Below are a couple posts/articles regarding these issues:
YouTube Gazette (Tom Milsom)
Kristina Horner (on Alex Day and Luke Conard)
Charlie McDonnell (on Alex Day)
On Luke Conard
Because I had more closely followed Alex Day before the scandal broke out, I was upset that he had treated girls so poorly. I realized that when romance came into play he was manipulative, always needed to get his way, and was selfish. Having experienced the same kind of manipulation in a past relationship, I know that it feels really shitty and awful and I admire and respect these women for coming out and telling their stories. I want to make it very clear that in this blog, I am not defending Alex Day's personal choices.
While disdain towards Alex Day is going strong, why is it that Tom Milsom and Luke Conard, however, the ones who did rape women, who did force women into awful, horrifying situations, quickly fell off the radar? Alex Day is still arguably the face of the scandal--he is still the one receiving a large portion of the blame. If I hadn't done some serious digging online, I probably wouldn't have even found the allegations against Tom Milsom. Yes, Alex Day messed up. He admitted to messing up. But being a crappy boyfriend is not a crime. It is not rape. It should not end your career.
Before you egg my house, allow me to explain.
Alex Day has recently posted a video explaining his side to the story, and while not all of the comments are negative, the amount of "you're disgusting"s and "get off the internet"s still shocked me. The video, while it could have gone into further detail about the specific accusations, seemed well thought out:
I'm not saying that Alex Day is the model of a perfect human being, and he certainly has a lot of growing and maturing to do, but Alex Day's job title is not "role model extraordinaire." He creates content that is meant to entertain an audience. Yes, it can be easier to blur the lines between personal life and entertainment because vlogging is about one's life, but that does not mean we should expect to know the whole of these vloggers' stories. If we only allowed ourselves to be entertained by upstanding citizens, we'd get bored pretty damn quickly.
If Alex Day had broken the law, it would be a completely different story. But there seems to be this expectation that all shitty boyfriends have to get off the internet immediately. We can still enjoy his content while still knowing that he is not someone that we'd date or get coffee with.
From what I've observed, being on YouTube results in a level of scrutiny that seems more personal than being a "regular" celebrity. We see snippits of people's lives, and then we jump in with the judgment and advice, assuming we have the whole situation figured out. It's like having 100,000 friends all telling you that you messed up, all telling you to handle the situation in a million different ways.
Alex Day began his YouTube career fairly young, and I think we can all agree that a teenage boy is rarely a model citizen. But it's important to note that Alex Day never told his viewers that he was a good person, or that we should follow his example. He got his fame by making snarky comments about Twilight. He didn't offer us his entire life story. He made funny videos on YouTube. And, unfortunately, oftentimes the funniest people are the most troubled.
If I knew Alex Day personally, and if I knew more of the story, then I would offer advice to him about getting help and re-evaluating the way he treats women. But I don't. I can't offer judgment about a situation and a person I only know bits and pieces about. As a viewer, I find the I have two options: I can either continue to watch Alex Day's content and realize the distinction between entertainment and real life situations, or I can stop watching his content. Either choice is fine.
I know this was a bit of a rant, and I realize this is not a popular opinion to take, but it's just something I wanted to say.
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