Once a master of gossip and behind the scenes of reality TV, Jeremstar is now trying to rebuild his image. The fight against cyberbullying has become his major fight and the police, justice and the government, all targets of his resentment.
It is with a little delay that Jeremstar arrives at the appointed appointment. To tell the truth, we would be almost surprised to see him after watching his stories a few minutes earlier. The videos show him hurtling down the ski slopes in Val Thorens in Savoie, accompanied by friends. So far from the 16th arrondissement of Paris where we must find it. “I no longer publish in real time. I am very careful. With hindsight, I was able to analyze the dangers of social networks.
The content creator therefore arrives, wrapped up in his black down jacket, calm, almost embarrassed. It’s not that we expected to see him land, phone in hand, in the middle of shooting a video and screaming out loud. But the contrast between the man in the stories and the one in real life is surprising.
Just like the place where the exchange takes place: the cafeteria of his publishing house. When Jeremstar is asked which place would have been more appropriate to stick to his portrait, he replies tit for tat: “in court, in a courtroom.” A way according to him to correspond to these years of media and legal tumults.
Especially not an influencer
Jeremstar – pseudonym used daily by Jeremy Gisclon since the end of the 2000s (“I give my stage name when I introduce myself, it’s a habit. I integrated it. It’s not a different person from me .”) – defines himself today as a business leader. At the head of his own company, he now alternates creation and production of audiovisual concepts, journalistic interviews or even one-man shows. However, it is out of the question to qualify as an influencer, “too connoted because of all the scams”, affirming above all that the majority of his income does not come from product placements.
The creator also added another hat to his list, that of writer. Already the author of three books, Jeremstar has just published his fourth book. Not a biography or a guide to breaking into reality TV this time, but social media survivor (Hugo Image editions) is an intimate testimony of his relationship to platforms and cyberbullying as he experienced it.
In this 200-page book, Jeremstar goes behind the scenes of his legal troubles, but also his new relationship with social networks. If they helped him to make him known and spread his gossip, he is now more cautious. The possibility of leaving instagram or Twitter, however, never touched it. “It’s not up to me to leave social media, it’s up to people who behave badly to be banned,” he says.
“I continue to deliver my life, social networks are like my digital diary. I am caught in a gear where I have accustomed people to follow my life. When I do not publish stories for two days to take time for me, I am being harassed by messages, I have to be accountable”, laughs almost Jeremstar.
A platform to begin its reconstruction
There is, however, one big topic that Jeremstar has decided to stop laughing at: cyberbullying. Since the “Jeremstar Gate”, launched in 2018 and which accused him of being at the head of a network of prostitution of minors, the creator confides not to pass a day without insults or death threats. He seems almost resigned, even used to it. Witness the almost robotic way in which he reveals his judicial journey and his fights, as he has told it in recent months to the media or in court.
To bounce back from this experience, Jeremstar decides to apply his mantra: “turn the negative into a positive”. A few months ago, he launched his own platform, harassment.online, to help young people suffering from cyberbullying. A way for him “to begin his reconstruction” and to offer his audience a place to speak freely, “much less cold than the government sites where young people find it difficult to identify.” An embodied site where the videographer himself responds every day to testimonials and above all a way of supplementing existing associations.
“The associative environment is quite complicated. I did not associate myself with these already existing organizations, because no one ever reached out to me. I even found closed doors and I had the feeling that no one didn’t want to help me,” Jeremstar told Tech&Co.
Only one association, Hugo!, accompanied him during his militant actions, in particular before the Paris court on October 7th. Because Jeremstar does not hide it: he intends to take on the role of spokesperson for the fight against cyberbullying. “As a spokesperson, my court decisions serve since I am the only one to have obtained such strong decisions”, he recalls. “It costs me dearly, but it serves the case law. I hope that more and more people will call on me when they talk about these issues. I master the subject better than anyone.”
“Justice pushes to suicide by its slowness”
Even with lawsuits still ongoing, Jeremstar is not shy about openly criticizing the slowness of justice, one of the other subjects close to his heart. “Justice should be modeled on the popular tribunal of social networks since they condemn immediately. Immediate appearances exist for cocaine trafficking, but when there is real human suffering, there is no one. I understand people who commit suicide. Justice pushes to suicide by its slowness.”
A slowness that is also often accompanied by decisions deemed too little dissuasive or significant. Olivier Porri Santoro, a journalist from Nice, was for example sentenced to four months in prison for leading a smear campaign against Jeremstar, before seeing this sentence canceled after the judgment in the Court of Appeal.
“I’ve never heard of a prison sentence for cyberbullying. It’s still too lax. The courts are still struggling to understand. I spend my life explaining to judges and prosecutors how social networks work, because they don’t understand anything. “, protests Jeremstar.
The former TV columnist on C8 is campaigning first for more sanctions, but also for the creation of a file of digital aggressors so that they are listed as offenders. He also wants them to be prohibited from subscribing to an Internet subscription.
His often criticized past
Part of the reason Jeremstar is so denigrated and targeted is because of his past as a professional gossip-teller. Feeding a blog specializing in reality TV and receiving his guests in his famous bathtub, the videographer has forged an image of a gossip, often at the origin of cyberbullying campaigns against certain program candidates.
A past that he regrets, even if he notes that the use of social networks was not the same. “I was far from doing horrible things, but in hindsight I would have made my debut otherwise. I corrected the situation and made a real my culpain particular by apologizing to the people to whom I could take it out”, confides Jeremstar.
People don’t understand that you can have been someone, but you also have to understand this notion of evolution and see what the person has become. Today I know what it’s like to be on both sides, the victim and the initiator.”
The entrepreneur thus regrets the way in which Internet users often conceal the moment when a former accused passes to the status of victim, affirming that “rehabilitation is impossible.” Jeremstar affirms it: “it is much more salesman to be a culprit even if it is false. As soon as one wins lawsuits, nobody relays.”
However, justice has indeed just once again supported his status as a victim of cyberbullying. The investigating judge in charge of the 2018 investigation into harassment by blogger Aqababe has decided to reopen the investigation, extending the harassment facts until 2022.
“This laxity of justice pushed my cyberaggressor to continue since a few weeks ago, he was still talking about me in unflattering terms and laughing at his first conviction (12,000 euros in damages and 2 000 euros fine for defamation and public insults, Ed). Harassment is when it goes on for a long time. There, it’s been 4 years,” laments Jeremstar, who confirms that other complaints have been filed by other influencers against the blogger.
A politicized future?
In addition to having a grudge against justice, Jeremstar is also after the government. He met well Cedric O or Laetitia Avia, he for a time Secretary of State in charge of digital, she at the origin of the law against hateful content on the Internet. But that goes back several years. And that is no longer enough for Jeremstar, who rebels against “certain politicians who comment [ses] stories because there are sexy guys, but who do not answer when [il] request appointments to provide feedback on [sa] confrontation with justice”. He also regrets that the government did not receive the companion of Mavachou, a young influencer close to Jeremstar, who committed suicide in December 2021 after a wave of cyberbullying against him.
“It is still a message that I leave and that I pass: Mr. Macron, receive the victims of cyberbullying. I have lots of mothers who have had their daughters hanged in their room because the complaints have not been taken into account, mothers who cry, because the police and justice do not help them”, insists Jeremstar.
The creator wants a discussion with a member of the government, ideally the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupont-Moretti. A few years ago, Brigitte Macron had replied to him by mail, without however granting him a physical meeting. “All the time, I see influencers invited to the Elysée Palace to make humorous videos or lives. It’s all very well to have fun, but I have real messages to convey”, comments, a little disillusioned , Jeremstar.
What if instead of waiting for answers from politicians, Jeremstar launched into the arena? The hypothesis may make you smile, but does not scare the former blogger who wants more “young people in government who have suffered harassment and understand this new digital world, to act faster.”
Because while waiting for the end of his trials – within one to two years according to his hopes, Jeremstar is projecting himself into the future. Always on the social networks of course, but with this even stronger desire to help the victims. And a detour through politics does not seem inconceivable.
Far be it from him to run for president as Jean-Marie Bigard (“Must not push”, he quips), but he does not rule out giving politics the benefit of his expertise and his digital experiences. “If one day I am offered to be a deputy or to have a role to play in the government or in the National Assembly on the issue of cyberbullying, why not?”
