YouTuber Sexual Abuse || Speaking Out
Hello lovelies,This post is going to be a hard one to write and it will more likely than not be a difficult one to read, but I plead with you stick with it, I am going to be discussing my views on the recent accusations made against some of the biggest YouTubers out there.
**I just want to clarify now that this is not a confessional post in which I talk about what a YouTuber has done to me, because "luckily" (and I say that with gritted teeth, it should not be lucky) I have not been put in that situation**
I would like to start by outlining some of the offending parties:
- Tom Milsom
- Alex Carpenter
- Alex Day
- Ed Blann
- Luke Conard
- And we have seen it before in Mike Lombardo- WHO WAS ARRESTED FOR OBTAINING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
I am aware that may not be everyone but these are the people who I am aware of.
Firstly I would like to graze over a story about myself, so that you may understand why I feel so strongly about these things. I have been involved in an incident in the past (I do not wish to divulge intimate details), what I do want to express is that I trusted the person who acted wrongly against me, and he did it whilst he thought I was asleep, in a situation like that everything happens very quickly and you may find it difficult to speak or express how you are feeling, but that in no way counts as consenting such vile and horrific behaviour. I found it very difficult to tell people what had happened, and for years I blamed myself, I still do now when I am having a bad day, but I don't want to focus on what happened I want to discuss the repercussions for me as the victim.:
- I felt very depressed for a very long time
- I suffer with panic attacks and anxiety at a very high level to this day
- I have nightmares about insects crawling all over my body
- It took me a very long time to value myself as anything other than an item for men
- I struggled with very severe self-esteem issues and sometimes they come back to haunt me
- I am very angry and bitter about the situation because I felt no sense of closure even after I did tell someone what happened
- I was suicidal on a daily basis, and attempted to take my own life more than once
- I was a very broken, vulnerable person and I allowed myself to do awful things to people around me and most importantly me personally
98% of all accusations of sexual harassment turn out to be true, so instead of victim shaming and blaming, we should be standing up against the men who have had multiple accusations made against them and making them understand that WE as HUMAN BEINGS do not take such behaviour with a pinch of salt. These girls have had to express intimate details of their relationships with these men to bring to light what kind of people they truly are, and their apologies alone are enough to do that- I will get on to those later, in front of millions of loyal fans and instead of assuming their innocence we really should be looking at the likelihood of these things having actually happened.
- These men are in a position of influence over millions of mostly teenage girls, and are admired in a huge way by them
- They are placed on a pedestal and made to feel like they're indestructible- WHICH THEY ARE NOT.
- They have the ability to make millions of girls swoon, they could have quite easily taken advantage of that
- Many of the accusations have been backed up by other YouTubers, who are ultimately disgusted by what they have discovered
Now the worst part for me as someone who used to admire a few of these people for their talent and creativity, not as a victim- the worst part for them is certainly not this, is their half-hearted, manipulative, VICTIM BLAMING, disgusting apologies that are riddled with lies.
I will start with the worst that I have seen; by the likes of Luke Conard, I am going to quote a few of the worst statements he made throughout the open 'apology' letter, open 'manipulation of my fans to make them love me' letter more like.
"Kristina and Whitney’s posts seemingly lump me in with other allegations I have seen on Tumblr this week. The events that they recounted in their posts happened while everyone involved was of legal age, and were 100% consensual." After having said he did not want to 'discredit or minimize anyone's pain' he went on to completely discredit the way Whitney and Kristina felt about their sexual encounters with him, if they say they didn't want to do it, THEY DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT. Therefore it is NOT consensual, that was the first piece of shit (excuse my French) in the argument.
"but the worst part about this whole situation for me is that I’ve been in their position before, and I know how terrible it feels. I’ve written a few songs about that pain, and one was a result of an incredibly painful break-up I went through 4 years ago. After that, I woke up almost every morning for weeks with an aching pit in my stomach. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. So now, you can imagine how angry I am at myself, knowing I’ve put two people who I cared about in the exact same position." He then went on to play a little sympathy card himself, he has by no means been in their situation before, unless said girlfriend manipulated him into having sex with her, cheated on him multiple times and made vile, disrespectful comments about his appearance and personality.
" I played with people’s hearts, including my own, and for that I’m truly sorry. It’s cliche, but hindsight really is 20/20." 'In hindsight' there is no need to talk about your own heart, if you had true feelings for these girls you would have acted in a more respectable way.
I will leave you with this; blatant victim blaming. "The accusations of manipulation brought up in their posts left me feeling both confused and conflicted. If there were feelings of manipulation, they were surely based on a lack of communication, trust and insecurity; not coercion."
I am not even sure I want to go into the other apology letters but I have never been more disgraced at a group of role models in my life and I have seen the things One Direction tweet... (Before people tell me off it was a silly joke!) I just find this whole situation sickening and the fact that it happened weeks ago and I only just discovered it is all the more worrying, it is not getting nearly enough recognition and these men are hardly getting the official police investigation they deserve. I can't quite express how strongly I feel about this topic but I know for a fact if we don't stand up for those brave yet vulnerable girls then we are letting them down, and we cannot afford to let this happen to someone else. We don't know these people who are making videos on the internet, despite the fact we think we do, they could be anyone and we should express this to young, impressionable people because we can help to prevent situations like this from recurring.
I am going to leave you with a few links to help you get more informed on the situations, if you are not aware:
I feel very sorry that I felt I had to address this topic, but I didn't feel right ignoring it.
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