March Rant.

Hello. How are you?

Tonight I wanna talk about stuff.

As you know, this website is part blog. The rambles I do, the stuff I talk about, are considered blog stuff for these sites. Lots of blogs go out to many other people, especially back then. However, that isn't much of the case here. At most, my family and friends see these posts, especially if I send the link to each post. So, if you don't fit into either category, let me tell you this:

Always keep a safe distance from content creators online.

This sounds harsh, but I don't mean it to be that harsh. Let me explain myself. You don't always know someone by just being a friend of theirs on the internet, nor do you learn everything about someone who makes stuff online. Usually, it takes meeting up in real life and hanging out regularly to get to know someone on a deeper level. Online, meanwhile, people wear masks, so it's unknown what they are truly like until stuff comes out about them, good or bad.

Let's talk about the subjects of tonight: Chuggaaconroy and Wilbur Soot.

Now where do I start?...

Oh, the guy that everyone knows! Chuggaaconroy!

what do you mean "no one knows who he is?"

Chuggaaconroy

Showing my age a bit here (strange thing to say for someone like me, I know), but this guy was one of my favorite Let's Players on YouTube. He is the textbook definition of a Let's Player, being someone that knows the source material and is just playing it through for your enjoyment (and maybe engagement).

Chugga (or Emile as he is known) is part of a collab LP channel, called TheRunawayGuys, which consists of two other members: NintendoCapriSun (named Tim) and ProtonJon (guess). One of my favorite series that I've wanted to go through is all of their Mario Party stuff. I don't know if I talked about it here, but I've been wanting to beat the games before watching them now that I'm streaming games, and my latest game that I've finished is Pikmin, one of Emile's best series in my opinion (never forget Steve). Because of this rule though, I can't watch any Mario Party until I "beat" the games...

Well, it seems that something happened which is going to prevent me from watching those.

I learned from a video online (when searching up a different LPer that is not connected to the group at all) that Chuggaaconroy was in some drama, and that ProtonJon has made a statement on it... well, it was more of a document.

What I currently know about the situation is here: https://emile.fandom.com/wiki/Chuggaaconroy#2024_allegations. I will leave you to look through it if you want, both because I don't feel like summarizing this whole thing (frankly I don't even know how I would), and to let you form your own conclusions. In fact, I advise you to research this on your own if you feel so inclined to gathering the intel.

I will, however, summarize where things are at the moment of typing this: Chugga is in therapy, he is staying with his girlfriend, and wants to make a statement and come back to the internet eventually, but for a looooooong while he'll be taking a break from the online stuff. He has made an apology for some people, but said previous statement has not been made yet. Meanwhile, Tim is there for support, and Jon has decided to make a new channel like TRG soon, as well as remove the TRG brand from other things that they do (like Colosseum and Thrown Controllers).

Honestly, I hope he gets better. It's disappointing to see someone I looked up to do this kind of stuff. It's certainly going to taint anything he's been in that I've wanted to watch, including some of his LPs that I've enjoyed (Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin 1, Pokemon Emerald) as well as the collabs he's done with TheRunawayGuys (Mario Party series, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Wii Party +U, Castle Crashers, Overcooked, Super Mario Bros. 3... Pikmin 1... there's a whole lot) and other content creators.

This feeling, this corrupted feeling, is something I wanna highlight. With creators these days it gets harder to separate the art from the artist, mostly because we start to feel like we have a personal connection to them. This is not reciprocated. In fact, it's a phenomenon called Parasocial Relationships. Lots of people have this with their favorite content creators, and honestly it's quite expected in recent times. If they like you more, they engage with the stuff you do more, sounds simple enough. However, unlike actual relationships, its strength is a complete inverse: fragile. If someone reveals that they did something wrong, things get crazy.

There is a strange difference between how that plays out nowadays vs how it played out back then. Back then, yea it still sucks, but people become less willing to hire these stars for work, and life goes on. People still watch the works they were a part of, whether it be an actor, writer, composer, or the likes. People could separate the art from the artists because they had a degree of separation. They don't get affected as much, and are therefore more applicable to being looked at under a magnifying glass of truth. Nowadays, because of this parasocial relationship, people lose the feeling of that degree of separation. This is why controversy nowadays has that ability to taint works: not only did they do something bad, it almost feels like a betrayal. People get more invested and emotional, more confused because of this feeling. People are more prone to lash out either to protect them or rake them over the coals.

With Chugga, I'm sad that the events happened. I hope the people affected are doing okay now and will continue to get better soon. I also hope that Emile himself can improve himself, and in his own words, not repeat these mistakes. He's human, as are we all (well, all YOU guys are, anyways). We make mistakes, it's just that some are worse than others, and we need to take steps to prevent those same mistakes.

...now for someone absolutely NO ONE knows. No one. Definitely.

Wilbur Soot

Prior to writing this, I only knew him as a collaborator on the DreamSMP. No I will not give explanations, not because you already know him, but because I dislike Dream and all that stuff. In recent times, he was also part of controversy. I bring him up because this is something that was brought up in BoundBreak (the SMP that I'm a part of). I gave my two cents in that discussion, but I wanna bring it up here to add some more of my thoughts.

Again, here is the link that I used: https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Wilbur_Soot#Abuse_Allegations. Again, don't wanna summarize it, form your own conclusions, and do your own research.

From what I can gleam at this moment in time, the victims are doing okay, and have gotten their word out about him (also decimating his apology tweet). Meanwhile, he removed a chatbot in his Twitch that had a donation to Domestic Violence Charities, modded two people after removing everyone (one of them being a burner account), and... making fun of the situation?

huh.

I told the discord, and I'll say it here too. His behavior for this kind of work (especially being part of the modern YouTube circle, with the Minecraft SMPs and such) feels like basic YouTuber PR shenanigans. Sounds like he's trying to do the bare minimum with his apology, even the part where he forgets to be sincere. This, sadly, is common nowadays. You know what's also common nowadays?

Well, it's your mom, but also the fact that a lot of content creators get away with this stuff. Laws feel more loose around them these days than it did for stars back then, and even then, stars had a lotta pull and still do. It feels like only yesterday where people were laughing at the idea of a "content creator" becoming like a star and making lots of money. Look where we are now. Strange, I know.

Some of the people in the BoundBreak Discord were fans of his. It should be obvious now that this is no longer the case. Some even had posters that they now have to tear down. But now, because of this event, they don't feel comfortable supporting him, as that supports someone who has abused the previously mentioned victims. They can't separate the art from the artist, and I don't blame them in the slightest.

Alas, I have nothing else to add to this portion of the post, so let's move on.

What now?

We have looked at 2 YouTubers from different eras who have gotten into controversy.

They both dealt with it very differently, which is expected in my opinion; a lot of modern YouTubers and content creators are willing to try and apollo-gize their way out of trouble (and into space to be with the real stars). But I digress.

I bring this up because of what I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I feel like I should be that random asshole on the internet that has a lot of interesting thoughts on shit that happens and exists. I should not be any kind of perfect role model in anyone's eyes, because I am not perfect. This should extend to a lot of other online personalities as well. What they wear is a mask for the camera, they are not always what they seem. That's just the nature of the web. It just feels like people forgot about that tidbit of info, so let me share with you some actual advice to prevent this kind of event from hurting you as much:

It is nice to trust someone, but for people online, be cautious on who you give that to.

It is okay to admire someone, same with disliking, but don't let that cloud your judgement of anything that they do; if they do something bad, allegedly or not, don't make up excuses for them, and don't try making connections that aren't there. Do some research and try to find the truth.

Don't let hype sweep you up completely; it's okay to be excited for something upcoming, but don't be surprised if it gets delayed, or even worse, cancelled.

This isn't cynicism, nor is it nihilism. This is just realism: hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

And with that, I shall leave. Well, not leave as in "leaving the internet," more like "it's late and I should've been in bed a few hours ago." Cya and goodnight, I hope I was able to provide some insight into this stuff.