Imagine drinking so much that you pass out on your couch, only to wake up in the morning and learn that a woman has accused you of sexually assaulting her while you were unconscious, and that an online mob is after you.
That was the fate of an Oswego, New York man on October 11, after Olivia Henderson, a 23-year-old DoorDash driver in Oswego, delivered a food order to his residence on East Bridge St. The customer had selected the "leave at door" option in the DoorDash app, but upon arrival at around 11:15 p.m., Henderson claimed to have found the front door open, allegedly affording her an unwanted view of the male customer lying on his couch, pretending to be unconscious, with his pants and underwear down around his ankles.
Police would later determine the man was "incapacitated due to alcohol consumption," but Henderson recorded a short video of the scene and decided it was a good idea—without his consent—to post it “as is” on TikTok to support her claim that an unconscious man who’d neither touched nor even seen her, had “sexually assaulted” her. She mentioned the alleged sexual assault, sometimes calling it “SA,” repeatedly in her videos.
In a sense, at first things went well for Henderson, who used hashtags like #MeToo and #protectwomen. TikTok deleted the illegal photo and gave her a warning, but her views went from 4.9 million to 31.3 million for a video in which she expressed her shock that DoorDash fired her for posting an X-rated photo of one of its customers inside his own residence.
For an online attention addict, that number of views feels like a hit of crack, so she kept hitting the pipe with more videos. Her next idea was to add a strategic blur to the video and repost it. TikTok again deleted it and gave her a second “strike.” Sounding and looking hysterical on the platform, Henderson said, “If I get one more strike, I'm banned from TikTok. So not only did I get assaulted, I then lost my job,” which she followed by screaming at the top of her lungs, “This is a man's world. I'm the victim!”
Henderson also complained that the police were doing nothing, but soon enough she'd find out that they were doing something—just not what she wanted.
By some definitions, indecent exposure is classified as sexual assault. But only the clueless don't get that when the alleged exposer is passed out from alcohol consumption, there can be no assault. A reasonable person wouldn’t immediately put that video on the internet and then continue to harp on the issue after two warnings from TikTok and the loss of a job, but how many reasonable people live much of their life on TikTok?
Olivia Henderson, a young and very online person, lost track of the real world at a certain point in her life, which made her think that internet justice was the way to go. This approach has worked so many times in the past, with vicious, misinformed online mobs bringing people down for their “problematic” words, so she probably thought, “Why not give it a try?”
The younger generation has a tendency to immediately turn to the internet and social media to publicize personal events and settle scores, but they haven't been taught how to regulate their use of this powerful tool. Social media isn’t a private chat room with its own rules that are set apart from the law of the land. The desire for the immediate attention blinded an unstable person (watch her TikTok videos). Henderson’s afflicted with a toxic mix of naivete and narcissism, a recipe for big mistakes.
Henderson graduated in 2024 from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City, a school associated with social justice awareness. As a coddled college girl, used to hearing about her “safety” being protected, her reaction was over the top. There's no way that what Henderson saw was as traumatizing as she made it out to be. There are even indications that she made it happen.
After a month-long investigation, which included reviewing video footage, Ring camera evidence, and statements from the DoorDash customer, police concluded that no sexual assault occurred. While Henderson claimed in her videos that the customer pretended to be asleep while exposing himself, the police found no evidence to support that. Also, Ring footage reportedly indicates that Henderson opened the closed door herself, contrary to her claim that the door was already open. Why she’d do such a thing is unknown at this point. Police arrested her on November 12 on two counts: second-degree unlawful surveillance, a Class E felony that carries a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison, and first-degree dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image, a Class E felony that carries the same sentence.
All the attention on this criminal case will be focused on someone who tried to use her alleged victimhood as currency. “I'm being punished as a victim by all sectors involved right now,” Henderson said in a histrionic TikTok post. “The police, DoorDash, and TikTok are all punishing me as a victim.” Her self-involvement prevents her from understanding that this happened because she broke their laws and rules. What this narcissist doesn't get is that the real victim is the person she victimized—the man on the couch who Henderson referred to as “Austin.”
That couch video racked up over 20 million views before getting pulled down. Henderson posted enough information about him that eager internet sleuths were able to identify the man. Then came the usual doxxing attempts, threats, and loss of his DoorDash account, all before any investigation had taken place. Freaks sent messages calling him a "piece of garbage," and a "rapist.” There were online threats to "find him" and "make him pay.”
He's paying. Studies have shown that people who've been victimized like this man have experienced permanent changes to their personality, such as becoming paranoid, anxious, hypervigilant, antagonistic, and less confident. Families of such people described their family member as being a different person. Loss of dignity and self-esteem also happens, and it's particularly difficult for these victims to regain their previous sense of self if they receive no formal apology or public statement of innocence.
If the state goes ahead with the prosecution of Olivia Henderson and offers her a plea deal, it must be contingent on her giving a formal apology to her victim. The government’s obliged to protect its citizens as well as punish them. Other pre-conditions must be for her to undergo psychological evaluation and treatment—as she's not of sound mind—and a denial of all social media privileges. The victim will surely sue Henderson for a huge sum that she won't be able to earn, especially with her tarnished reputation and possible felony conviction, so she'll be adequately punished with garnished wages, probably for the rest of her life.
Maybe this will help get the message out to online types out of touch with reality that sitting alone in a room and typing on social media doesn't make them immune from the law, or even common decency.