news ToonKriticY2K and accusations of sexual misconduct

[Anonymous Old User Who Has Left 599]

As more incidents like these pop up within a culture/fandom, it becomes harder and harder to maintain a good rep in the public - ESPECIALLY when they receive less than half of the actual story - or when the info they receive is fake or improperly worded.

This becomes increasingly difficult for parents and kids. Young men these days hardly get looked at in a positive light. People in general often view them as criminals, drama-creators, narcisstic internet addicts, or sex predators - not as talented sportsmen or committed workmen or degree-winning students. Even tho the truth as we know is we're all a mixed bunch.

[iceestarz 5,764]

That’s absolutely disgusting. I also saw a couple people blaming the girl on the comments section of a YouTube video covering this. Yes, she could have said no and stopped at any point, HOWEVER, as the adult in this situation he should have known how wrong this was. He should have never manipulated and taken advantage of a minor like that.

She may be responsible for her own participation in this, but she is a child. At the age of 14 she does not understand to full extent what is going on and how completely disgusting it is. I would know.

At 14 I was encouraged to be with a guy at the age of 19. He was an adult that clearly should have known that being with a minor is totally wrong. Nothing ever came of it, but I was completely infatuated with him BECAUSE I WAS A CHILD. As an adult I realize how disgusting it was. I’m glad nothing more than cuddling and hand holding happened , but it’s still extremely wrong.

[DJ_Bonebraker 183]

14 hours ago, Veil said:

I want nothing more to do with this community anymore. The number of coverups people have done to hide what he was doing is just awful. It makes it look like people never wanted him to get caught because they are all hiding things as well. All it took was one girl to finally give hard evidence that he was doing this and everyone started panicking. The moment he violated his first victim was when the people in this god damn community that knew he was doing this shit to people should have fucking opened their mouths and reported him immediately. There are more important things than your youtube channel, like all of the number of victims that Toon has and the possible number of victims that some of the other bronys possibly have.

I agree with you 100% (although I'm not going to disassociate from the good people in this community over the actions of some bad ones).  The fact that his friends covered up for him when he did other acts of sexual harassment & sexual assault just disgusts me to no end, and I wish we had Singapore's punishment for rape & sexual assault, namely whup his ass at least 4 times with a rattan cane & then throw him in jail.  

I guarantee you this though:  I hear anything, catch any whiff of any kind of sleazy behavior in this or any other community, and I WILL use all the resources available to me as a federal employee to dig up whatever evidence I need to have the perpetrators hunted down & thrown in the slammer.  I mean it is bad enough that big-name Hollywood celebrities have been getting away with this kind of crap for so long (although their day of reckoning is finally arriving, thanks to the Weinstein effect), but the fact that these YouTube pseudo-celebrities have been able to get away with the same crap just makes me sick!  And that is all I have to say on this subject.

[Veil 260]

The fandoms reputation is irrelevant to me. It's about people doing the right thing the moment they see someone doing this kind of stuff. Toon's been caught doing horrible things to girls like when he groped that girl at brony con and no one did anything. This bothers the hell out of me because it feels like people hide that situation in fear that if they become revealed then the fandom will take a hit. If people were just honest from the start it would better the reputation of the fandom cause it shows no in this fandom tolerates this for any reason. It both protects the fandom and the people within the fandom. There is no loss or reproduction for doing the right thing. There is, unfortunately, a large amount of backlash when I'll just say group A (people that knew of Toon's actions). So group A see's this stuff happening and just tries to keep it a secret and hide it, this does not stop it from happening, you're showing the person they can get away with it, and when everyone finds out it makes group A look really bad. Group B (the victims). So when group B makes their statements and speaks out and lots of people were in group B its starts to add up to the truth, Group B ends becoming bigger victims because people don't want them to speak out and have the truth revealed. Yeah, that's about all I got for now.

[ChB 18,550]

I think the question we all have to ask now is: how can we prevent more cover-ups? How can we hold the analysis community and the entire fandom more accountable for their actions? Yes, we all have an individual responsibility to report unacceptable behavior, but what can we do collectively to encourage and enforce these values in a way that will makes things better than the status quo? 

 

A company I work for has an Ethics office. They have a zero tolerance policy for harassment, they give employees a formal place to report harassment and investigate charges, and they require all employees to take an annual ethics training course to remind them all how important it is and how seriously they take these issues. I don’t know if any such organization can be effectively organized or enforced in a fandom, even if we limit the scope to a small circle like the analysis community. 

[Miss 6,229]

Alright so Pencildraws (the person on deviantart who said they're friend said they were raped by toonkritic at a con) responded to a comment and said that she went to the police. Nothing else was stated

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

Probably the most concise video on the situation.

 

[Dark Qiviut 22,399]

@PathfinderCS To add to that, there's a comment from someone who was a trial juror that deserves mention (coming from Teradyne Ezeri, in reply to "Epic-Fran!"):

Quote

I'm not a lawyer, but as someone who's served on a jury, I'd like to dispute this.

If they'd did that, it'd given Zak probable cause for harassment and slander defenses in court. It's called "working tactically". By getting Zak to confess, and offering to let him go to the police (while simultaneously reporting him regardless of his decision), there was nothing for any defensive attorney to use against the group that got the confession.

However, by handling it with anger, much like people in the comments and on Twitter did, it "adds fuel to the fire", so to speak. Any good defense attorney who plans on winning (and they have to work toward winning, regardless of their moral standard. Blame the theatre that is the court system) will use all of those attacks and death threats as reason for a jury or judge to consider the possibility of coercion or trickery in getting the confession out of Zak.

Add onto this the fact that other members of the community are now doubting credibility of the people who got the confession, and you have a potentially perfect excuse to say that the confession is inadmissible as evidence, or at the least argue that it may have been gained through less-than-legitimate ways.

As a result of this drama, Zak has a defense that can be used to lessen his sentence, or potentially allow him to go free. All because of internet rage. (edited for grammar, because I'm still coming off of sleep deprivation)

People were absolutely justified to be hurt, angry, and outraged at what TK did. But the armchair lawyering, mob mentality of the Internet, and people scapegoating his friends (even some of Toon's own victims) of enabling him created such a clusterfuck that TK was able to delete his original social media, go into hiding, and probably start over. Recently, someone spotted him on Skype under a brand-new name.

I was never a selected juror, and I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if Teradyne is telling the truth, but I give them the benefit of the doubt. I hope the mob mentality (ranging from TK being doxxed to bronies petitioning to ban Josh, Wolf, Silver, and others from cons) doesn't hurt his chances of justice being delivered.

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

15 hours ago, Dark Qiviut said:

@PathfinderCS To add to that, there's a comment from someone who was a trial juror that deserves mention (coming from Teradyne Ezeri, in reply to "Epic-Fran!"):

People were absolutely justified to be hurt, angry, and outraged at what TK did. But the armchair lawyering, mob mentality of the Internet, and people scapegoating his friends (even some of Toon's own victims) of enabling him created such a clusterfuck that TK was able to delete his original social media, go into hiding, and probably start over. Recently, someone spotted him on Skype under a brand-new name.

I was never a selected juror, and I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if Teradyne is telling the truth, but I give them the benefit of the doubt. I hope the mob mentality (ranging from TK being doxxed to bronies petitioning to ban Josh, Wolf, Silver, and others from cons) doesn't hurt his chances of justice being delivered.

It's so true. The fandom was pretty ready to let the cooler heads prevail and handle this situation as it should have. But now it's gone into flinging accusations and insults based on flimsy evidence. I won't dare link the petition here because I believe it's an immoral attempt at character assassination; the only evidence backing this are a couple of poorly-worded videos (one of which was clarified and apologized for) and accusations of a cover-up by observers with secondhand knowledge of the situation. I won't consider it differently until firsthand evidence comes out proving this otherwise.

What was meant by "forgiveness" was not to let emotions control you and act out in a way that could ultimately damage the case. But of course because of the wording used the message was misinterpreted. And now any attempt to understand what it even means is being flat-out contradicted in action.

Josh Scorcher is such a man of character, I'll probably say he's at least five times the man most of us in this fandom will ever be. It's unfortunate that his plan for the good of the fandom and the victims fell apart but that's the nature of the Internet, and the man is just not afraid to come out and admit his mistakes and even praise his rivals when he needs to.

If people are going to leave the fandom over this, I totally understand it. Everyone's expected to assume the risk that there are predators in the fandom but the handling of this incident just shows that it might as well not be worth the risk not only from the predators, but to the related fallout and other personal issues.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Wind Chaser

[Hierok 11,831]

How comes I didn't hear anything from this until now?  

So he was 24 and she 14. Sure, she is very young, but my previous neighbures had a similar age gap. They found love when he was 26 and she 15. A bit older, but also young and a larger gap. If she was okay with it, I got no problem with it, speaking out of personal experience, while I admit it is far too young. 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Hierok

[Karnak 187]

On 1/29/2018 at 6:38 AM, maverickBNA said:

I hate to bring up such bad news, but we should probably discuss the accusations against ToonKriticY2K alleging sexual misconduct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHnj3oWALhs

Please discuss.

Who is he again?

[Guest]

Things like this disgust me beyond belief. It's especially beyond me if people still want to blame the minor for "not saying no", as if that'd make doing sexual business with a minor any less wrong.
 

On 2/7/2018 at 10:53 PM, iceestarz said:

At 14 I was encouraged to be with a guy at the age of 19. He was an adult that clearly should have known that being with a minor is totally wrong.

Oh no I've had a rather similar experience as I've been in a relationship with a guy that was 21 while I was 14. Nothing suspicious really happened but I did feel gross afterwards for many reasons. The relationship was pretty known within a certain small brony forum and just about everyone on the same forum encouraged it while no one questioned the adult dating a freaking minor. And my case wasn't the only one when it comes to adults dating minors. 

[mrx1983 22]

On 15.2.2018 at 5:56 PM, Hierok, Scoffer of Music said:

How comes I didn't hear anything from this until now?  

So he was 24 and she 14. Sure, she is very young, but my previous neighbures had a similar age gap. They found love when he was 26 and she 15. A bit older, but also young and a larger gap. If she was okay with it, I got no problem with it, speaking out of personal experience, while I admit it is far too young. 

this would be a complete non issue in my country. we think that with 14 a teen is able to make her own decisions regarding this. i think america is very strict because of their different culture. in germany consent age is 14, and this is not just written on a paper. here is a recent verdict of a relationship between a 15 and 30 year old:
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article159199634/15-Jaehrige-darf-Beziehung-mit-30-Jahre-aelterem-Mann-fuehren.html
it basically says the parents are in the wrong, and the 15 year old can make her own decision.
she can continue the relationship, or to better say it, a cancelation would even have harmed her according to the judge.
in my opinion and according to laws of my country i think someone having a relationship with a teen is not to blame as long as it is with consent and both persons agreeing to the activity.

[Hierok 11,831]

8 minutes ago, mrx1983 said:

this would be a complete non issue in my country. we think that with 14 a teen is able to make her own decisions regarding this. i think america is very strict because of their different culture. in germany consent age is 14, and this is not just written on a paper. here is a recent verdict of a relationship between a 15 and 30 year old:
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article159199634/15-Jaehrige-darf-Beziehung-mit-30-Jahre-aelterem-Mann-fuehren.html
it basically says the parents are in the wrong, and the 15 year old can make her own decision.
she can continue the relationship, or to better say it, a cancelation would even have harmed her according to the judge.
in my opinion and according to laws of my country i think someone having a relationship with a teen is not to blame as long as it is with consent and both persons agreeing to the activity.

A friend of mine has a sister who's 18 years old, and her boyfriend is 41. This is a bit much, but it is just legal here. :3

[LeafFerret 3,382]

Judging from his personality and his attitude in the video, I always thought that the guy was a bit of a jerk and when he redesigned his OC, it made me dislike him even more, now that is no longer a problem for me not having to see his OC anymore.

Also, who wears gloves while playing video games? I mean seriously?

[Total Lunar Eclipse 516]

The biggest problem with pedophiles in a family or community is when the family or community fails to protect their own from them. It's not enough to banish the pedophilia, that's just allowing them to go somewhere else and continue hurting people. This should not be kept hush hush or hidden. Pedophile motivation isn't fame related, quite the opposite, they go to great lengths to keep their secret. The fact that he got a Skype under a completely different name confirms his desire to stay hidden. 

Banishing and hiding pedophiles is letting them win, and it's a huge disservice to past and future victims. 

I know people who have been assaulted as children by family members, and the family kept it a secret because they didn't want their family's reputation to be marred. No! Absolutely unacceptable! Never do this! It's so damaging to everyone, including that very same reputation (which should NEVER come before the victims). You know what happened to their reputation? It went to shambles because everyone found out that there was a pedophile and instead of stopping him, everyone was so wrapped up in preserving their reputation that they didn't help the ones who were hurt, and it continued to happen, so they lost what respect they had long ago.

People who have been affected matter SO MUCH more than public image, anyway. They need the fandom to stick up for them more than ever.

Sure, there will be some people thinking 'wow, yuck, there's pedophiles in the MLP fandom' but you know what? We can tell them yes, and we didn't give them a safe space, we didn't entertain any pity or arguments in their favor, no excuse, and we didn't just banish them with a slap on the wrist. We fought them, we punished them, we destroyed their lives. They are in prison now because the fandom protected its youth and didn't tolerate pedophilia. 

Yes, MLP attracts pedophiles. It's not the fandom's fault and the public has no trouble understanding this. It's the nature of pedophiles, they flock to anywhere they can find children. That's why's is so important we don't let them off with a slap on the wrist. Banishing them from the fandom when we could do more isn't enough. 

As for arguments about what's legal in different countries, it doesn't matter. If it's illegal in their country, it's pedophilia. No excuses.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Total Lunar Eclipse

[GuerrierCosmique 146]

Personally, I don't see anything wrong here. Were I live, it's very uncommon to have such a huge age difference in relationships, but it's neither illegal nor really frowned upon. At 14 years, you're not a child anymore, so this isn't pedophilia.

[Seiya-Meteorite 22]

I apologize if this is slightly old, but these are my thoughts on what I think of this guy (this is my Youtube video/channel), now that I've heard/read what he's done from all sorts of different sources (you don't have to watch all the way to the end though): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrpRqbqg-Ec

I knew him in the Thomas fandom long before he joined the MLP fandom and though I didn't pay attention to much of his MLP stuff, I'm just as hurt and upset as much as his victims are, and I hope they recover.

I also apologize if this video is too offensive for this forum and if I sounded extremely toxic too, but I won't ever forgive people like him, I hate them and I wish only the worst for him.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Seiya-Meteorite
Wanted to say no one had to watch all the video

[Nyactis Mewcis Catlum 672]

On 2/7/2018 at 5:49 PM, Veil said:

The fandoms reputation is irrelevant to me. It's about people doing the right thing the moment they see someone doing this kind of stuff. Toon's been caught doing horrible things to girls like when he groped that girl at brony con and no one did anything. This bothers the hell out of me because it feels like people hide that situation in fear that if they become revealed then the fandom will take a hit. If people were just honest from the start it would better the reputation of the fandom cause it shows no in this fandom tolerates this for any reason. It both protects the fandom and the people within the fandom. There is no loss or reproduction for doing the right thing. There is, unfortunately, a large amount of backlash when I'll just say group A (people that knew of Toon's actions). So group A see's this stuff happening and just tries to keep it a secret and hide it, this does not stop it from happening, you're showing the person they can get away with it, and when everyone finds out it makes group A look really bad. Group B (the victims). So when group B makes their statements and speaks out and lots of people were in group B its starts to add up to the truth, Group B ends becoming bigger victims because people don't want them to speak out and have the truth revealed. Yeah, that's about all I got for now.

The problem is that approaching this from the angle of "they were doing it just to cover things up" not only vilifies those who did this, but also redirects the blame onto the wrong people. ToonKritic's friends are not responsible for his behavior. He is responsible for his behavior, and there are a myriad of reasons why people did not 'rat it out', not the least of which being the fact that they were manipulated into believing him when he said that these were exaggerated stories meant to make him look bad. Would you not think similarly if your friend made such a plea of you when they were being accused of something? Your first thought would be to believe your friend over these strangers throwing accusations at them. And this is similar of a lot of those who were hurt by ToonKritic's actions; many of them simply did not want to believe their friend would do something like this, and were willing to believe him over the voices of people they didn't know as well.

It's a common human trait, and people going out of their way to cast doubt and suspicion upon what are completely normal, human, empathetic reactions to a situation muddy the waters and take the blame off of the real person we should be mad at: ToonKritic. An example of how detrimental this can be to getting the right guy was already stated within this thread, so I won't repeat it, but I will say this: I understand your outrage, but you can't let anger toward ToonKritic cloud your judgment of the people around you.

Our country operates under innocent until proven guilty for a reason. Unless you have concrete proof of people doing this to cover their reputations, it's a lofty accusation to throw at them and just dilutes the conversation.

 

That is not to say we can't learn from this. We should recognize our natural human biases of believing our friends over random accusations, and treat every person with the same amount of skepticism. Not doing so risks allowing people who are close to us, who are popular, and who have that horse famous title to get away with some pretty heinous things, just because we're more eager to believe them over accusations. We should look into what we hear from other people and not just accept anything at face value.

On 3/3/2018 at 4:22 AM, Spacbatalanto said:

Personally, I don't see anything wrong here. Were I live, it's very uncommon to have such a huge age difference in relationships, but it's neither illegal nor really frowned upon. At 14 years, you're not a child anymore, so this isn't pedophilia.

It's very clear that the relationships were abusive in nature. The victims in question were hurt by his actions. Where you live may have different laws, but I'm sorry, there's no way in hell a 14 year old has the same emotional maturity for relationships as a 24 year old. It also helps that ToonKritic is confirmed to have been cheating on these girls, as well as the actual one consensual partner he had, so even without the age gap, these relationships started out with an angle of deceit and manipulation.

It's not just their age that makes us think this. I will not describe it in depth here (too graphic), but you can tell by the chatlogs that he was giving classical grooming behavior. It was clear that he was taking advantage of their lack of experience with relationships as well as making himself out to be the Mature, Responsible One TM on purpose. The language that he uses in these interactions is not innocent.

There's nothing good about these relationships. Strip away the age gap, and you still have an obvious maturity gap, obvious grooming mechanisms, and cheating behind them. And that's a really big if on the age gap. There's a reason why the age of consent is higher in most places, and that's because it's incredibly uncommon if not nonexistent for a relationship between a teen that young and an adult of that age to be a healthy, consensual relationship.

[Seiya-Meteorite 22]

I think everyone else needs to see this here also (another person to say away from):

 

[shadowwarp940 1,303]

Guys! I found the Skype call where he admitted to this! He's definitely gonna get arrested for this

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by shadowwarp940

[Seiya-Meteorite 22]

Yup, that's it. Fortunately the police was informed about that already and Toon is still on the run, but it's still best to spread the word with that.

[shadowwarp940 1,303]

According to the Skype call, toon had done the same thing to another girl a year or two before this one. And that girl was around 17 years old. Now according to the Illinois consent law, he can be charged with 2 counts of grooming. Each charge carries 1-3 years in prison, so the punishment will be severe. And he deserves it 

[Seiya-Meteorite 22]

6 hours ago, shadowwarp940 said:

According to the Skype call, toon had done the same thing to another girl a year or two before this one. And that girl was around 17 years old. Now according to the Illinois consent law, he can be charged with 2 counts of grooming. Each charge carries 1-3 years in prison, so the punishment will be severe. And he deserves it 

Damn, well, I hope he ends up getting a life sentence.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Seiya-Meteorite

[RDDash 19,173]

I heard about the performance major and his video blog. That guy is just...any positive message that he wanted to say he ruined it with his theatrics.

Edited March 19, 2018 by R.D.Dash