There are stories that require explaining some extremely unpleasant corners of the internet. This is one of them. A disturbing sexual-assault phenomenon commonly described online as "sharking," "tagging" or "cum-sharking" has surfaced in San Diego County, with as many as five possible incidents reported at local Dollar Tree stores since early 2025.
And behind the alleged attacks is an even stranger internet culture broadly associated with "gooning" - obsessive, pornography-fueled masturbation that is generally practiced privately, but has spawned fringe communities where some participants reportedly celebrate increasingly extreme public behavior.
To be clear, simply being a "gooner" does not mean someone commits sexual offenses. The Guardian's investigation found most people associated with the subculture appear to engage in the behavior privately. But researchers and attorneys investigating attacks around the country say a particularly disturbing offshoot has emerged in which perpetrators masturbate publicly, secretly ejaculate on unsuspecting women and, in some instances, film the assaults for an online audience.
The phenomenon is almost impossible to describe without sounding like satire. Unfortunately, police reports, criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits make clear that the alleged assaults themselves are very real. And some of the most disturbing accusations come from San Diego.
According to reporting Sunday by The San Diego Union-Tribune, three women told San Diego police that they were separately targeted while shopping at the same Dollar Tree on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard during two weekends in March 2025. Each described an eerily similar encounter. According to an arrest-warrant affidavit cited by the newspaper, each woman said a man moved extremely close behind her while she was shopping. Each subsequently discovered a suspicious substance on her clothing - and one woman reportedly found it in her hair. The three alleged incidents happened within roughly a week.
Police later showed photo lineups to the women and a store manager. Two women and the manager identified the same suspect, while the third selected photographs of the suspect and another similar-looking man, according to the affidavit.
Laboratory testing did not produce conclusive evidence in every case. Police reportedly found no DNA or confirmation of semen on clothing belonging to the first woman. In another case, however, stains were described as "presumptively positive for semen," although investigators were unable to compare the defendant's DNA with the clothing.
A 22-year-old locally based U.S. Marine was subsequently charged with misdemeanor sexual battery and lewd conduct in connection with the three Clairemont incidents. He has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Isaac Blumberg, told the Union-Tribune that his client maintains his innocence and stressed that the accusations have not yet been tested in court. The Marine Corps reportedly did not provide the newspaper with information regarding the defendant's current duty status.
The allegations might sound like an incomprehensibly bizarre series of isolated offenses. They apparently aren't. The San Diego County Sheriff's Office told the Union-Tribune that two additional incidents resembling the phenomenon were reported at Dollar Tree stores in Lemon Grove and Spring Valley during 2026. No suspects have been identified in those cases. That potentially brings the San Diego County total to five reported incidents. And San Diego is hardly alone.
A lengthy investigation published last month by The Guardian traced similar reports around the country and examined the deeply disturbing online culture surrounding them. Attorneys investigating the phenomenon collected police and media reports involving more than a dozen incidents at Dollar Tree or its former sister chain Family Dollar dating to 2017, including cases in which women were shopping with young children. Their research later identified 63 officially documented sex crimes, with the frequency increasing significantly after 2020. Sixteen reportedly involved masturbation or ejaculation.
Dollar Tree appears repeatedly in accounts of the phenomenon. The attorneys representing victims contend that isn't necessarily coincidental. They have argued that understaffing, security deficiencies and cluttered stores can create environments where offenders believe they can approach women without being noticed. Dollar Tree disputes allegations that it bears responsibility.
"The safety and security of our associates and customers are our highest priorities," the company told the Union-Tribune, adding that inappropriate, unlawful and harassing behavior is unacceptable and that the company cooperates with law enforcement.
Dollar Tree says its security efforts include employee safety education, policy reviews, risk assessments, physical-security investments and cooperation with police. In court, the company has denied allegations that it was negligent, reckless or otherwise legally responsible for the incidents.
But one of the women allegedly targeted in Clairemont is now suing Dollar Tree in San Diego Superior Court. Her attorneys contend the incident was not merely an unpredictable act committed by a random individual. Instead, the lawsuit places it within a nationwide pattern of assaults occurring inside the chain's stores and argues Dollar Tree failed to provide adequate security. The lawsuit reportedly alleges at least 11 women around the country, including the three Clairemont women, have reported similar incidents inside Dollar Tree stores.
Even more troubling is what allegedly happened between the San Diego incidents. According to The Guardian, attorneys investigating the Clairemont case say they uncovered eyewitness and photographic evidence indicating the same alleged perpetrator had targeted another woman at the store one day earlier and then allegedly returned six days later and targeted a third. The attorneys accuse Dollar Tree of failing to adequately intervene between incidents. Dollar Tree did not respond to The Guardian's questions regarding that specific allegation.
The San Diego lawsuit also alleges a security camera covering the relevant aisle was not functioning when one of the women sought surveillance footage. Attorneys characterize Dollar Tree stores as attractive targets for sexual predators because of alleged chronic understaffing and inadequate security. Dollar Tree denies wrongdoing.
But somehow the story gets even stranger. Researchers say videos purporting to show these assaults circulate within online pornography communities, where perpetrators can receive attention and encouragement from other users.
One person calling himself "Goon-God," for example, allegedly advertised access to more than 200 "sharking" videos for $25, including a promotional clip that appeared to depict an unsuspecting woman being targeted while pushing a shopping cart through a Dollar Tree. In Florida, another man caught masturbating inside a Dollar Tree allegedly told police he regularly engaged in the behavior at different locations and uploaded videos to an OnlyFans account.
Researchers studying the phenomenon describe something resembling the "gamification" of sexual abuse - perpetrators receiving status, attention or validation from an online community for increasingly brazen behavior. Sociologist Michael Halpin told The Guardian the behavior isn't simply about sexual gratification. Recording and distributing it provides perpetrators with an audience, comments and approval from other men - potentially encouraging others to imitate them.
The internet has subsequently transformed "Dollar Tree gooner" into a grotesque meme. A cryptocurrency token appeared. Someone created an unofficial Pokémon card. An underground Tennessee noise band released a SoundCloud track. That memeification is precisely what makes the phenomenon particularly disturbing: alleged sexual assaults against real women have been converted into an online joke and cultural reference point.
One of the most notorious cases happened in Philadelphia in 2024. Video captured a woman chasing a man from a Dollar Tree after realizing he had allegedly ejaculated on her leg. Rapper Meek Mill subsequently offered $2,000 to help locate the perpetrator. A 35-year-old man eventually surrendered and pleaded guilty to indecent exposure, open lewdness and indecent assault without consent.
The terminology can obscure what is actually happening. "Gooning" may sound ridiculous. "Sharking" may sound like some idiotic TikTok challenge. Secretly ejaculating on a stranger is not a prank. It is nonconsensual sexual assault. And for victims, the consequences don't disappear when the internet moves on to its next meme.
San Diego attorney Alreen Haeggquist, who represents one of the Clairemont women, told the Union-Tribune her client is now afraid to shop alone. That echoes the experience of a Texas woman identified in court records as "MR," whose alleged assault at a Houston Dollar Tree helped expose the broader pattern. She described being followed through the store before later discovering that a stranger had ejaculated on the back of her leggings. More than two years later, she told The Guardian that the experience had fundamentally changed her life, affecting her confidence, relationships and willingness to go out after dark.
The unsettling question now facing San Diego investigators is whether the five possible local cases are simply individual crimes that happen to resemble a disturbing internet phenomenon - or evidence that the phenomenon itself has reached San Diego County. There is currently no public evidence establishing that the Clairemont defendant participated in an online "gooning" community, recorded the alleged incidents or posted videos online. Likewise, authorities have not publicly linked the unidentified suspects in Lemon Grove and Spring Valley to one another or to the Clairemont case. But the similarities were sufficient for attorneys in the San Diego civil case to place their client's alleged assault within what they describe as a much larger nationwide pattern.
What once might have been dismissed as an isolated act of public indecency and sexual assault has apparently evolved, at least within one grotesque corner of the internet, into something with its own vocabulary, videos, audience, memes, cryptocurrency and social incentives. And now San Diego women are among those alleging they became its victims.
Originally published August 9, 2026. Information about San Diego incidents first reported by Teri Figueroa of San Diego Union-Tribune.
