DJ Kimmy Koala has gone into hiding today after footage of her using her dead boyfriend's body as a piñata surfaced online. In the video, Kimmy can clearly be seen hitting his body with a stick as dozens of people cheer on.

Boris Richard, who lived with Kimmy Koala at the time of his death, suffered from chronic depression before taking his life last November. “He was a kind but troubled soul,” says childhood friend Bianca Smith. “That video of Kimmy hitting him with a stick while people clap and laugh is disgusting."

Bianca blames Tumblr for Kimmy’s awful behaviour. “I’ve known Kimmy for five years, she used to be this gentle, considerate human being,” says Bianca. “But then she started spending all her time on Tumblr. She became paranoid, started seeing the worst in men, and her empathy went out the window. She used to be there for Boris, but after she embraced Tumblr, she started blaming him for everything. Since he was a white male, she didn’t think he could suffer from depression. After he passed away, I found out she had egged him on when he was having suicidal thoughts. She told him that he deserved to die."

Michael Fenwick was also a long time friend of Boris. “We first met at McGill in 2003,” says Michael. “There wasn’t a mean bone in his body. He spent most of his free time trying to make the world a better place, and I don’t mean by being an internet activist or going to protests. He volunteered at food banks, he helped charities raise money, he regularly donated blood. He tried to make individual differences in people’s lives. It was important to him. He had a terrible childhood. His parents died in Kosovo during the war. He escaped to Montreal with his uncle and aunt shortly after that. He had a lot of pain that he never really knew how to deal with, no matter how much time he spent in therapy. He suffered from PTSD, the real kind, not the kind you get after someone disagrees with you on Twitter or because you didn't get a trigger warning before reading A Clockwork Orange.”

Michael says he’s livid about Kimmy’s actions. “I think she killed him,” says Michael. “She didn’t hang the noose around his neck, but she might as well have. She’s under this delusion that because of who Boris was, that he was impervious to suffering, to pain, to hurt. You have all these people on tumblr who encourage each other to treat people like shit without knowing anything about who they are or what they've lived through. They think it’s funny to use suicide victims as piñatas. And we’re not even talking about trolls here, we’re talking about prominent journalists and artists. This isn't a fringe issue, this hatred has gone mainstream.”

Many on the left might find it shocking that this kind of hatred has become common place. “I still have trouble believing that,” says NDP hopeful Mary-Lou Miser. “I can’t wrap my head around people who believe that social justice means cheering on suicide. Even if you show me prominent progressives who believe that, I’ll never accept that their existence is evidence of a larger trend."

The evidence, however, is easy enough to find. Last fall, Steven Drivus, son of hollywood actor Dick Drivus, came under attack after he talked about how much he wanted to use dead white male suicide victims as piñatas. He claimed people took his comments out of context, but Michael disagrees. “There’s no context that could justify that kind of comment, and I believe Kimmy was inspired by Steven’s hateful words. It's not Steven's fault for what she did, but his words reflect the kind of dehumanizing cultural climate that celebrated her actions."

Steven's comments highlight another problem with today's left. “Kimmy was a child of privilege,” says Bianca. “Her parents own a dozen car dealerships. She has a trust fund. She’s never worked a day in her life. A lot of so-called progressives who are promoting this hateful nonsense are rich. Like Steven Drivus. He’s the son of a multi-millionaire who works for a prominent news paper. Steven and Kimmy and people like them? They’ve turned hope into hatred, equality into tyranny, justice into violence. Progressive politics is now all about people with class privilege dehumanizing those without it."

Kimmy’s fans, for their part, think what she did was just fine. “There’s nothing wrong with today’s progressive movement,” says British Shield columnist Emily Pool. "It’s misogynistic to claim that using a male suicide victim's body as a piñata is hateful. I thought Kimmy’s piñata schtick was a hilarious commentary on how entitled men are — they think everyone’s entitled to basic human decency. Please. Men are not entitled to anything. They need to get over themselves. Celebrating male suicide isn’t hateful, it’s hilarious!"