Last week, Washington Post reporter Tyler Lorenz discovered that the powerful conservative Twitter account Libs of TikTok was run by a Brooklyn real estate agent named Chaya Recheck.
Raichik’s account, which was once run anonymously, has become a powerful voice in the cultural battle, pushing rhetoric that tries to make supporters of LGBTQ rights look like “beauticians” who sexually abuse children. Raichik’s claims even affected politics because he was friends with a top aide to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who just signed “don’t talk gay” legislation that lets parents sue school districts that hire gay or transgender teachers who are open about their students’ lives. Raichik has led an effort to change dangerous laws that protect children, which she calls “anti-beautician” laws.
Slate looked through thousands of Raichik’s tweets, including hundreds that she had deleted, to figure out how the real estate agent got to be so powerful and to try to figure out who she would go after next. One thing stands out: Raichik has a lot of anger toward liberals in general, but she has a lot of anger toward LGBTQ people, people who live in cities, and black people who were killed by police.
Raichik made her account in April 2020. Her profile said, “I’ll help you find your daily dose of cringe.” This seemed like a harmless task. Early on, she mostly posted TikTok videos. People said the videos were just progressives singing sad songs about her love for Anthony Fauci and vaccinations.
Fauci Cringe was the first video that Raichik made that got 50,000 views. Her video about vaccines was the first one to get 100,000 views.
The shameless tagging of far-right and far-right heavyweights on Twitter was a big part of Raichik’s early success on a short-lived issue, and it’s something she still does today.
But that’s not the only thing Raichik uses to tweet through the Twitterverse. In a series of now-deleted tweets from the first weeks of her account, she showed how close she was to alt-right ideas that are popular on the political left, especially among people who police have hurt.
Raichik said she started the “Tik-Tok thing” the week Derek Chauvin was found guilty of killing George Floyd. Before he was convicted, Raichik focused on different kinds of far-right content under different usernames. But at the sentencing, Raichik clarified what she thought about police brutality. She tweeted that Floyd was a criminal whose death was caused by drugs, not by chauvinistic brutality.
Raichik didn’t stop being mean to black people hurt by police after Floyd. She also talked a lot on Twitter about the death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. In one video, the account supported police brutality.
Even though she eventually deleted many of her tweets that were mean to people hurt by police, Letchick left behind dozens of tweets that denied that systemic racism existed. The day after June 16, 2021, Raichik’s account asked her followers to respond with one word, and she would try to find a video that explained why that word was racist. The result was more than 150 tweets that made fun of the idea of systemic racism. Raichik, on the other hand, says that anti-white racism is “common” in the United States.
