Tech-Bro Influencer Claims He Makes Cash Snitching on Strippers to IRS

Earlier this month, Rosalia, a dancer in Las Vegas, decided to hop on a trend popular on StripperTok showing off how much she makes in a few busy days. In the video, captioned, “What a weekend looks like as a Vegas stripper,” Rosalia shows off her earnings with Bia’s “Whole Lotta Money” in the background, displaying the grand total on a whiteboard: $33,700 in three days. “I just happened to have a really good night on the third night,” she tells Rolling Stone. “So it went viral,” More than 48 million people have viewed her page.

Rosalia then noticed that people commented on her page, threatening to report Rosalia to the IRS or worse, threatening to rob Rosalia. That’s when she saw her video had been reposted by Ethan Keiser, a babyfaced, moderately balding TikTok creator with more than 840,000 followers. In the video, Keiser includes a screengrab from the IRS “Whistleblower Office,” telling his followers that anyone can report someone and earn 30 percent of their money if they are not paying taxes. “It’s business, baby,” He ends.

Over the past few weeks, Keiser has pivoted from “dark humor” sketches and trollish social hacks to encouraging his followers to report women on StripperTok to the IRS, apparently based on the (demonstrably false) assumption that exotic dancers do not pay taxes. He has even posted a detailed guide for how to “snitch,” encouraging his followers to go to Instagram and search stripper-related hashtags to “find someone flexing cash.” In the video, he claims to earn $60,000 a month from “snitching” on exotic dancers to the IRS, though, when reached for comment, he did not provide evidence to Rolling Stonesupporting this claim.

Keiser, who according to LinkedIn is a Cisco Software Engineer, has also founded and served as CEO of StudyTree. He appears to be active cultivating a following of aggrieved men via TikTok. After a female TikToker posted a video about him with the caption “worst date ever with a TikToker,” documenting how he brought his own pool cue to a first date and asked her to buy him a drink before leaving, he posted a rebuttal: “Boys, it is no simp September, I don’t care what you look like, how good-looking you are, if you’re gonna compete with me, I’m gonna win,” he said, urging men to “like and follow if you’re not a simp.”

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After being called out by the Instagram account @TheDancersResource, Keiser claims the videos about snitching on strippers are intended as a “joke for educational purposes,” with the subtext being that they are intended to discourage women from showing off their cash online. However, they have had a detrimental effect on the women who appear in his TikToks.

Last June, Ashley DiMeo, a Tristate-area exotic dancer and popular TikTok creator, posted a video in which she put piles of cash into a drawer, with the caption, “How many days of work does it take to fill a drawer.”

“A lot of people are interested in dancers’ lives,” DiMeo tellsRolling Stoneof her TikTok account. “And I’m open about my job so I don’t mind letting people know about strippers and breaking down stereotypes and stuff.” (It’s worth noting that dancers and OnlyFans creators showing off how much they make on TikTok is somewhat controversial, with some claiming that it glamorizes or misrepresents the industry, but the trend is an undeniably popular one.)

After the viral video reached 77 million views, DiMeo was shocked to learn that Keiser had made it. He encouraged his followers and her to report Keiser to the IRS for failing to pay taxes on her income. DiMeo posted a clip showing her tax forms. Keiser was then forced to delete the video. But TikTok removed her rebuttal video on the grounds that it was depicting “regulated goods and illegal activity.” (TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stoneregarding Keiser’s page or why it had removed DiMeo’s video and not his content.)

DiMeo doubts that Keiser is reporting strippers to TikTok or that his followers can do so without their personal information. She says that Keiser’s videos are a clear invitation for women to harass each other on the platform. “He’s making it worse for us. We get so much hate and he creates so much more hate,” She said. “Even if he’s not getting money from us, it’s not right what he’s doing.”

The IRS offers between 15 to 30 percent of proceeds from its Whistleblower Program to anyone who earns more than $200,000 per year, according its website. Those who submit to the program are required to fill out a detailed form including “copies of books and records, ledger sheets, receipts, bank records, contracts, emails, and the location of assets” supporting the claim of alleged tax noncompliance.

The IRS did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment regarding clarity on its Whistleblower Program or whether it would even be possible for Keiser or anyone else to earn $60,000 a month reporting people to the IRS. But a spokesperson did direct Rolling Stoneto the IRS website, which specifies that a claim will not be processed if it is submitted under an alias or anonymously or if it is “found to have no merit [or lacks] sufficient specific and credible information.”

In a statement toRolling Stone,Keiser reiterated that his videos are intended to raise awareness of internet safety issues. “Workers should be aware that there is a form anyone can fill out to report tax evasion. My message is clear, keep pre-taxed money private.” He denied explicitly targeting or mentioning strippers or exotic dancers in his videos, saying, “some industries are known for exclusively hiring 1099 workers, there [sic] my videos was targeting them. My videos nor I condone harassment of anyone.” (It is false that Keiser does not explicitly mention dancers in his videos, as his “how I make $60k a month snitching” video specifically directs viewers to stripper-related hashtags on Instagram.) Keiser didn’t respond to repeated questions about whether he was reporting women to the IRS and making $60,000 per month.

Keiser seems to also be sharing information with his followers on how to doxx women. In an Instagram Live that was screen-recorded by the meme page @officialcamgirlmemes, Keiser appeared to be encouraging his followers to resort to unethical means to procure personal information about dancers. “Social engineering and mental manipulation can be used on the average person very easily to get whatever information you want out of them. Let’s say for example I can’t get in contact with them, you can get in contact with their parents, say, ‘Hey, your daughter’s so-and-so, we’re calling from the HR department, she listed you as an emergency contact, we’re just calling to make sure your information is correct. Bro, it’s the easiest thing in the world.” He later says, “There is a plentiful number of things that are illegal in life that no one cares about. If you got information of someone and you reported them, no one knows that you broke the — no one cares. Who cares?” (When asked whether he has impersonated an HR department to procure dancers’ personal details, Keiser says @officialcamgirlmemes’ clip was “taken out of context”: “never did I say I have actually done this,” he says.)

Keiser is not the only one to use the IRS Whistleblower Program to attack sex workers. In 2018, a campaign known as the Thot Audit started circulating among men’s rights groups on Twitter and Reddit, which specifically targeted online sex workers. Due to the detailed requirements the IRS has in place to report tax evasion, the campaign was largely ineffective, as Christopher Kirk, a tax attorney, previously told Rolling Stone. “The Service wants actionable information about significant tax issues, not guesses, and the program is not a forum for people with an ax to grind,” He said.

Yet that campaign, as well as Keiser’s targeted action against strippers, continues to fuel stigma against an already-marginalized community that is already subject to a great deal of harassment on social media. “It’s not a joke,” DiMeo. “I don’t know if he’s just doing this for clout, but even if he is, he has all his followers coming for dancers and making them feel uncomfortable.”

Keiser seems to be doing the same. Keiser threatened legal action against the poster by posting the full legal name of the poster and the location of the poster in an Instagram account that warned dancers about him. After another Instagram account, the Dancers’ Locker Room, posted about his TikTok page, Keiser added a screengrab of his post to his Instagram Stories, adding the caption, “Lmao every stripper will fear me.”

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