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Chud the Builder and America’s Tradition of White Racial Terror

We are not in unprecedented territory. We are returning to form.

Sheriff’s deputies investigate a shooting scene outside the Montgomery County Courthouse, May 13, 2026, in Clarksville, Tennessee.

The latest trend among white livestreamers for generating “content”? Approaching Black strangers minding their own business, repeatedly calling them “niggers,” labeling whatever way they respond as “chimping out” and—of course—collecting a pile of money from fans who literally pay to be entertained by racial humiliation.

The biggest star of these “ragebaiting” videos, as they’re called for obvious reasons, is 28-year-old Tennessean Dalton Eatherly, better known online as “Chud the Builder.” Eatherly’s sizable fanbase is built on livestreams in which he sidles up to random Black people, provokes them with racist abuse and dares them to react while threatening to shoot them with the gun and bear mace he carries. This little routine realized its Chekhovian inevitability this past Wednesday, May 13, when Chud shot a Black man—reportedly a disabled veteran—outside the courthouse where he was appearing in one of two criminal cases for which he was already out on bond. (Those cases include an early May incident when Chud refused to pay a $371 restaurant bill; the livestreamed footage of the incident, which you can still watch here, features him berating restaurant employees, including a South Asian server he calls a “jeet” and instructs to go “shit in the street.”) On Friday, the judge overseeing the shooting case announced charges of attempted murder, employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, as well as a $1.25 million bond. Along with a Black stranger, according to reports, Chud also shot himself in the arm. As writer Dixon D. White notes, there may be no more perfect metaphor for the self-inflicted wound of white supremacy.

The charges may sideline Chud for a bit, but a crop of copycats are scrambling to take his place. There’s Hexumlite, a 23-year-old looksmaxxer whose old shtick was insulting anonymous women on the street, but who’s now pivoting to asking random groups of white women what they “think about niggers” and advising others not to “get attacked by any niggers.” (Sidenote: If you’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon of looksmaxxing, maybe read this.) Then there’s Onlyusemeblade, real name is Brian Russo, a 40-something gaming streamer who in a recent video calls an unknown Black woman a “weird nigger bitch.” Others are surely vying for their time in the spotlight, and they’re joined by white people who aren’t livestreamers but have nonetheless been inspired by them. For example, in a clip widely circulated last week, a white man tells the Black security staff outside a Nashville restaurant they’re “chimping out” after they refuse to let him take his dog inside—which is to say, after doing their jobs. Hexumlite, who just happens to catch the altercation, signals his appreciation by shouting, “Chud the Builder!”

I expect the think pieces implicating social media are being written right now, bemoaning its tendency to reward outrage, humiliation, and spectacle. But I dunno. I actually think the bigger problem might be the racism that has always existed, shaping and grossly contorting American........

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