Utrecht professor becomes hero after confronting homophobe vlogger

His Utrecht students immediately recognised him. The passenger in the tram that stood up, both literally and metaphorically, to vlogger Valentino in a video of the latter making hateful comments to a young man wearing nail polish, was none other than their teacher Bart Lutters. 

In the video, which Valentino posted online himself, the provocative vlogger calls his victim a kankerhomo (an extremely nasty Dutch insult). He’s obviously looking for a confrontation. That’s when Lutters, assistant professor of Medical History at UMC Utrecht, jumps in. He tells the vlogger to behave. “Otherwise you’re getting off the tram.” 

From that moment on, Valentino focuses his attention on Lutters, but the latter remains calm and asks the vlogger again to be nice to the young man.

Half asleep
The actions of the Utrecht professor were quick to draw the attention of the Dutch news media. Lutters told RTL Nieuws on Monday that he was “half asleep” in the tram in The Hague when he suddenly “heard the most awful words”. “They were about this guy’s white nail polish and I saw a vlogger pointing his camera at they guy’s toenails. That’s when I spoke up.” 

According to Lutters, the most intense moments from the incident aren’t in the video. “He completely lost it, screaming in my face at the top of his lungs.” 

After the incident, Lutters received countless compliments, first from fellow travellers and later also on social media. There are, for example, hundreds of comments underneath the viral video, saying things like “If only there were more people like Bart”, “Bart is a hero” and “I wish I were that brave”. In RTL’s news programme, Lutters said he thought the attention was flattering, but sometimes also confronting: “Your face pops up everywhere, without having asked for it”. 

As a result, Lutters isn’t willing to say much more about it to DUB a few days later, referring us to sources such as Eva Jinek’s talk show, in which he made an appearance on Wednesday. “I decided to say what I have to say just once. I don’t have anything to add for now,” he says in an email.

In Jinek’s talk show, Lutters remarked that he received a lot of praise, but that he also felt suspicious about some of the response. VVD politician Dilan Yeşilgöz, for instance, called him “an example” in a post on X with the hashtag #bethatguy. “Everyone’s using it to promote their political views. It’s no longer about me, it’s no longer about the victim, everyone’s thinking about how they can use it to their advantage.”

Arrested
He also struggles with the strong opinions about the creator of the video that have appeared online, said Lutters. “I read things like ‘he should be put down’, or even worse. But people don’t know anything about him, don’t know what state he’s in. That’s really no good either.” 

Vlogger Valentino was arrested at the end of last week. Not for the vlog, but for incitement with a terrorist intent: he indicated on Telegram that he wanted to launch “a genocide attack on a very busy mosque”. 

Although the man that was accosted in the video wishes to remain anonymous, he did indicate that he would like to thank Bart for what he did.