“My Hope Is That You Don’t Make It”: ZeroDarkTony Voices Death Wishes and Armed Property Warning

At 8:54 a.m. on Saturday, October 10, a regular in Zero Dark Tony’s live chat offered a small piece of folk theology: they didn’t wish bad things on anyone, because karma did a fine job on its own.

Anthony Robert D’Amato Jr. read the message aloud and agreed, generally. “But there’s exceptions to the rule for me,” he said. Within a minute he had divided everyone who had crossed him into those whom “something’s happened to” and those still waiting, and announced that he did not hope a critic he claimed was terminally ill would get better.

D’Amato, a Los Angeles streamer on probation in a misdemeanor case, calls his broadcasts “a show” and himself “a bit of a character.” That Saturday, the character compared his critics to rapists, wished a fatal accident on the people who make videos about him, and warned a woman weighing a police report that others were waiting for her name to appear on one.

He did not do it alone. Read against the live chat, the broadcast is a call and response. His regulars supplied the premises: karma, a hunting barn, a horror movie. D’Amato decided where to aim them.

The morning’s first grievance was a nuisance. Accounts he took to be critics kept sending him friend requests on PlayStation. He rejected them on air, then built the rejections into a theory: anyone who keeps pushing after you’ve said no “is the same as a grapist,” his platform-safe spelling. Within minutes the comparison had spread to two rival streamers, MLH and Rib Guy, and then to everyone who makes videos about him.

Exhibit A: “I Can Only Pray That That Happens to You”

D’Amato compares MLH and Rib Guy to rapists, then wishes a fatal accident on the anonymous critics who make videos about him.

Timestamps: 00:30:50 – 00:37:11 | Watch with a free account

The wish has a shape that recurs all morning. First the hope, then the celebration (“I would get a cake”), then a disclaimer that arrives in the middle of the wish rather than after it: “There’s no threat there.” Finally, the handoff to the universe, which is left to finish the job. Seconds after he stopped, a regular posted: “Karma is real.”

A few minutes later he came back to Rib Guy, who, a regular had already suggested, “just needs another drink.” D’Amato went further. Citing only “the reports that I got,” he claimed Rib Guy was terminally ill and could not stop drinking, and placed him on what he called a very small list of people who deserve a terminal illness. HNZ has not verified any claim about Rib Guy’s health.

Exhibit B: “A Very Small List”

D’Amato says Rib Guy deserves a terminal illness, notices his chat has gone quiet, then carves out his exception to karma.

Timestamps: 00:45:01 – 00:49:42 | Watch with a free account

It was the one moment that morning when his audience declined to follow. In the minute after the line, the chat talked about MLH’s hair. D’Amato noticed, said so (“Nobody wants to touch that one”), and changed the subject. Then the karma message arrived, and he found his way back.

D’Amato wants more from his critics than their misfortune. He wants their names.

By October 1 he was raising money on Cash App and Venmo for what he called “the Scooby-Doo mask moment,” his shorthand for a lawsuit that would unmask the anonymous people who cover him. He priced it at $5,500 to start and $10,000 for the full retainer, promised to post the receipt, and on October 3 gave himself 30 days. The last total he announced, on October 1, was almost a thousand dollars. On October 8 he said the lawyers’ names would come out “when we retain an attorney.”

Exhibit C: “About 60 Days Left on My Original 90-Day Call”

D’Amato warns anonymous critics about his “original 90-day call,” then claims someone sent pornography to his mother.

Timestamps: 01:05:33 – 01:09:43 | Watch with a free account

By Saturday the 30 days had become 90, with about 60 left. None of his streams from the previous 10 days mentions a 90-day call. By his own count, it now expires around December 9.

The courts would make him earn it. Under Krinsky v. Doe 6, a 2008 California appellate decision, a judge will not order an anonymous critic unmasked until the plaintiff shows the speech is actionable. Commentary built from a streamer’s own broadcasts is difficult ground for that showing.

The clip ends with a claim of his own. Someone, he said, had sent pornography to his mother and was texting “the wife.” He offered no evidence and did not say whose wife he meant. He did say who it wasn’t: David B, an associate of the critic known as DOA, whose account D’Amato threatened to subpoena in August.

The longest stretch of the broadcast concerned a woman he would call only “the reporter,” referring to Pinche Becky, a member of MLH’s panel. By D’Amato’s account, she had called him a pedophile on her show and said she might file a harassment report against him. A viewer asked who he meant. He answered with a denial.

Exhibit D: “I Never Did Any of That Shit”

D’Amato denies doxxing “the reporter” or her husband, and says other people did.

Timestamps: 01:14:56 – 01:16:51 | Watch with a free account

The denial carried its own allegations. Others, he claimed, had gone to her home and targeted her husband. Later he claimed her husband has a criminal record and blamed an associate he calls Chee for exposing it. HNZ has not verified any of these claims. Within the same minute, he called her a “fat ass ugly bitch.”

Then he turned to the report she might file.

Exhibit E: “Other People Who Are Going to Utilize That Information”

D’Amato warns that if the reporter’s name appears on a police report, “other people” will use it, then threatens to sue her.

Timestamps: 01:17:48 – 01:21:41 | Watch with a free account

It is the cake again: a disclaimer, then the warning in the next breath. He had made the same point the night before, and said whose people he meant: “Anybody who is an enemy of Scott [DOA], once that stuff goes on public record, honey, they’re going to come after you.”

California law anticipates this situation. Penal Code section 136.1(b) makes it a crime to try to dissuade a crime victim or witness from reporting to police, and Civil Code section 47(b) shields reports to police from lawsuits unless they are knowingly or recklessly false. Whether anything he said meets either standard turns on facts outside the stream. The stream itself shows a man telling a woman who is considering a police report what will happen to her if she files one, and what he will do about it.

His chat helped draw her. A regular’s description of the reporter as an “attention seeking drama causer” became his line a minute later. Another regular’s suggestion, earlier that morning, that he sell “Karma strong” T-shirts resurfaced a few minutes after the lawsuit threat as a promise of merchandise, apparently bearing the word he had just called her: bruja, Spanish for witch.

The barn came out of small talk. A regular D’Amato calls Coco mentioned that her husband was feeling better and had gone to the “Buck barn” for hunting season. The meat freezers, she added, were getting low.

Exhibit F: “You Won’t Even Know What Hit You”

D’Amato warns anyone who might confront Coco’s family that she lives in a stand-your-ground state, and invites viewers to make memes of “what we’d like to see in the barn,” privately.

Timestamps: 01:41:06 – 01:44:17 | Watch with a free account

D’Amato took the premise from there. Anyone who tried to “press them there,” he said, “won’t even know what hit you.” Coco appears to have answered the meme suggestion: “Sure can great idea.” Then he caught himself, or performed catching himself. “I don’t want to say, like, go ahead and try it,” he said. “I kind of just did.”

Stand-your-ground laws remove the duty to retreat before using force in self-defense. They still require a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious injury. A target who “won’t even see it” is not someone being defended against.

The room added its own touches. One viewer suggested a conveyor belt from a Saw movie, and D’Amato adopted it as “a dark joke.” Another, planning a hike with a child, typed: “I should be careful where I go.”

Twenty minutes later, D’Amato raised the obvious question himself. “How am I making a threat by saying I hope this happens to you?” His answer was that the wishes were aimed at “an AI cartoon thing,” not a person. In September he spent hours across two broadcasts trying to put a real name behind one of them. He knows a person is there.

The law has an answer too. In Counterman v. Colorado (2023), the Supreme Court held that prosecuting a true threat requires proof the speaker was at least reckless: aware that his words could be taken as threats of violence, and saying them anyway. A speaker who stops mid-wish to announce there’s no threat, who hears his chat go quiet and changes the subject, who says he doesn’t want to say “go ahead and try it” and then admits he just did, has not missed how he sounds. None of that makes any statement a crime. It does make “I didn’t know” a hard position to hold.

On October 7, four days after setting his own 30-day clock, D’Amato mocked a critic for missing a 30-day weight-loss promise and wished he had kept count: “We’d run a number every day of how many days it’s been.” His own deadline has since tripled. HNZ is keeping count.

Sources

• Original YouTube Video
• Full SRT Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Text Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Chat Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Date: 2026-10-10
• Stream ID: YOUTUBE · cV6YK2ignPw