Daric Rawr is a 16-year-old would-be writer who entered into a brief spell of notoriety when he and an alleged woman named "Cheryl Williams" posted on the death of a young man named Terrel Williams, a native of Beverly Hills, California who was allegedly being bullied by five high school classmates, who threw Williams into a brick wall at his high school in Lakewood, Washington and, as a result, hanged himself in his bedroom closet.

This event occurred during a season of suicides by young LGBT people all over the United States, accompanied by various campaigns such as Dan Savage’s "It Gets Better" and the Facebook + GLAAD-sponsored "Spirit Day."

However, in a twist of events, the alleged son of "Cheryl" and boyfriend of Daric came under scrutiny not long after the story hit sites such as PerezHilton.com, LGBTQ Nation, and Queerty, as reader and blogger efforts to locate the name "Terrel Williams" through Clover Park High School’s administration turned up empty-handed, and no coroner’s office in either Pierce County, Washington or Los Angeles County, California reported the name, either. Furthermore, only one profile on Facebook barely matched the name, but it didn’t have a photo or any profile information.

There was a Twitter page named "@MemoryofTerrel" and Rawr had a Twitter page which listed himself as "Ex Radio Host, Deactivated Disc Jockey, Mile High Radio Head, LGBT/YoungAdult/Romance Author. Available In Stores Now", but both pages have disappeared long before this post was written and well after both pages had been moved to a number of different usernames.

The icing on the cake was the fact that the photo of "Terrel" was actually that of "Donny Lumpkins" of YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia, neither of whom have any relation in any way to the events which took place; this photo (later pixilated by Queerty staff) was initially posted onto Change.org’s story and the MemoryOfTerrel Twitter page, the latter of which was purportedly owned by Cheryl Williams, Terrel’s mother. This same photo was retweeted repeatedly by Cheryl before she removed it and took partial responsibility for the misappropriation of the photo of Lumpkins. 

Meanwhile, Daric’s Twitter page, before it was deleted, used the same graphic background as that of the Terrel memorial page, that of an African-American baby boy.

Finally, Daric emailed Queerty to purport that the death was not a hoax, that the Williams family was staying in a vacation home in Lakewood not two weeks before the suicide, and that he was preparing to talk to the media as soon as Cheryl gave him permission. Meanwhile, Cheryl posted to Twitlonger that no photo would be released, and that the suicide did not take place in Washington State at all, purposefully keeping the knowledge of the location of the suicide between herself and one other person.

Then both Twitter pages were abruptly deleted, and no mention of an interview with local press members regarding the death exist outside of the Internet.

But before this bizarre sequence occurred, Rawr seems to be an enigma. 

Glancing through the mentionings of his person on various blogs and pages, he seems to be an aspiring singer and writer based in Washington State who has not, to date, published much of anything other than two MP3s on Amazon which are listed as part of a digital album by him titled "I Am" but are, in reality, songs recorded by two respective singer-songwriters who have pages on MySpace: Charly Boy of Laval, Quebec (who sings "Tonight" or "2nite") and Gustav Magnusson of Malmo/Stockholm/Skane, Sweden (who sings "Dance Along With Me"). 

He also has no books published, and stories about his alleged fame seem to be highly exaggerated by a few posters on practically no-name blogs (most of which, until the Terrel Williams incident, are non-LGBT related); posts discussing his comparison to Matthew Lush, his criticism of Miley Cyrus, his supposed inspirational influence to LGBT teens, or other things predominate in the mentionings of his name on such blogs, even though he has not published anything of notoriety to speak of.

Perhaps this one commenter, Gerard McGarry, got the hint when he wrote the following to UnrealityShout.com in September: 

I’ll tell you why I think he’s a phantom, going on each of your links:

His amazing novel is "Temporarily out of stock on Amazon". Overwhelming public demand, I’d say, especially since the product description contains so many grammatical errors I lament for anyone who actually bought the book. Here, just in case someone deletes it: "Lady Sennox brings the science world into a whole new meaning. Follow her as she discovers her new-found love for science, but also is forced to go head to head with one of the hottest science buff’s in the world."
The ‘quality’ Associated Content article is written by a Mark Longsteen, someone who has only contributed two articles to that site – both of them about…Daric Rawr. So, clearly not an impartial or widely recognised journalist.
Hilariously, that third link is an article that one of his ‘fans’ posted on this site. Back around the time when you yourself signed up to this site and started posting articles about him.
I’m mentioning all of this publicly because as an admin on this site, I really feel that you’re trying to leverage this site for publicity for someone I’m not even sure exists. I even did a search on YouTube this evening and can find no videos featuring this multi-talented enigma. Surely such an amazing singer should at least have a few virals on YouTube?

All we have to go on are some pictures of a kid who clearly spends too much time staring into the lens of a cameraphone. And a load of articles written on sites where it would be easy to spread fawning puff pieces.

And whether he exists or not, (and his internet presence or lack thereof suggests he doesn’t) I strongly doubt the claims that he’s a prodigious talent based on the evidence I’ve seen around the web

……

Ah, Daric Rawr: Singer, Actor, Male Model, Author, Celebrity Chef, The Most Talented Guy In The Universe. And yet at the same time a complete phantom. Really Stephanie, I’ve asked you to substantiate your claims about Daric Rawr in the past, and yet let’s be honest – it’s all a big sham and no-one really cares.

It feels like an experiment in trying to tell people that he’s a celebrity in the hope that it’ll somehow become a reality. And as yet, other than the spam you guys are leaving across the net, there’s no evidence that the guy actually exists. Prove it!

And then "Terrel Williams" happens.

So is this the last undue inflation of self-importance that the Internet will archive of Daric Desic Rawr (if that’s his real name) of Washington State? Is Mr. Rawr that far gone, that pathological that he would sell other people’s MP3s in his own album, compel bloggers in some way to write about him as if he’s already a well-known celebrity and lie about a fake (ex-)boyfriend in order to achieve celebrity for himself during a historic and unfortunate period of LGBT rights history?

What is wrong with this guy? What is wrong with Daric Rawr? Why is he hoaxing so many people in the LGBT community? And when will he be compelled by someone in the LGBT community to stop his behavior, at least while he’s still young and impressionable?

EDIT 11/19/10: More is coming in on this character. According to one source (Leesa Nixon aka FagHagMom of Starmount High School prom fame), Daric’s real(?) name is Derrick Goff, and he’s actually 20 years old.

Oh, and he’s rekindled his interest in Twitter recently (under the name JustDaric), even though his tweets are now protected.

And from the looks of things, he hasn’t changed his behavior, nor has his amazing astroturfing abilities dissipated.

Again, what is wrong with him?