Mike Lombardo
Alex Day
Ed Blann
Tom McLean
Josh Macedo
Kelly Montoya
Danny Hooper
Alex Carpenter
Adam Roach
Luke Conard
Corey Vidal
Travis Neumeyer
Alex Odam
Gregory Jackson
Stephen Purcell
Bryon Beaubien
Harry Gilliat
Ricky Richards
Sam Pepper
Jason Viohni Sampson
Neil Johnson
Destery Smith
King Russell
Know any of these names? I know it's a lot, but are any of them familiar? These are all youtubers, some of them very prominent. And all of them have been accused of sexual assault, some by multiple people. And many of these allegations have turned out to be true.
These assaults have been going on for years, but for some reason, the stories are just coming out this year. I've seen videos created about early as March and as late as a week ago. But no matter when the stories came out, even if it was old news, this is something we should never forget and never stop talking about because a good number of these criminals are still walking free! Some not even under investigation and they are still uploading videos on their youtube channels with fans and supporters. It's disgusting.
I know the story about Mike Lombardo happened in 2012. I watched a video made by a girl he was being sexually inappropriate to when she was a minor and the FBI found tons of child pornography on his computer and he is now serving five years in prison. So yay for that, but what about these other guys? This isn't over, people. These guys have been doing this for years to fans, fans-to-friends, and close friends and some of them are still doing it. They must be stopped.
Video about Mike Lombardo
All these stories came to light basically because of Sam Pepper and the "prank" video he made. Don't know what I'm talking about? I don't really want to take the time to explain because I have a lot say so watch this:
Anyway, I don't for one second believe this was "social experiment" as Sam claims. You don't sexually assault people to bring awareness to sexual assault. That's just not how it's done. As you heard if you watched the video (and if you didn't then you may not know) after he came out (after his video was taken down by youtube and people were calling him out on sexual assault) and said it was a "social experiment" many, many, many girls, some very young (13, 14, 15) came forward and said that they had been sexually abused, harassed and assaulted by him on various occasions.
I don't know if you watched any of the testimonials from girls about Sam Pepper that lacigreen linked to in her video, but you really should. Here are a couple of them:
This last video I am leaving as a link because it is much more explicit than these other three, but it is so, so, so, so, so important that these stories are heard and spread around until Sam Pepper and these other abusers are behind bars and even after that because this issue needs to be taken more seriously. Sam Pepper is abusing, and in some cases violently raping underage girls, fans of his. This has to stop. He is a criminal and being a youtube star/celebrity does not excuse him from being a rapist.
So, when all these allegations started coming out about Sam Pepper, other girls came forward with sexual assault allegations against all these other youtubers as well. Tons and tons of stories were coming in, some turned out to be false, but many did not.
Here is a masterpost that was created many of the allegations and responses and was continually updated as more information was discovered:
Take some time to look through that if you want and see what you think.
To me, this was overwhelming as I was learning all this information within a couple of days. Some of these youtubers I subscribed to and really liked and I was shocked to discover all this. I know some of them made responses to these allegations. The ones I have read/watched so far are Alex Day and Luke Conard. They can be found in the masterpost but if you don't feel like searching through it, here you go:
Luke Conard
Alex Day
So, as is quite obvious, Alex has had a bit more to say than Luke and I have yet to go through all the other posts. I started with these because they are the two I was most familiar with. If you've read those responses/defenses I suggest you next take a look at this post. It was written by a probation officer who works "almost exclusively" with domestic violence cases and her insight is invaluable in this area. There is one part of her post I want to draw your attention to, and it is where she describes how perpetrators of domestic violence typically defend themselves:
When confronted with the full details of their actions - which
sometimes include my summarizing it back to them, or even, if warranted,
reading it to them from the police report, most of my offenders have
reacted with disgust and repulsion - not at themselves, but at the
suggestion that they would be capable of doing any what I had described.
This is because of a mis perception of their own actions. They tend to
honestly believe that what they are doing was warranted, fair, and not
wrong. I don’t doubt that every person who walks into my office
sincerely believes or believed at one point that what they were doing is
okay. THE BELIEF DOES NOT MAKE IT SO
Most offenders know better than to directly blame the victim in my
office. But these are some examples of some of the things that I’ve
heard:
- "People make mistakes."
- "There are two sides to every story."
- "Not every relationship works."
- "I know how terrible [being dumped/abused/heartbroken] feels"
- "[Name of victim] is important to me."
- "[Their conviction, the fact that they were charged] is confusing" (because they’ve done nothing to warrant it)
- "I wish they had said something to me" about the abuse, how the abuse made them feel, etcetera.
They will also dwell on small details (the miscommunications prior to
the event, for example, rather than the assault itself), rationalize
behaviour by claiming that they didn’t understand it was abuse, and
apologizing for ‘misunderstanding’ rather than for ‘doing.’
If you hadn't noticed, pretty much every single one of the things she mentioned can be found between both Luke's and Alex's "apologies". Almost word for word. And if you watched Alex Day's 30-minute video about "his side of the story" there is an excellent video response that I think everyone should see.
The bottom line about these responses is that they are avoiding the real issue, avoiding accepting responsibility and trying to manipulate us, the public, to believe their ignorant innocence. And let's be honest, some of them sound very genuine. But these guys weren't able to manipulate people into sex because they are bad at manipulation.
But if you watch the video above (and I highly suggest you do) it really helps to show how insincere Alex's video is and how is he's definitely not saying he didn't manipulate or coerce people into doing sexual things. I mean, even without this response to Alex, we can see in these peoples' own words that these things happened and their only mistake was they "didn't understand it was wrong" or that the person "didn't want to."
And that really aggravates me. Alex Day and Luke Conard are not the only perpetrators coming out with responses but they are all very similar in nature. Let's talk about that.
None of these men were under 21 when they initially targeted these girls, many of whom were under 16 when the relationships began. And that right there, even if nothing else happened, is enough to get you arrested. You are adults dating children and you don't have to be a genius to know it's wrong and disgusting. But let's pretend for a minute that all these relationships are perfectly consensual and the girls aren't manipulated or pressured into anything. Even in this scenario, if the girl is a minor, she cannot legally give you consent. Which means if she consents and you engage in sexual acts then you are committing statutory rape and you should go to jail. But that's just a hypothetical situation to illustrate that even if these experiences had been consensual, most of you would still be guilty.
It sickens me to hear these men say they didn't realize they were being manipulative or that the girls felt pressured. That's a load of crap. I hope you read the post Alex Day wrote about consent because there are some specific things he wrote in there that I would like to address.
*Warning: As I am taking these passages directly from Alex's post, there will be some language
Until yesterday, I thought that I had had only appropriate,
though occasionally manipulative relationships with women. However, the
model of consent that I followed, not that I specifically thought about
it at the time - was that only “no” meant “no.” That is not what consent
is.
The result of that belief that ‘only no means no’, is that I spent a
long part of my life doing shitty things to good people and barely ever
realising or acknowledging that I was doing the shitty things.
I don't really want to spend the time to pick every little thing apart, but I really feel it's important that everyone see what Alex is saying here. Honestly, the very first sentence makes no sens to me: "I had had only appropriate,
though occasionally manipulative relationships with women". This sentence is contradicting itself. "only appropriate though occasionally manipulative"? It can't be appropriate and manipulative. Manipulative cancels appropriate out. If you had only appropriate relationships, they would never have been manipulative so I don't understand what he means by that.
The next part I want to address is where, in the above paragraph, he states "However, the
model of consent that I followed was that only “no” meant “no.” That is not what consent
is." So basically Alex figured that if a girl clearly didn't want to have sex with him but didn't say the word no, then she was consenting. I'm not buying it. He was an adult at the time of these assaults, he knew they didn't want it and he did it anyway. And now he's admitting that his warped and disgusting view of consent wasn't consent as if saying it was all a misunderstanding makes it okay. That is unacceptable. If you don't know what consent is, you should not be having sex. Period.
"The result of that belief that ‘only no means no’, is that I spent a
long part of my life doing shitty things to good people and barely ever
realising or acknowledging that I was doing the shitty things." Right here, he's basically admitting that he sexually assaulted lots of women. Because he says right here that the result of him ignoring the laws of consent is that I spent a
long part of my life doing shitty things to good people and barely ever
realising or acknowledging that I was doing the shitty things. If you hurt people as a result of ignoring what sexual consent is, then that means you are pressuring people into sexual situations that they don't want to be a part of.
So, really, the first paragraph of his post is an admission of guilt and enough to get him arrested. That's really all we need to see but he goes on, digging his own grave.
In my sexual experiences with people, nobody ever outright told me
“NO, STOP” or pushed me away, or I’d immediately have stopped doing
whatever we were doing
So, to Alex, simply not wanting to do it isn't enough. They need to outright say, "NO, STOP" or push him away for him to take their discomfort/resistance seriously. And notices he phrases it like "I would have immediately stopped doing whatever WE were doing." If the girl is saying "NO, STOP" or pushing you away, what in the world makes you believe that this is something you two are doing together and not something you are forcing upon her?
Either way, Alex, if you are old enough for sex, you are absolutely old enough to know that the absence of a no is not consent. A woman is not an object you can just do anything you want to unless she says no. She must give you permission before anything is done.
Again, practically admitting he committed sexual assault. This paragraph makes me seriously angry. He is telling us that he violated these women and trying to make it sound like he just make a little mistake but now knows better for next time. "I would try to initiate
something, because I thought the other person wanted it". There are several things wrong with that sentence. You never, never, never initiate sex because you think the other person wants it. You make sure the other person wants it by asking them. And, most importantly, you RESPECT THEIR ANSWER! And it's just common sense that we can't judge what other people want, especially if we don't take the time to find it out.
"I trusted my own read of the situation (“they agreed to stay over/they said they wanted it earlier/etc”) rather than paying attention to what the other person was doing and saying in that moment." Agreeing to stay over is not consenting to have sex. Saying earlier that they want it is not consenting to have sex, or saying go ahead whenever you're ready. The part he ignored was the only part that mattered! If the other person does not agree in that moment, then they are not consenting. And if you ignore what they are saying in that moment, it is sexual assault. And by Alex's own words, that's what he did.
"That’s where I massively fucked up." Uh, yeah, to put it lightly. But, in actuality, that's where you committed sexual assault. That's where you violated young women. That's where you did something illegal. That's where you committed a crime that should put you in jail. That's where you pressured young women into sexual situations they were uncomfortable with and emotionally damaged them and some of them are still dealing with it. You can't make it less important or less of a sexual assault by saying, "whoops, my bad."
I know it seems like I'm mostly targeting Alex Day here, but he is the only one who wrote a post on consent to try and defend himself. His view of consent was basically if he could convince himself that the girl wanted it, despite what she said or how she behaved, then that was consent. That is disgusting and just what I would expect someone who commits sexual assault to say.
And just to make something clear here, when talking about consent, because apparently it's confusing to understand that it's only consent if the person agrees in the moment, it doesn't make it consent just because they don't say no. You don't automatically have the right to touch someone sexually unless they tell you not to. You automatically do not have consent. Consent is something you are given by the other person, it's not something you have unless otherwise stated.
For people who don't understand, if someone says they don't want to have sex, they don't want to have sex. End of story. There's no secret desire, they're not saying no because they want you to keep asking them until you wear them down. No is no and that's that. Even if you think the other person wants it but they just don't know it, you leave them alone. Consent isn't wanting it, it's agreeing to it. Even if someone does secretly want it, if they tell you no, you don't have consent. And if you try to convince someone they want it, that's sexual harassment. If you have to convince someone tp have sex with you, that's not consent. And if they agree only after you've been harassing them, that doesn't mean you unlocked their secret desire, it means you pressured and manipulated them until they felt they didn't have a choice anymore.
If someone is uncomfortable with it and clearly doesn't want it, then that means you don't have consent and it's not happening. No matter what you think you know about them. You see, with consent, it doesn't matter what you "know", it doesn't matter what you want, it matters what they tell you. And if you don't pay attention to that and go ahead and do what you wanted to do anyway, that's sexual assault.
One of the other youtubers who were accused is Jason Viohni Sampson and I believe his youtube channel is Veeoneye. When he was 20 he got a 15 year old girl drunk and then had sex with her. As I said before, that's statutory rape. He made a video where he admitted this.
In this video he is excusing it by saying he was young and immature, he made some mistakes just like everybody does, no one ever told him rape was wrong, blah, blah, blah. If you rape someone, you're not making an honest mistake that anyone would make, you're committing a violent crime which is a conscious decision. Rape is not something you shrug off as a mistake. You sexually violated a child and that "mistake" should put you in prison for life because you are a sex offender and a criminal. I don't believe for one second you didn't know rape was wrong. You were 20 years old. Anyone with half a brain knows it's wrong. No one ever straight out told me rape was wrong either but that's just something you know because you live in a world with people. My parents never sat me down and said, "Rape is wrong." But I didn't need them to. I figured it out on my own. It's not that hard. But even if you don't know it's wrong, that doesn't make you innocent or less guilty of rape. Rape is rape and he deserves to be in jail.
Not understanding consent doesn't make you innocent of assault. And many of these youtubers have come forward saying they made a mistake. No, no you did not "make a mistake." Sexual assault is not a mistake. Rape is not a mistake. It's a crime. You knew what you were doing. You knew you didn't have consent. That's a choice. Don't try to minimize the massive wrong you did by calling it a mistake.
The last thing I want to say is that there are so many victims of the crimes these men committed and many of them were 15 year old girls. This has been going on for years and people are only coming forward this year to tell people what these adult men did to them. And it's because they are afraid. They are afraid of being judged and blamed by us. And I understand why they are afraid because victim shaming is a real thing. And it's awful. We need to be after the men who violated these girls rather than the girls who got violated. They are not to blame for the actions of others. They are not to blame for being sexually assaulted. The one to blame is the one who committed the crime.
Please don't grow silent about this. These men need to be put behind bars where they belong.
Either way, Alex, if you are old enough for sex, you are absolutely old enough to know that the absence of a no is not consent. A woman is not an object you can just do anything you want to unless she says no. She must give you permission before anything is done.
But there were clearly times where I would try to initiate
something, because I thought the other person wanted it, and I trusted
my own read of the situation (“they agreed to stay over/they said they
wanted it earlier/etc”) rather than paying attention to what the other
person was doing and saying in that moment. That’s where I massively fucked up.
"I trusted my own read of the situation (“they agreed to stay over/they said they wanted it earlier/etc”) rather than paying attention to what the other person was doing and saying in that moment." Agreeing to stay over is not consenting to have sex. Saying earlier that they want it is not consenting to have sex, or saying go ahead whenever you're ready. The part he ignored was the only part that mattered! If the other person does not agree in that moment, then they are not consenting. And if you ignore what they are saying in that moment, it is sexual assault. And by Alex's own words, that's what he did.
"That’s where I massively fucked up." Uh, yeah, to put it lightly. But, in actuality, that's where you committed sexual assault. That's where you violated young women. That's where you did something illegal. That's where you committed a crime that should put you in jail. That's where you pressured young women into sexual situations they were uncomfortable with and emotionally damaged them and some of them are still dealing with it. You can't make it less important or less of a sexual assault by saying, "whoops, my bad."
I know it seems like I'm mostly targeting Alex Day here, but he is the only one who wrote a post on consent to try and defend himself. His view of consent was basically if he could convince himself that the girl wanted it, despite what she said or how she behaved, then that was consent. That is disgusting and just what I would expect someone who commits sexual assault to say.
And just to make something clear here, when talking about consent, because apparently it's confusing to understand that it's only consent if the person agrees in the moment, it doesn't make it consent just because they don't say no. You don't automatically have the right to touch someone sexually unless they tell you not to. You automatically do not have consent. Consent is something you are given by the other person, it's not something you have unless otherwise stated.
For people who don't understand, if someone says they don't want to have sex, they don't want to have sex. End of story. There's no secret desire, they're not saying no because they want you to keep asking them until you wear them down. No is no and that's that. Even if you think the other person wants it but they just don't know it, you leave them alone. Consent isn't wanting it, it's agreeing to it. Even if someone does secretly want it, if they tell you no, you don't have consent. And if you try to convince someone they want it, that's sexual harassment. If you have to convince someone tp have sex with you, that's not consent. And if they agree only after you've been harassing them, that doesn't mean you unlocked their secret desire, it means you pressured and manipulated them until they felt they didn't have a choice anymore.
If someone is uncomfortable with it and clearly doesn't want it, then that means you don't have consent and it's not happening. No matter what you think you know about them. You see, with consent, it doesn't matter what you "know", it doesn't matter what you want, it matters what they tell you. And if you don't pay attention to that and go ahead and do what you wanted to do anyway, that's sexual assault.
One of the other youtubers who were accused is Jason Viohni Sampson and I believe his youtube channel is Veeoneye. When he was 20 he got a 15 year old girl drunk and then had sex with her. As I said before, that's statutory rape. He made a video where he admitted this.
Jason admitting to rape
Not understanding consent doesn't make you innocent of assault. And many of these youtubers have come forward saying they made a mistake. No, no you did not "make a mistake." Sexual assault is not a mistake. Rape is not a mistake. It's a crime. You knew what you were doing. You knew you didn't have consent. That's a choice. Don't try to minimize the massive wrong you did by calling it a mistake.
The last thing I want to say is that there are so many victims of the crimes these men committed and many of them were 15 year old girls. This has been going on for years and people are only coming forward this year to tell people what these adult men did to them. And it's because they are afraid. They are afraid of being judged and blamed by us. And I understand why they are afraid because victim shaming is a real thing. And it's awful. We need to be after the men who violated these girls rather than the girls who got violated. They are not to blame for the actions of others. They are not to blame for being sexually assaulted. The one to blame is the one who committed the crime.
Please don't grow silent about this. These men need to be put behind bars where they belong.
