Trolling in his grave

Published January 14, 2022 4:00am ET



When people ask me why I voted for John McAfee in the 2020 election, I simply respond that I wanted a return to normalcy. Am I trolling, or joking? That’s up to the listener because that’s the way McAfee would have wanted it. He never let everyone in on the act completely.

McAfee, the globe-trotting, flamboyantly rogueish antivirus software mogul who spent the last chapter of his life making delightfully offensive video messages while apparently on the run in an archipelago of villas and Bond villain lairs, died of a reported suicide in June 2021 while incarcerated in a Barcelona prison. The internet and social media went full “Epstein didn’t kill himself” over McAfee’s sudden demise. He would have loved the troll value of his own death. McAfee has been the subject of several documentaries, news segments on web outlets such as Vice, and even the biographical topic of a fictionalized film. That project had everyone from Johnny Depp to Michael Keaton attached to play the former software virus mogul and would no doubt blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, much like McAfee himself did.

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