking back mattered to her mental health, could encourage other women to answer abuse, and could give them language for dealing with people who mistreated them. She also rejected the idea that dehumanizing an abuser would counteract that person’s effort to dehumanize her. The email does not prove that every troll can be reached, or that an apology is a predictable result of answering back. It records one rare instance in which the person responsible described his conduct, recognized its effect on another human being, and tried to respond differently.

The donation and the final exchange remain limited, concrete acts rather than a sweeping reconciliation. West’s father was not brought back; the harassment was not made harmless; and the sender’s remorse did not obligate West to offer forgiveness beyond what she chose to say. Yet the sequence changes the terms of the story for a moment. An account built around impersonation gave way to a signed admission, and abuse directed at West’s bereavement was followed by a contribution explicitly made in her father’s memory. The event matters because it holds hurt and compassion together without confusing either with absolution.