Jack Despain Zhou is an American blogger and internet troll best known for engaging in organized hoaxes and creating online “drama” for fun. Using the handles “Jackal,” “Trace Underwood,” and “TracingWoodgrains” among others, Despain Zhou was active on reddit’s now-banned r/Drama subreddit and its offsite successor, the troll forum rdrama.net.
Despain Zhou has helped create and spread fake news that includes abortion-related hoaxes as well as several anti-trans hoaxes that continue to be spread as true.
Despite having transgender relatives, Despain Zhou is particularly known for collaboration with anti-trans trolls, including Jesse Singal, Louise Perry, Richard Hanania, Iona Italia, and Katie Herzog. From 2021 to 2024, Singal and Herzog employed Despain Zhou as a researcher for their anti-trans “drama” podcast Blocked and Reported. Singal and Herzog would make money producing episodes about hoaxes and misinformation developed and disseminated by Despain Zhou, and they would use their employee’s research and connections at other troll sites to attack and defame trans people and others they wanted to “cancel.”
Background
Jack Neilson Despain was born in July 1995 to Neil and Meghan “Meg” Despain and grew up Latter-Day Saint (LDS, or Mormon) in Utah. Despain did not enjoy school, apparently due to profound social deficits that were not adequately addressed with an IEP. Despain’s 12-year-old sibling wrote, “He has a hard time at school, often. He doesn’t always get along with teachers. I wish I could help him.” Despain moved from school to school, including Utah Online Academy, an option for home-schooling and for students who could not be among other students for various reasons. Despain wrote, “I was a deeply unhappy teenager.”
Despain attended Brigham Young University, but dropped out due to the same developmental problems. After a two-year LDS missionary trip in Australia, Despain no longer believed LDS spiritual beliefs were true. Adrift and aimless, Despain impulsively joined the Air Force in 2016 after getting a promotional pamphlet. Despain earned an associate’s degree from the Air Force’s Defense Language Institute in 2018 and was stationed in Nebraska working as a Chinese Airborne Cryptologic Language Analyst.
In 2019 Despain failed to “speed run” a bachelor’s degree from a low-tier online correspondence school, abandoning the project for several years.
After discharge from the Air Force in 2022, Jack Despain married Daniel J. “Dan” Zhou in August 2022. Despain took Zhou’s surname and since marriage has gone by Jack Despain Zhou.
Despain Zhou finally completed the online college “speed run” four years later, earning a bachelor’s degree at Western Governor’s University in 2023. Despain Zhou entered law school at Temple University later that year, with a goal of completion in 2026.
“Rationalism”
Despain Zhou is part of the so-called “rationalist” community, a subculture that attracts disproportionate numbers of low-empathy online trolls with islands of ability. Most are convinced of their own intellectual superiority and have mild to utter contempt for those with differing views. Anti-trans troll Elon Musk is the most prominent example of this “rationalist” type. Most of them failed miserably in the socialization aspect of education but often have one or more cognitive capabilities that are above average.
Despain Zhou’s unhappy time among classmates led to believing that the education system “keeps smart kids behind” and needs to be overhauled entirely to accommodate eccentrics like Despain Zhou. But mainstreaming troubled children like Despain Zhou becomes an enormous classroom resource sink that hinders the educational experience for everyone else. Worse yet, isolating children like Despain Zhou or segregating them with like-minded peers creates the conditions for a lifetime of unhealthy behavior like trolling and creating hoaxes. Despain Zhou’s educators’ greatest failure was not keeping a smart kid behind. It was failing to divert a low-empathy outcast away from anti-social corners of the internet, away from online peers who also became “addicted to being disliked,” as fellow troll “Katherine Dee” astutely observed in writings about Adam Lanza.
Although careful not to say as much, Despain Zhou holds views on education and intelligence that have a significant eugenic underpinning. Despain Zhou believes “intelligence” is largely hereditary, quantifiable, and variable within and between demographic groups. I spent many years doing adversarial collaboration with people like Despain Zhou on Wikipedia’s coverage of race and intelligence, and like many “rationalists,” Despain Zhou’s writing on education is peppered with the codewords and jargon of eugenic race and sex science.
Blocked and Reported
In late 2021 while still in the Air Force, Despain Zhou was hired as a researcher on anti-trans podcast Blocked and Reported, credited as “Trace Woodgrains.” Despain Zhou had been feeding hosts Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog scoops from rDrama.net, which they then helped launder into mainstream media. In an “ironic” homophobic and antisemitic meme used to announce the hire, Herzog wrote:
“Trace will have several jobs, including reading your emails. Here’s how that’s going to work, compliments of an anonymous poster:
The 3 Steps to Success in Modern Blocked and Reported
1. You find some drama and take it to the fag… [Despain Zhou]
2. If the fag likes it, he takes it to the Jew… [Singal]
3. If the Jew likes it, he takes it to the dyke… [Herzog]
And if the dyke likes it… BINGO! It’s Substack time.
In the announcement, Despain Zhou offered this autobiography:
“I am a gay, furry, left-handed, ex-Mormon gamer, providing near-maximum diversity while still being a cis white male and therefore cancellable if I get out of hand. I have a pretty small online presence, mostly within Reddit’s rationalist-adjacent communities, where I spend most of my time whingeing about things like education, misleading research, and the ever-increasing tension and divisiveness in U.S. politics. If someone has heard of me outside the context of Blocked and Reported, it’s likely from my adversarial collaboration on education guest-posted on Slate Star Codex, the subreddit /r/theschism that I co-founded as a home for respectful political discussion, or my account of my journey out of Mormonism. I’ve also posted a grandiose and lengthy self-introduction elsewhere for the morbidly curious.”
Despain Zhou has been deeply involved in toxic online communities since adolescence. Since 2017, Despain Zhou has used the handle TracingWoodgrains on reddit. As of 2025, Despain Zhou moderated several subreddits, including:
- r/mormon
- r/TheMotte (later moved offsite to themotte.org)
- r/theschism
- r/localism
rDrama.net
The now-banned subreddit r/Drama was “sort of like the bastard cousin of r/subredditdrama,” according to DramaMod, a major contributor to the latter. DramaMod continues, “A critic might describe r/drama as an irony-poisoned fountain of hate speech where edgelords roleplayed that they were on /pol/.” In trolling culture, /pol/ is a political discussion imageboard on 4chan known as one of the most toxic online communities of all time.
Despain Zhou describes rDrama.net thus:
The site is one of the last bastions, for better and worse, of the âfor the lulzâ internet ethos earlier embodied in âthe hacker known as Anonymousâ and 4chan: nothing is sacred, everything deserves a bit of ribbing, everyone on a high horse should be taken down a peg. […] In short, they only really care about drama. Causing it, finding it, laughing at it, tricking people with it. They prize all âlolcowsâ (oblivious users committed to arguing with them in earnest) who come to interact with them, and anyone who gives as good as they get finds a spot there.
The people who are “on a high horse” according to rDrama.net are frequently women and minorities.
“Abortion bounty hunter” hoax
Blocked and Reported hosts Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog hired Despain Zhou following several episodes that featured Despain Zhou’s online trolling. In September 2021, they did an episode on an “abortion bounty hunter” hoax after being briefed on it by Despain Zhou: “After our show went up, our tipster pointed out that he had already done a post about this — we would have credited him had we known at the time!”
In the post in question, Despain Zhou wrote of the hoax:
“At the heart of it was not a passionate group of anti-abortion Texans looking to make a quick buck hunting people down in service of a new law. No, it was a tiny group of troublemakers from the website rdrama.net, a group formerly at redditâs /r/Drama who are in love with, well, drama. They hoped only to get a rise out of people for a quick laugh.”
Seeing the benefit of having employees creating hoaxes they could then cover, Singal and Herzog hired Despain Zhou soon after. Singal and Herzog remain unconcerned about the journalistic ethics of reporting on their own employee’s hoaxes, trolling, and misinformation campaigns.
Despain Zhou personifies the “it’s a prank, bro!” ethos of antisocial trolls. They are delighted by the attention and often surprised when the inevitable consequences of their actions land at their feet. What’s rare about Despain Zhou is the complete lack of self-awareness required to bloviate about “importance of truth and beauty” while spewing lies and ugliness into the world for the lulz.
Hoax affecting Austin public schools
Despain Zhou identifies as part of the furry fandom, using the golden jackal as a “fursona.” Despain Zhou drew the ire of many in the furry fandom after creating an elaborate transphobic hoax about accommodating children who identify as animals in public elementary schools. As part of anti-trans online discourse, a rumor circulated in 2022 among influential transphobes like Joe Rogan that litter boxes and/or “pee pads” were being placed in classrooms for children who identified as animals to use.
Despain Zhou and friends then forged a set of grade-school worksheets on furries and made up a backstory that they sent to another anti-trans troll, Chaya Raichik from Libs of TikTok, who posted, “A second grade teacher in @AustinISD allegedly gave students worksheets on furries. These included a furry wordsearch and an activity on designing your own furry persona.” Raichik’s followers have sent credible threats to schools and hospitals for gender-affirming practices.
Despain Zhou’s trolling led to real-world problems for the Austin, Texas Independent School District. Matt Binder wrote, “As a result, @AustinISD received thousands of inflammatory tweets, alleging that they were teaching “sexual fetishes” to children, “grooming” young kids, and accusing the school district of child abuse.” Austin ISD Media Relations Manager Cristina Nguyen confirmed that Despain Zhou’s trolling “interrupted the daily functions of the district as they were ‘inundated’ with messages” following Raichik’s post. Despain Zhou wasted school resources and taxpayer money “for the lulz.”
Research found that many people who target K-12 schools experienced bullying and failure there, and they come to identify “school” as the source of all their problems. Schools are soft targets that generate enormous attention, which is why Raichik and other trolls single out gender-supportive teachers and institutions.
Soatok, “a member of the furry community who also strongly opposes misinformation on the Internet,” revealed the hoax was “started as a prank by a user named Tracing Woodgrains, a contributor to the anti-trans podcast Blocked and Reported, hosted by Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog. […] This entire thing is not only unbelievable, but fabricated for the sake of trollsâ amusement.”
Reaction to the hoax among the Blocked and Reported fanbase was mixed. The sizeable anti-trans, conservative, and drama-loving factions all seemed to love it, but some subscribers felt Singal and Herzog shouldn’t be promoting misinformation and trolling created by their friends or employees. The podcast’s reddit forum held a poll on whether Despain Zhou should be let go.
People like Raichik and fans don’t care if something is true or not, as long as it fits their anti-progressive and transphobic narrative. The fake worksheets created by Despain Zhou and friends continue to circulate online among low-information transphobes.
Other anti-trans hoaxes
Despain Zhou also brags about rDrama.net being the source of rumors that trans parents were medically transitioning their children in secret, without the children’s knowledge or consent. Despain Zhou wrote:
“This isnât the only rDrama venture thatâs gotten out of hand. Theyâre also the, ah, masterminds behind such subreddits as /r/transparenttranskid and /r/transpets, devoted to pretending to be trans people âhelpingâ their kids and their pets transition, often against their will. For each subreddit, they lay out the whole plan on their site, where âthe whole planâ is often âhey this sounds funny, anyone wanna join in?â. Here, too, screenshots and condemnations spread across social media, this time drawing fury from right-wing and gender-critical spaces. Twitterâs @OrwellNGoode drew some ten thousand likes for posting a screenshot of a user claiming they were crushing estriadol pills and putting it in the cereal of their 14-year-old to force transition. The .win sites and /pol/ took their turns biting at the bait, as did redditâs /r/Cringetopia.”
Regardless of original intent, this kind of misinformation about persecuted minorities takes on a life of its own, finding its way into political discourse and public policy.
Criticism of David Gerard
David Gerard is an Australian author and a noted figure in internet culture and online activism. Despain Zhou has been critical of Gerard because Gerard has been critical of many people and things Despain Zhou holds dear:
- LessWrong forum and its principal figures
- Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten forums and their principal figures
- “Effective altruism” and its principal figures, whom Despain Zhou considers “uncommonly virtuous.”
Despain Zhou was especially upset about how Gerard edited crowdsourced resources like Wikipedia and RationalWiki to include these criticisms. Despain Zhou wrote a long 2024 profile outlining various criticisms of Wikipedia in general and Gerard in particular.
Using real name
In 2024, Despain Zhou began posting without hiding behind online handles, apparently embarrassed at being the only person scheduled to speak at the 2024 Manifold prediction markets event who did not use their real name.
Despain Zhou has been involved in efforts to shape regulatory policy around prediction markets. Despain Zhou co-authored a comment for Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute that argues prediction markets are beneficial because traditional political polling is becoming more difficult. Prediction markets allow people to wager on the outcome of any kind of event, usually using cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Supporters believe the financial incentive will produce more accurate predictions. When cryptocurrency hedge fund FTX collapsed in 2022, federal regulators began looking closely at related interests like prediction markets. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was the most prominent “effective altruist” and backer of prediction markets before being sentenced to prison for the largest crypto scam in history. Many of Despain Zhou’s heroes were closely linked to Bankman-Fried, who proved that “effective altruism” fails when guided by low-empathy, socially-stunted “rationalists.”
References
“DramaMod” (June 29, 2024). The controversial subreddit r/drama has been banned “for being unmoderated”, after many many years of conflict with the admins. Discuss this dramatic happening here. reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1drgsvx/the_controversial_subreddit_rdrama_has_been/
blahblahblahblah8 (September 13, 2022). Finally, an accurate and fair-minded assessment of the pod and its sociopathic researcher. reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/xdo0vc/finally_an_accurate_and_fairminded_assessment_of/ [archive] [repost]
smoothasiankitty (May 1, 2022). After the LoTT hoax incident, should Trace be let go? reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/ug6n73/after_the_lott_hoax_incident_should_trace_be_let/
workmanswhistle (April 30, 2022). BAR getting some heat for LOTT hoax. reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/ufi6hi/bar_getting_some_heat_for_lott_hoax/ [archive]
“Soatok” (April 6, 2022). The Dark Truth About the âFurry Protocol.â Dhole Moments https://soatok.blog/2022/04/06/the-dark-truth-about-the-furry-protocol/
Herzog, Katie (December 8, 2021). Meet Our New Assistant, an Actual Furry. Blocked and Reported https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/meet-our-new-assistant-an-actual
“DramaMod” (August 5, 2020). r/Drama has gotten reprimanded by the admins… again. They may be done for good. Discuss this dramatic happening here, and see updates as the story develops. reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/i4f48j/rdrama_has_gotten_reprimanded_by_the_admins_again/
Evans, Erica (March 2, 2020). I voted for Pete Buttigieg. I voted for Amy Klobuchar. Can we get our votes back? Deseret News https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/3/2/21161640/pete-buttigieg-amy-klobuchar-primary-utah-election-early-vote-count-drop-out-end-campaign-waste/
Fain, Paul (September 21, 2017). Federal Audit Challenges Faculty Role at WGU. Inside Higher Ed https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/22/education-depts-inspector-general-calls-western-governors-repay-713-million-federal
“AssuredlyAThrowAway” (July 15, 2017). Popcorn abounds as mods of /r/Drama are rejected by the admins after asking to have their active top moderator removed following a coup. Subreddit made private, feel feels increasing, updates to follow. https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/6nfcb5/popcorn_abounds_as_mods_of_rdrama_are_rejected_by/
Staff report (April 3, 2007). 2 students are top winners in MathMatters competition. Deseret News https://www.deseret.com/2007/4/3/20010689/2-students-are-top-winners-in-mathmatters-competition/
Selected writings by Despain Zhou
Bednarz, M. Frank; Schulman, Adam E.; Despain Zhou, Jack (August 7, 2024). Comments submitted by Maxim Lott, Astral Codex Ten, Ted Frank, and the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute in Response to âProposed Rule: 17 CFR Part 40 Event Contractsâ RIN 3038-AF14, 89 Fed. Reg. 48968 (June 10, 2024). https://hlli.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024.08.07-prediction-markets-comment-filed.pdf
Despain Zhou, Jack (July 10, 2024). Reliable Sources: How Wikipedia Admin David Gerard Launders His Grudges Into the Public Record. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wikipedia-admin
“Tracing Woodgrains” (May 16, 2024). Blocked, Reported, and a Fond Farewell. Blocked and Reported https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/blocked-reported-and-a-fond-farewell
“Tracing Woodgrains” (August 23, 2022). A Gay Wedding Full of Mormons. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/a-gay-wedding-full-of-mormons
“Trace Woodgrains” (April 29, 2022). How I Convinced Libs of TikTok to Publish a False Story. https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/how-i-convinced-libs-of-tiktok-to
“Trace Underwood” (February 6, 2022) /r/antiwork: A Tragedy of Sanewashing and Social Gentrification. Medium https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/r-antiwork-a-tragedy-of-sanewashing-and-social-gentrification-56298af1c1a7
“Trace Underwood” (September 10, 2021). How One Tight-Knit Circle of Internet Troublemakers Convinced Professional Journalists They Were âAbortion Bounty Hunters.â https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/how-one-tight-knit-circle-of-internet-troublemakers-convinced-professional-journalists-they-were-ac05459aa4c5
“Trace Underwood” (May 13, 2021). A Word of Self-Introduction. https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/a-word-of-introduction-e350f73fbe5b
“TracingWoodgrains” and Michael Pershan (September 4, 2018). [Adversarial Collaboration Contest Entry] Does The Education System Adequately Serve Advanced Students? Slate Star Codex https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/09/04/acc-entry-does-the-education-system-adequately-serve-advanced-students/
“Tracing Woodgrains” (April 22, 2019). Speedrunning College: My plan to get a Bachelorâs degree within a year. Medium https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/speedrunning-college-my-plan-to-get-a-bachelors-degree-within-a-year-abe741c4c8bb
Media
Best, Chris (June 16, 2024). Tracing Woodgrains at Substack HQ. Chris Best https://cb.substack.com/p/tracing-woodgrains-at-substack-hq
Iona Italia (October 25, 2024). Wikipedia is Biased: A Conversation with Jack Despain Zhou (aka Tracing Woodgrains). Quillette https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWF3XXanddQ
Louise Perry (October 9, 2024). 109: Understanding Mormonism – Tracing Woodgrains. Maiden Mother Matriarch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT50C8KPAwg
Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal (May 25, 2024). Premium: Tracing Keffals. [guest Tracing Woodgrains] Blocked and Reported https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-tracing-keffals
Zach Groshell (February 6, 2024). S2E23: Tracing Woodgrains on Student Loan Forgiveness, Tracking, and Internet Garbage. Progressively Incorrect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkC2nl6-jZI
Resources
X/Twitter (x.com)
Substack (substack.com)
- tracingwoodgrains
- Tracing Woodgrains (tracingwoodgrains.com)
Bluesky (bsky.app)
Instagram (instagram.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Temple University (temple.edu)
- Jack Despain Zhou
- law.temple.edu/lppp/amo-team/jack-despain-zhou
reddit (reddit.com)
Medium (medium.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Manifold (manifold.markets)
- Tracing Woodgrains
- manifold.markets/tracewoodgrains
The Motte (themotte.org)
Facebook (facebook.com)
rDrama (rdrama.net)
- Jackal “they/them: dramafur maximizer”
- https://rdrama.net/@Jackal [visit with caution]