Something is definitely off here. Events have to play out and blindly circling his wagon (as his followers are doing) is as inadvisable as throwing unsubstantiated accusations at him. Thing is, he should NEVER have allowed himself for even the possibility of such serious accusations. This is on him.
Dude cheated on his wife, has shown that hes a scumbag on multiple occasions, so this doesnt surprise me in the slightest. Hes a person of low character.
@@ErikKain NDAs have a shelf life and people do love to talk so shit is going to come out at some point. I just hope he hasnt hurt anyone we dont know about and this is as far as it got. Its shameful how terrible people get elevated by the dumb unwashed masses.
When I was 19, I was super into a 16 year old. I know the age difference is only 3 years but it’s still illegal. Anyways I perused this girl and we talked inappropriately. Her parents found out because she was up at like 3am on her phone laughing and it woke them up. I get a text the next day saying this is “___” dad, you have two options. You come talk to me face to face or I call the cops and press charges. So I talked to him and after the first like 20min after he cooled off and wasn’t wanting to strangle me we started to kinda hit it off. Told him about graduating 2nd from valedictorian, then going into the army and doing jump school and I told him how ultimately I wanted to be a ranger. Fast forward 22 years and me and her are still married. No I didn’t make rangers, that shit is tough af
I once told a dirty joke to a bunch of 16-18 year-old guys as their 26 year-old HS soccer coach and regretted it as it was inappropriate and if someone took it the wrong way I could have been fired and honestly it would have been justified and I wouldn't have fought it. It definitely wasn't being a PDFphile, but I towed a line I shouldn't have. He is leaving a lot of breadth between a dumb comment like I said and some of the worst things people can think of by not releasing the convos.
This is why I love you man. I often disagree with (parts of) your takes on things, but I know you always operate in good faith, and In this instance I am in near 100% agreement. You're the first person I've found that has properly addressed the question of WTF does "leaned too much at times in the direction of inappropriate" mean in this context? I've felt like an insane person following this, because that phrase is doing SO MUCH work in people's minds, and nearly none of it has been rational. If they're the super "anti" types, this is, in their minds, incontrovertible evidence that he was sexting with a minor and is a PDF groomer, etc. If they're his die hard supporters, that phrase means "he probably said a couple jokes that were dancing around the bush of wrong". For me, he 100% should have known better, and these conversations should have been a nonstarter from minute one. I'm roughly his age and I wouldn't even respond to a DM from a person that I even *suspected* was a minor, regardless of the reason of the DM, to avoid exactly this type of perception. The simple fact is, we don't know. Without seeing unedited logs, we just don't know. What we do know: 1. He was consistently messaging a minor, per his own words, at times inappropriately. 2. No criminal charges were filed against him. 3. Twitch paid out the remainder of their contract (after sitting on this info for 3 yrs). My personal suspicion is he was probably at the very minimum being flirtatious. This alone is completely unacceptable, and wildly inappropriate, and as you said, scuzzy as fuck. Anything over and above that is even worse. In a way, this reminds me a little bit of the Chris D'Elia situation. Ultimately it came out that once we got ahold of the unedited logs, none of the girls he was either sleeping with or trying to sleep with were minors, and the ones he found out were, he immediately cut off contact (at least this is my understanding as of now). Now, should a 40 year old guy have been trying to sleep with 18 year old's. No, that's beyond scuzzy, and the vast majority of people would view that (correctly IMO) highly negatively. He was literally being the joke/meme from Archer when he tells the girl at the ski resort, "call me the minute you turn 18", etc. Funny as an edgy joke, not funny and f'd up as a real life situation. Was he doing anything illegal? Also no. Did he deserve the public repercussions? Yes, absolutely. I think you are correct that this would be a wise time for him to just bow out. He is clearly a multi-millionaire at this point. If he is truly a changed man, then he should recognize that this situation for what it is, and just bow out.
He brought up on himself. But no criminal charges and twitch paid out the rest of the contract. Knowing the type of employers in that company I have my doubt to the extend of the accusations.
That person should be sued for breach of information because if they were settling this outside of court cases or whatever the situation may be, this would’ve been handled properly closed and sealed, but yet somebody wanted to ruin his career because their life sucks.
I don't know the entire story yet, so I will say this in passing: If he knowingly did this, then he needs to not have a career. I don't agree with harassment under any circumstances, so I am not saying people should harass and make his life hell, but as someone who was m*lested and r*ped by a grown man (censored because RU-vid hides comments with these words; I disagree with censoring personally) who knew what he was doing, the damage he probably did is far worse than you will probably ever bring yourself to accept (everyone is different so some people not being permanently scarred be being texted by a grown man doesn't mean it doesn't damage somebody, because many of us are irreparably damaged). Now, if he did NOT do this on purpose, then I 100% agree with you, that person is an asshole. If the victim was the one who leaked it, then I don't have a n-opinion on that, because victims are allowed to out their abuser if they so choose, period. They were the ones harmed, not us. We just miss our streamer. That is nothing compared to any alleged damage he did. If you disagree, that is your right and I will not hate or argue with you.
Seems like its probably really bad, whether in the content of his messages or the age of the minor, judging from the totality of his statement. I wouldn't be surprised if someone has the actual messages and this is a little back and forth game before they are inevitably released. Just goes to show that a lot of times these seemingly random acts of "censorship" have more going on than we are privy to, which even made sense to me at the time, given that i couldn't see how removing him from the platform would be something Twitch would want to do unless forced to.
The largest scandal here is Erik using light mode! Seriously though, it does seem like he didn't do anything illegal, otherwise Twitch would also be in hot water for not reporting him to law enforcement. But he is 1) VERY dumb, and 2) a weirdo. The big difference would be if he didn't know they were a minor at the time. That would make things much better IMO. But he phrased his tweet in such a way that it seems unlikely, otherwise he would have been explicit about that important fact.
I'm of the opinion you should draw a line in the sand and never approach that line, but sometimes people are stupid. I just don't like trial by internet-mob. If he did something illegal, it should go to the proper authorities and get settled in court. Idk if ya'll are familiar with Ed Piskor, but this situation reminds me of that, a bit. Piskor was a comic book creator. Very talented guy, though not as confident as Doc. A woman released DMs that were clearly edited for maximum damage and told the world Piskor was a creep bc she was 17 when they exchanged a few DMs. When folks started calling him a pedo/predator/etc., demanding his head on a pike, she clarified that he wasn't any of those things, he was just being a creep, but by that time it was too late. The entire internet piled on, convinced of his guilt. Some of his colleagues decided to get their digs in, while the getting was good. Folks do love getting self-righteous about other people's mistakes. Piskor ended up self-deleting. A lot of folks have since come out in his defense, long-time comic book creators and some more modern creators, which is something you don't see with actual predators. I would never do this, but sometimes older men say flirty/inappropriate things to high school girls. It ain't right, but it's typically not worth ruining someone's life over. We are not Dr. Disrespect's judge and jury, and we should not have been that of Piskor. I would also like to point out that the guy who has been claiming that Doc was sexting a minor did so in a very reprehensible way: he made three tweets, telling folks to buy tickets to his band's show, during which - if the show sold-out - he would reveal the reason Doc was banned from Twitch. Does monetizing the 'victimization' of a minor sound like something a good person would do? The whole thing is just weird. Why did twitch pay him out for canceling his contract? Surely, if he was engaging in illegal activity, they wouldn't have had to pay him out. And if it does come to light that he was being a predator (instead of just an idiot), well, I'm sure his streaming career would be finished, and rightly so. But until then, until very clear details come to light, my stance is, he probably said some dumb but not illegal things. Ya'll, men today are the same as men yesterday. In my experience, both men and women can be crappy people, and fame comes with its own set of pitfalls. Just don't get on too high of a horse, when you see someone fall off theirs.
I was a fan of the doc before all this came out. But there's absolutely no defending him on this one. He has admitted to inappropriately messaging a minor, that in itself is completely unacceptable. If he didn't know she was a minor, I'm sure he would have mentioned that in his statement on twitter. Also, its very annoying when you hear someone say "i own my mistakes, i take responsibility"...when you're doing so 7 years after the fact, and after the accusations have gone public. Cancel culture is a cancer on our society, but this is not cancel culture, this is holding someone accountable for their inexcusable behaviour
Whatever sense of community and entertainment Dr. DisRespect provides his viewers overrides any sense of decency a majority of them might have. I predict he will suffer very few professional consequences as result of his admission. I’m seriously concerned about men in this country. Something is broken and it’s in no small part the due to the non-stop dopamine, porn, and rage machine known as the internet. Trust me, I indulge in it, I’m not on a high horse.
This is very well said. I am concerned about men in this country also. And it's not just on one side of the cultural spectrum or the other. It's all over.
Oh please. There was more sexual assault back in the day witbout the internet, when prudish opinions were a lot more popular. Unfortunately some men are just gonna be predators.
How do say "I am concerned about this." without people reading "I support Dr. Disrespect"? I loathe Dr. Disrespect. I have rarely seen a clip of him that I enjoyed - and most of the clips I get littering my timeline are from Fans who are taking what they believe to be GOOD clips of him and sharing them. (I'm either blocking or have been blocked by most of the people sharing clips of him meant to make him look bad, so I rarely see the "bad" clips of him.) I think Gaming (and the internet in general) would be better if people like him did NOT have *industry-promoted* platforms. (Platform yes, Industry-Promoted platform, no.) Streaming would be better off if he (and streamers like him) were treated like the Hot Tub eThots - they exist, but whenever they break containment, they get shoved back into their little adult-only silo with a time-out period. (but allowed a platform! just not one that is *promoted* by either Streaming or Gaming.) Him being a face of ANYTHING is a problem, and him losing his place as a Face is a benefit to Gaming and Streaming in general. But not like this. Not unless something CRIMINAL happened. To me, that's where the hard line gets drawn. Criminal is a hard line, one that is effectively the end of any discussion. Inappropriate is the opening of a fight because what is "Inappropriate" to me is NOT inappropriate to many other people, and vice-versa. We all seem to be able to agree that sexting a minor, as an adult, is absolutely inappropriate - but without criminal charges being filed, it becomes a grey area. This APPEARS to be what happened with Dr. Disrespect (and I do believe this is what happened), but it's not outright stated or confirmed, which makes it even more of a grey area. And to top it all off, I'm already inclined to see the worst in what Dr. Disrespect does, can I be trusted to judge his behaviour fairly? No. I think he should be siloed, I think he shouldn't be the face of a Gaming or Streaming company, so I'm going to read anything he said in a negative light. And on the standard of "inappropriate", if I found out that an adult was talking to my child in secret about Religion, I would crack down on it because I believe that's inappropriate. (Including adult Atheists trying to remove my child's religious beliefs.) If an adult was trying to convince my child to adopt a different gender, I'd be looking up how people on CSI tripped up and got caught. In the latter case, I would find someone texting my son and saying "Cut your nuts off and take estrogen to become the girl we both know you are!" to be far, FAR more dangerous (not just inappropriate) than a Dr. Disrespect texting my daughter and saying "69 days until you're 18. Let's meet up the day after your birthday!" But based on the criteria of "inappropriate", not "illegal", would I be right *in any way* to destroy their livelihoods, reputations, careers, personal lives, etc.? To me, that requires a much higher standard - and what we've been presented here, publicly, with Dr. Disrespect doesn't reach that standard. So while I'm looking at Dr. Disrespect losing his reputation and status as the Face of a gaming company as good things overall... I'm concerned that we're doing it in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, allowing the wrong powers to enforce this and we're setting ourselves up for some really nasty blowback in the future. Look at what was "Inappropriate" in 2014, then look at what is "Inappropriate" in 2024 - what's going to be "inappropriate" in 2034? Do we want to support "inappropriate" as the standard we use to destroy someone's life?
No police report, no criminal charges, this it a whole lot of taking advantage of a bad situation (which Doc caused entirely on his own) to pile on a ridiculous amount of Multi-partisan virtue signaling. And the reaction to this situation perfectly explains why Twitch banned him and paid him out in full - Twitch is in a lose-lose situation, this loses Twitch less - and why his new company threw him out. Dude has cultivated a bad reputation. His literal name is "Disrespect", there's no legitimate reason to respect HIM in this situation. But it's a bad precedent to keep reinforcing. And hypocritical for many of those calling for his head. If we could make a Venn diagram of "People who want children's sex Ed picture books explaining anal sex to pre-teens.", "People who want to lower the voting age to 16." and "People who want to lynch (...literally...?) DrDisinclinedToBeADecentHumanBeing.", there would be a distressing amount of overlap.
I’ll be controversial here If I was the parent of the minor, I’d be enraged But I’m not, and there are more pressing matters in the world, so the amount of attention poured onto this is absolutely next level absurd. Yes I’m using the “there are starving kids in Africa” argument. Because there actually is a horrific war in Sudan right now. If you want to care about this (not talking to you Erik, you’re great!), to the general audience, know that you’re caring about it because you happen to find it interesting. Performative outrage about stuff like this is asinine. Good video, but felt like I had to say that in between folding my laundry.
That's fair. I'm not outraged. I don't know him personally (I sympathize with his friends who have a dog in this fight) but it's definitely newsworthy even if it's not worth going on and on about.
Isn't he a bit (lot) too old for the gaming community now? At least for the kind of videos he used to make. I honestly have no idea what he's doing these days
So? If nothing happened, then nothing happened. The rest is a bunch people getting on their high-Karen-horses and casting stones with incomplete information. FWIW, I have never listened Dr. Disrespect. I used to follow one Twitch streamer and gave up after a couple of weeks as I prefer to PLAY MY GAMES and not be a couch potato watching others play.
Erik you are a predator too, but a different kind. You predates on someone else falling carreer to gain some views. You claim he is losing million of followers but does not show any number. Still on 2.5 million of followers on Twitter and 130k likes on his "forcefully" tweet. So you are not a king maker or king slayer, 83 likes, 3.5k views. So, if there WAS a crime, he should be prosecuted, but as everything was settled, I do not see why you or anyone else should play the judge role on this. If you do not trust your legal system, you should overthrown it and put yourselves in power and prosecute everyone who had improper behavior, according to your "superior" morals. Meanwhile every damn Epstein friend is still walking around free without consequences, Forbes is not talking about them... You have no real ethics when you expect better from a streamer than your politicians.
