A man who was once a social pariah wanted for destroying the lives of other people – as well as his own – has turned his life around.
Tristan Barker was once dubbed Australia and New Zealand’s most infamous online troll.
Now living in Auckland, he is wanted by the greats of Silicon Valley to save the planet and the lives of people who depend on it.
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The 27-year-old's previous controversial behaviour didn’t come from nowhere, as he exclusively told Daily Star: “I spent my entire adolescence already riddled with extreme ADHD and PTSD from surviving abuse as bad as murder attempts by the age of 12.
"There was a lot of inescapable violence both around me and [being done] to me during my school years.
“During this time I experienced Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) caused by extreme childhood abuse that occurred when I was growing up.”
On top of all that, Tristan knew he was likely to lose control during those years when manic episodes took over.
He continued: “When these episodes came, I found myself doing everything from starving myself for fear of being poisoned, to designing inventions which later caught the attention of world-class business people and developers.
“[Other times I’d be] waiting outside at night for aliens I thought were coming to beam me up or modelling climate science solutions which have since gained me the respect of ground-breaking scientists like Peter Andrews from The Australian Landscape Science institute.
“The manic tendencies have fortunately become milder with each year since age 19, so I've been dialling it back since when I thought being a fugitive was a fun time.”
By the age of 18, Tristan had shot to fame through his Facebook page ‘Facebeef’, which claimed its purpose was to satirise public figures and expose those in positions of power.
He described his online presence as “somewhere between being a cyberpunk vigilante and a comedian”.
Tristan was frustrating Melbourne Police and thrilling a growing following of teens.
His online activity led to months of media coverage – including a story that led to a dismissal of a journalist and hoodwinking reporters into fake interviews.
Riling people up wasn’t Tristan’s only skill though, as before his emotional struggles took over, he was in with a chance of becoming a professional basketball player.
He was 6’3” and dunking before his 13th birthday, bench pressing 198 pounds at 14 and squatting 220 pounds on one leg at 16.
He put his physical gifts to good use on the basketball court, using hoops as a distraction from his troubled upbringing in Melbourne and Rotorua, New Zealand.
But his rebellious personality let him down time and time again. He lived on a diet of Ritalin, Red Bull and self-prescribed medications and couldn’t quieten the struggles in his head.
When he won entry to the prestigious American sports academy, IMG, his coaches believed he would go on to play college basketball at the Division 1 level.
Sadly he didn’t, as he was hospitalised with a painkiller overdose and was expelled.
Tristan was lucky enough to receive a second chance, as he was accepted into the rival Impact Academy. But it wasn’t long before he destroyed that opportunity, breaking a teammate’s eye socket during a locker room skirmish.
His mental issues were compounded by physical injuries and the self-medication he was using to deal with them.
“I was diagnosed in 2017 with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, the worst pain condition known to man,” Tristan explained.
“It's rated above a 40 on the McGill pain scale, which is worse than amputation without an anaesthetic.
“This started developing at 10 years of age from extreme and frequent beatings I received in youth, with the affected area covering half my face all the way through my shoulders, to my fingertips and lower back on the left side of my body.”
Initially, the doctors thought he had nerve cancer as his entire left arm was suffering from various forms of paralysis.
During the worst of it, his entire hand didn’t function for two weeks. It was diagnosed as incurable.
Tristan recalled: “At first, I couldn't sleep for more than three hours, and took a lot of drugs to sleep. My digestive system couldn’t cope with the pain and stress and what I was doing to overcome them.
“My health degraded steadily and I ranged from psychotic and dangerous to viciously depressed and anxious to the point of being hard to be around.
"I lost nearly everybody in my life in this phase and I disliked myself so much that I didn't blame them, I was incredibly negative, angry and hard to be around.
“To survive this, I had to learn to understand the nervous system, the digestive system, and their relationships with the muscular system, finding things that most doctors aren't aware of.
“I regained the use of the left side of my body and function now without any opioids. I haven't had them for over a year.”
He continued: “I gave myself a second chance at life and have found a planet to save and finally a group of people around me who understand me and my pain and seek to make the most of my gifts.”
Tristan's online crusades eventually led to him being ‘cancelled’, so Tristan made the decision to reinvent himself completely.
In just two years, the 27-year-old has risen from a local digital marketing specialist to managing big tech start-ups from the Harvard-Silicon Valley world.
“When I first entered entertainment, I was a pretty tortured 16-year-old and saw the internet as a way to hopefully hack the game of media and influence to create worldwide riots and destroy power structures I saw as holding back humanity, which was why I mastered 'trolling' and 'viral media',” he said.
“But when I was 'cancelled' at 18 years old, I had no other options than to monetise my knowledge of social media.
“Between 18 to 26, I was employed only in start-ups, entertainment, cash in hand manual labour or resorting to crime for food and shelter.
“A lot of this work sucked but there were some awesome moments of meaning when I helped build up independent careers for a handful of comedians and musicians.”
Most of Tristan’s work was short-lived as his past kept catching up with him.
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This changed dramatically when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, Mihai Dinulescu, flew to New Zealand during the pandemic.
According to Tristan, they found they had they both shared a passion for sustainable innovation and big ideas in common.
And apparently, Mihai hired him.
Tristan has thrived in this fast-paced environment, commenting: “My key motive in regards to the environment and our survival is to take the responsibility nobody wants to, and respect the power that comes with that.
“We have an absolute lack of gratitude for our planet and everything it gives us, and I hope to set a new standard of respect for competitive commerce which doesn't sell the future of humanity to achieve short-term gains and call that success.”
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