I think honestly we ought to be careful with throwing words around. While what he's done is shitty, throwing "pedophilia" and "grooming" around literally did nothing to help.
yeah, what he did was shitty enough, I feel like going right for hot-button words and then yelling at people who were trying to figure out what was going on didn't actually help
i honestly hate how fast the internet is to throw around terms like Pedo, Grooming, Narcissist, etc. do people need to know what these things are? definitely. but throwing them around carelessly does more damage than good. not just to the person being accused, but also to people's understanding of those words
I was never super into gamegrumps (I watched the ten minute power hour stuff in my downtime), but that warning post that immediately went up and got replurked a bunch rubbed me the wrong way, so I'm happy I deepdove into the situation and reached my own conclusions.
I'm pretty confident there was absolutely no pedophilia and/or grooming involved in this situation at all, and I think it's just... not a good idea to throw it around without considering the ramifications of if those allegations are wrong. Not just for the person being pointed at, but for the authenticity of genuinely illegal behaviors by creators
as someone who decided to stop watching them because of this (because I feel like Dan's actual behavior is over a line for me), I feel like the inital callout post I saw here on plurk was by someone who already didn't like the Game Grumps and wanted to paint them in the worst possible light immediately
Also, please, it is important to stand with the victim, but always be particularly cautious of third-person accounts of a victim's situation. The actual fan involved (I'm not sure if this is confirmed the fan 100% or not) has stated there was nothing illegal happening and that they don't believe it was grooming at all. It's unfortunate, but their story
was used by a very particular group of people who had extreme bias against the person it was about, and she was unfortunately used by them to further a message they wanted painted a very particular way.
i was going to say, as far as i understand r/rantgrumps (where the initial reddit post was made) is a subreddit full of grump haters so like. that's likely the least reliable source for stuff like this.
yeah, and when I went to block the person who spread it around Twitter, because I have no patience for this shit, their Twitter bio said "proshippers don't interact", which if you know anything about that particular aspect of fandom makes their initial takes suspect as well
this is a fucking mess, and I hate that people decided to use a terrible crime as some kind of gotcha, which is now going to overshadow any actual abuse that happened here
At the very least, it’s a source that needs looking into fully before being used as credible. I’ll never completely discredit an anti or biased group, but I would also be very aware to wait and process everything knowing there is a potential for disingenuous content.
I think regardless of what anyone thinks (or at least I hope), none of us want someone on a news website for pedophilia and grooming when they have absolutely not done that. Things spread too far and fast on the internet for careless reporting, from journalists or from well-meaning folks who hit the alarm button too fast and hard.
It is, but hilariously less than everyone thought, considering that right-wingers tried to use it as a safe haven after the 2020 election and got laughed right the fuck off the site by everyone including the right-wing members
thanks for sharing this. I feel awful for the victims that had their story hijacked by people who misused extreme accusations, because now it means so many people are going to dismiss their original and valid problem.
I tell you, it's a hell of a day today, I have one group experiencing the people more insane than the average netizen, and in another thread on here, I have someone who went to a seminar fulla normies without having really experienced a seminar fulla normies
even better, the "opposite" group in fandom, called antis or more recently fanpol or fandomentalists, have a long history of calling things pedophilia that are not pedophilia, even in a fictional sense
/gently flashes back to being told that shipping Wolf and Virginia from 10th Kingdom - and more specifically saying "hey can you not sling your shit in here" - was enabling problematic media
I mean, at least that sort of resembled an actual possible problematic relationship dynamic, there were people claiming the Winston and Hammond ship in Overwatch was pedophilia
fun little fact, some people are trying to get the term "frollo" to become a thing for antis, because often times antis actually like some problematic stuff, too, whether secretly or they think they themselves are special and are okay to like that sort of thing. this is especially prominent in fujoshi discourse where antis will criticize BL and BL consumers
.........am I the only one not remotely surprised that there was a situation where at the very least Danny had a sexual relationship with someone willing at the time and then other things caught his attention at all
I mean I haven't watched Game Grumps anything in a few years but I'm pretty sure I remember his whole thing being that he was the "wholesome and innocent" one except that a large proportion of his anecdotes were about hookups
not as a "and therefore no one should be critical thing" but that... was a thing that always left me pretty ambivalent about Danny, so I'm a little puzzled at the way this whole thing spiraled
I don't pretend that listening to dudes play videogame on the internets actually tells me anything about them as people, but the only things that surprised me were the things that now appear to be false.
I had that "wait what did you expect?" reaction to at least the part about Dan having a history of hooking up with girls, yeah... he was never subtle about that being his approach to relationships in general until he ended up in a committed relationship more recently
but I guess some people thought because he was always the chill one with the sweet, caring vibes, it just wasn't possible that he could have hurt anyone, even unintentionally.
it's important to remember that, and this is true regardless of if they have scandals or not, the face of any content creator we see is only part of their whole personality that they've curated to show.
so when content creators make videos, they usually put forward the personality aspects of them that is best suited for the content they make. Kinda like how when you work in customer service- you lean on different faucets of your personality than you would around your friends
my point is, when I see things like "I've seen videos and based on that I never thought they'd do/be [x]" - that's purely because we only see one side of their personality. Even if you watched every single video in a long time youtuber's career- that's not the same as knowing them as a person.
and again, that's not me saying "every youtuber is a shady liar". That's just how the job works. A more positive example of this is that Eugene Lee Yang of the Try Guys has been in a serious relationship with his boyfriend for 7 years, and he only came out of the closet publically in 2019.
I mean, I absolutely think part of the reason his relationship with April turned out so dire is because he was dating a fan. (Hey, ties into the plurk topic.) It's possible for that to become a healthy dynamic, but man is it not probable
And that sort of ties into it. There's a line between your personal life and your professional life. Inviting people across the line either direction needs to be done very carefully if at all
Whether it's inviting a fan into your personal life for intimacy or putting your entire personal life into your career with no boundaries, it is not good
on the whole I find any celebrity who uses their fans for sexual stuff to be on the skeevy side because of power dynamics and what not even if I also recognize it's legal
but I also understand people have differing opinions on it and that's fine. I stand by my original take that this is a complicated situation, and people need to decide for themselves how they feel
i mean power dynamics can come in all sorts of ranges and sizes. I'm not saying it's on level of a CEO and an intern, it's not. but yeah imbalance is probably the better word for it
yeah, especially when dating a public figure, because even if the relationship is consensual and wouldn't be unbalanced otherwise, you're inevitably going to be involved with the public figure aspect as well, even if only a little, and not everyone is comfortable with that or skilled at setting those boundaries
like, iirc, Ray/brownman's wife, Tina was at least a mild fan of his before they met, but Ray's pretty good at managing his community boundaries, at least from what I've seen in streams, and Tina decided to put her business management skills to use and runs their merch store, so it's worked out for them
Oh, yeah. Tina also kinda slotted into his work as a very complementary partner, which makes it less of a "celebrity/fan" relationship and equalizes the dynamic a lot.
(Incidentally, a big difference with Dan. He seems to have been in the latter boat. I don't know if he was even cognizant how that would hurt the person on the fan end.)
I was really hesitant to weigh in on this but like...something else to keep in mind when it comes to accusations like this? In addition to the incredibly important please do research before jumping to a conclusion one way or the other and the also incredibly important victims need to be encouraged and believed so that this stuff can be brought to light?
Like...just be extra vigilant when these kinds of accusations are being levelled at minorities/members of minority groups. Because there's usually a history of extremely not okay stereotypes and accusations being levelled at that group that can rear its head really fast.
I'm not saying that's what happened here. But it's just...another facet of the "please check sources/do research" before spreading this stuff like wildfire that I hadn't seen brought up regarding incidences like this.
yeah, I've seen pedophilia accusations tossed at trans women by people trying to ruin their lives, let's not use the same tactics as terfs and the conservative right
I mean intellectual I presume he does, but I always got the vibe that he had a very "we all had fun what's the problem???" attitude... but of course curated state personality so who knows really, but
also, after having spent a week on r/rantgrumps and twitter and such, can I say how refreshing and even-headed this thread has been. Thank you all so much.
yeah i gotta agree. this thread has been really refreshing to read. there's definitely been some behavior that isn't cool. not illegal, but still shitty. and it's nice to hear level heads about all this.
That Black Cat
:
Exacerangutan
: and yeah you two have great points about slut-shaming casual sex vs groupieism. I think the difference is very much in the communication that's had between them, and since we don't have a transcript - we can only guess what went down.
For a lot of people it's easier to think binary. You're good or evil. No in-between. Unfortunately, if we went by that logic, we're probably all evil due to stuff we have inadvertently done at some point in our lives.
I remember Etika in a stream told his viewers something like "Don't trust Youtubers! Don't trust me! For all you know I'm a really bad person" or something like that when talking about that stuff
yeah people got markiplier trending when all the r/rantgrumps post went viral bc they were saying that at least he's not problematic. like dude. that's just...no. everyone has issues and flaws, and using one person's/group's issues to boost another person is all kinds of wrong
i know next to nothing abt pewdiepie aside from he's a big youtuber, so idk what that controversy was. but also the public needs to remember they don't know everything about a person and what they do see if a very curated image. esp when it comes to celebs. so shitting on someone over supporting another person is kinda whack when there's no way to know
I have been lurking on rantgrumps on and off the last few months (since I have been disappointed in the direction GG is going), and... yeah the Dan allegations aren't even new, apparently they had been known for quite some time but I'm not sure why this one in particular caught fire :|
grifstar i think only bexause of that video message, which, as was outlined in that timeline thread, was also possibly also in group chats, so even that isn't really all that lurid, esp. considering his sense of humor
I feel like Pewdiepie is on some kind of different level than Dan, because idiot racisim is still racism, but my general reaction to people working with him is mild annoyance, usually
my vague recollection is that pdp's thing was basically "joke" racism to be edgy and then refusing to accept that "lawlz it's just a joek" doesn't make it ok
mmm yeah. i feel like a bunch of ppl would have pointed out how that's not ok to pdp though and...refusing to listen to that many ppl definitely speaks of arrogance, but also actual racism. idk i've never watched his stuff so take my opinion with a grain of salt
honestly, I take more issue with his fans than pdp himself, his fandom has a white supremacy problem, and he has tried to address that a couple of times with mixed results
oof. i wanna believe he's just that dumb, but i will say that making racist remarks and then not apologizing or stopping when it's pointed out will definitely draw racist fans. they'll take his refusal to admit it's wrong as permission to be racist themselves. which would make for a toxic fanbase for sure
not unlike certain politicians who need not be named, I don't think he's more than casually/lazily racist on his own, but he also doesn't seem seriously bothered by the adoration of racists as long as they drive up his viewership numbers/income
and arin i know used to say racist things, then learned he shouldn't and stopped. he's shown that he wants to do the right thing and will make steps to improve. i think this is why i'm not so quick to dismiss the grumps (that and ngl starbomb and nsp helped me through one of the hardest times of my life)
srsly nsp's cover albums have meant so much to me. I would be devastated if I had to throw them out. not to mention I picked up danny sexbang for memes and boy did I pick a great time to try to do stuff with him again
arin at his very least is kind of like, the flipside of pdp, in a way?
pdp is an idiot who recognizes his idiocy is getting him views and cash and is like "oh okay then everything's great" without thinking more critically than that
egoraptor is an idiot who finds out that he's been doing a dumb and is like "oh fuck, oh shit, i'll try to fix that"
that's the thing though. arin cares. and i'd like to think dan does, too. i don't think i've seen him address any of this stuff, but it would be kind of nice to. i have faith that he's just an endearing idiot like arin is and is willing to correct problematic behavior, but still
re: the pfp thing. tbh I feel like it's not quite right to say both mark and jack were wrong with how they supported him because at the very least, imo, jack was much better at it than mark. he defended odo but still said that what he did was wrong, whereas mark was very "pfp did nothing wrong" in his video, which was also extremely condescending and
hard to watch. like jacksepticeye still had some air of humility in his video, saying "pdp shouldn't have done that, it was stupid, but the media overdone it" and mark was just....ugh
ah i see. i don't think i watched mark's video on the whole pdp thing. only really started getting into his stuff with unus annus, and after that it's very...idk situational? i pick and choose what stuff of his i watch
mark in general comes off as very "nobody is allowed to be mad here this is a happy place" which... is incredibly double-edged when someone is casually/passively harmful like pdp's words and actions are
yeah. otoh i understand wanting to have a happy place. we all need that. but you also have to be able to address issues and not just sweep them under the rug
I think as a general rule, pdp has matured since his marriage. I only watch his videos whenever youtube see fit to throw them in my recommended, and he doesn't look that bad any more.
i even remembered a video in which he spoke of lgbt right and said something like "I used to think it wasn't important to speak of it but I've realized I was wrong and the pride is really a very important event" and i was like, wow? did he grow up?
oh yeah I remember those videos from Mark and Jack. Mark's was ... not great. like a classic example of why youtubers try to stay out of controversies that involve their friends
exactly the sort of shit Daniel Avidan has looked up to his entire fucking life
pdp is an idiot who recognizes his idiocy is getting him views and cash and is like "oh okay then everything's great" without thinking more critically than that
egoraptor is an idiot who finds out that he's been doing a dumb and is like "oh fuck, oh shit, i'll try to fix that"