Seen ‘Baby Reindeer’? Here’s What To Do If You Think You Have An Online Stalker

In Netflix’s hit British miniseries “Baby Reindeer,” Donny, a struggling comedian, is relentlessly stalked by Martha, a woman he meets at the neighborhood bar he works at in the evenings.

The show is based on comedian Richard Gadd’s autobiographical one-person show. In Donny, Gadd is playing a fictionalized version of himself. The Scottish comedian really was stalked in his early 20s by an older woman who, like Martha, flooded his email and social media with poorly spelled messages that were sexually explicit and threatening at times. (Baby Reindeer is one of the many weird, uncomfortably intimate nicknames Martha gives him.)

When Donny goes to the police with the messages as proof, they tell him not much can be done because the messages aren’t outwardly threatening. They also quiz him why it had taken him so long to report his perpetrator. (Of course, it doesn’t help that because Donny is a man and his stalker is a woman, male stalking victims don’t tend to be treated with the same seriousness as women who are stalked. Research also shows they’re slower to report, perhaps because of fear of not being taken seriously or believed.)

For people who’ve been online stalked, the powerlessness and frustration Donny feels in “Baby Reindeer” is all too real. Cyberstalking now happens more often than traditional, in-person stalking. Approximately 3.4 million people ages 16 or older (about 1.3% of the U.S. population) were cyberstalking victims in 2019, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. (Many said that the online harassment escalated to more traditional, in-person stalking.)

Ashley McMann, a licensed professional counselor in Austin, Texas, was online stalked years ago, and “Baby Reindeer” took her back to that