Aurora Starchild
Videos by Rare
“What part of me working out by myself looks like I’m a damsel in distress?” A Twitch influencer just went viral after catching a man staring at her at the gym. But now Jessica Fernandez is backtracking, issuing a public apology.
Twitch Influencer Jessica Fernandez Went Off on Another Gym-Goer… Behind His Back
Jessica Fernandez is a video game and lifestyle influencer with over 600k followers on TikTok and 56k followers on Twitch. A self-professed “anti-social” but “attractive” girl, Fernandez admits to feeling uncomfortable when people sexualize her. So, when she filmed herself at the gym last week, her hackles shot up as a male gym patron kept looking her way. Narrating about the incident in the moment, the influencer posted the video to Twitter, and it garnered over 2.6 million views before she took it down.
“This guy kept making me extremely uncomfortable at the gym,” she wrote. She added that she wanted to spread awareness for how women feel when they’re ogled by strangers.
“Stupid piece of f***ing sh*t behind me,” Jessica whispered into her mic. “I hate this. I hate when there’s weirdos. Gets me so uncomfortable. Feral, feral, feral, feral, like, f***ing feral.” She added that he was looking at her like she was “a piece of meat” and explained that it triggered her “fight or flight” mode.
Eventually, the man came over and asked Fernandez if she needed help putting her barbell on the rack.
“You wanna put it on?” he asked her.
“You don’t have to do that, it’s OK. I got it, thank you, though,” she responded. Then Fernandez continued to narrate into her mic and camera. “What part of me working out by myself looks like I’m a damsel in distress?”
The Public’s Rubber Band Reaction Shamed the Influencer for Shaming the Man. “He Did Nothing Wrong.”
Women are harassed in gyms and it needs to stop, but you are not one of them. An act of kindness or a glance does not make you a victim. pic.twitter.com/34g9265KXb
— Joey Swoll (@TheJoeySwoll) January 21, 2023
But the public’s reaction to Jessica Fernandez’s video probably wasn’t what she anticipated. While many women agreed that people should “mind their own business” at the gym, even more seemed to deride the influencer.
“Girls like this go to the gym just to chase clout and be toxic. This man did nothing wrong. And she’s hiding comments calling her out. REALLY weak for someone who hits the gym,” one person wrote. The tweet was retweeted hundreds of times.
Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire said he watched the video and thought Jessica was blowing it out of proportion. “Ladies, if you’re wondering why you aren’t meeting any decent men it might be because they’re afraid of being publicly shamed as predators if they even so much as glance in your direction. Or God forbid try to speak to you,” he wrote.
The public pounced, pointing out that men naturally will glance at women who are attractive. Others blamed the social media star for flaunting her body at the gym and seeking attention.
Fernandez Has Apologized for Saying Anything That May Have Damaged the Guy’s Reputation
My Gross Mistake: Addressing The Gym Video
— Jessica49 (@Jessicafrndz) January 24, 2023
Read: https://t.co/MMb4aAM4Ap
Fernandez promptly removed the video and issued a public apology.
“I want to apologize sincerely to the man at the gym where this all started. He didn’t do anything wrong to me and I blew our interaction out of proportion,” she wrote. She then acknowledged that if anyone thinks she’s posting the apology because she was called out, they’re “half right.”
“…After reading literally thousands of comments about me, the situation and the man in question it truly opened my eyes to how damaging this could have been for him,” the Twitch star continued. “Men and women deal with very different problems in the realm of the opposite sex and after looking through the lens of an innocent man put in a situation like that. It honestly made me feel sick to my stomach with guilt.”
“This will be an ugly scar on my character for a long time until I can show that I am growing,” she wrote. Fernandez then asked for the public’s forgiveness and promised to process the constructive criticism.
“Mistakes help me grow and I am willing to learn and take people’s constructive criticism where it is needed. In hopes of moving on after this situation I will no longer be discussing the topic any further. Along with that I will be taking a break from social media until I am in the right mental space to keep making content.”
