Lies, Deception, and ProJared - The Story of ProJared 

Correction #1 Screw Attack never contracted the Nostalgia Critic. Correction #2 The decision to buy the game store was not an impulsive decision it was an emotional one.

a reminder: having a poly/open relationship or having a child will NOT fix your relationship.

Stories like this is why I'm convinced the online drama scene is a kind of blood sport for modern times. At the very least, it plays to out baser instincts of wanting to see people engage in a very public confrontation that will likely not end well for at least one of them, if not all of them.

This is such a huge case of drama that shouldve stayed private. Imagine if your breakup drama was being broadcasted on the internet, becoming popcorn entertainment to random people.

Ethan making fun of how anyone looks is peak irony.

As someone who followed Jared through it all back when he was on Screwattack, I remember the drama was insane in 2019 and I waited to see what Jared was gonna do...And...He lawyered up, got the receipts, and actually did a great job to prove his case....too bad the internet didn't want to even listen...

I always hated people making fun of his looks instead of what he did. And when I realized he didn't really do anything then things got even worse feeling

When ProJared released his rebuttal video he said something that made me feel really bad. He said that nobody came to him to listen his version and he looked empty and depressed, I saved that video since it has been unlisted since quite a while now

I saw a picture recently that PBG posted of him with Jared. Peebs just seemed concerned for a friend and wasn't sure wtf was happening. Glad to see they're on good terms.

Pro-tip: if someone ever claims to not give a shit about others’ physical appearances that are out-of-control, just take a look at how they talk about the people they don’t like, then you’ll see how virtuous they truly are

The "I have the receipts" quote is still one of the most legendary things to come out of this drama. It was like a fucking finisher move, it was wild. I remember so many memes using it sprouting up at the time.

Peanut Butter Gamer had the best take from day 1, no throwing Jared under the bus, just him saying "This ain't it chief" to Jared's ex.

Heidi:"i want to sleep with someone else" Jared:"ok, so will i" Heidi:"wait no...."

I think the part that pisses me off the most is that little to nobody apologized & it's no secret that to this day it's still something that affecting his channel.

ProJared handled this PERFECTLY. You don't rise to the bait. You stay quiet, gather your case and once the knee-jerk screeching has passed, you dump the facts on people calmly.

Part of what made his response video so legendary to me to this day is how usually those type of videos start with a somber mood, and a while to get to the topic with awkward sentences and filler. Jared's response video literally started with "Hey, what's up? *Anyway;"* it always felt like such a power move that he just starts it making his point almost immediately rather than try to paint himself as a sympathetic victim.

I remember Lindsay Ellis said in a tweet or video or something once how people on the internet aren’t satisfied with interpersonal conflict being JUST about a shitty thing. Everyone wants to make a definitive moral judgement. Personally I think there was probably some shitty stuff that Jared did,but I also don’t think he’s a pedophile. People have messy relationships sometimes. Sometimes good people do huge damage to each other, and nobody comes out of that acting “rational “. God, people’s online are gonna lose it when they hear about fleetwood mac…

I swear, there was a trend in the mid-to-late 2000’s where there was so many sitcoms based around gaming culture online.

The incident taught me first how I should not trust even my eyes and alerted me that there are people who no matter how much you hang out with them, they will want your fall and will work to destroy you just for fame.

My poor sister was a huge fan of Dice, Camera, Action - another DND podcast that starred Jared and Holly. It was DMed by Chris Perkins and sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. The show was cancelled because of the drama at the halfway point before any of the characters could be resolved.

If it's any consolation... As of November 2022, Heidi is broke, single and running a failing craft business. Karma bites back.

I won't pretend that I haven't always thought he looked goofy AF but holy shit am I surprised at how many of the prominent drama channels covering this to went STRAIGHT at that low hanging fruit. They even went as far as bringing the appearances of the women involved into it. Huge fuckin' yikes, hopefully they realize how cringe they were in hindsight.

In hindsight, this is truly a situation where nobody came off looking good, including the audience that watched it all play out.

The funniest thing in this video is seeing that Rabbid Luigi called Jared a gremlin when he himself is not particularly good-looking either. Really shows how quickly people will put down another just to raise themselves up a peg

I kinda admire Jared. He had his scandal, owned his mistakes, proved the receipts.. and he hasn't given up. I respect that.

That situation was one of the most infuriating cancellations I've ever seen, really went to show what a cesspool Twitter is and how easily most RU-vidrs will throw aside their morals if it means making a few extra bucks. I will never understand how people get so much joy out of dog piling on others and seeing their lives destroyed.

Sad thing is, this still isn't the whole story. Charlie and Chai were friends with two women who admitted in all the initial drama that they had catfished and blackmailed Jared, telling him to pay them or they'd release his nudes. (And yes, there is proof of all this.) The catfishers publically bragged about routinely catfishing and blackmailing men, and Charlie was a member of this group, all of whom, catfishers and Charlie, are cosplayers like Heidi. Charlie lives very near Jared and Heidi, is a cosplayer, and another friend of theirs, also a cosplayer, is posing with Heidi and calls Heidi her idol. All of this was set up by people who knew Heidi.

The fact that he got fired before the shit show known as rooster teeth stepped in automatically makes him the luckiest man alive

What I’m taking from Heidi is “I got to fuck a bunch of dudes when I wanted to but Jared wasn’t allowed to talk to another woman without my consent” Sorry but she’s definitely not a victim

I definitely think ProJared's story was a watershed moment in RU-vid drama. It was one of the first big examples of a RU-vidr successfully recouping a significant amount of their credibility and social standing, as opposed to simply digging their own grave deeper. His online presence may be permanently diminished; and it's hard to say if that's due to regular burn out, or lingering stigma from the initial incident, or both; but I do feel like his tragic downfall was a major turning point that made people more critical, more skeptical, and more rational when it came to these kinds of controversies and accusations. Obviously, I wish it hadn't cost him so much, but there's a silver lining, and I think that's important.

"projared and conjared" made me laugh more than it should have

Basically every criticism against him had the same source "just trust me bro" Really a disgusting situation and shame on all the people who lied to try and get their thirty seconds in the spotlight and also shame on everyone who took all those lies at face value without a shred of evidence.

1:07:55 got me crying. It's like his whole life was destroyed for months, and then, through all the horrible stuff the internet put him through. He got his life back. Really makes me feel incredibly happy for him

Man... it sure would be great to see at ScrewAttack video done by Joon. Anyone else interested?

Peanut Butter Gamer (Austin) is the definition of a real friend. Immediatly jumps to defend his bro, and even when everyone tells him he is wrong for doing it, he still only steps back enough to say "well, let's wait for Jared's response before we all judge him as guilty"

The users that made up all the lies about ProJared on Twitter were also wrapped up in the UK RU-vid community as I recognised the usernames. They’d send incendiary replies and tweets to myself and friends and when this all blew up it felt like they finally got the attention they wanted but very glad it blew up in their faces.

Here's the problem with Heidi's response. She lied at the beginning. She came out of the gate with malice and the intent of making Jared look as bad as possible with "TODAY I LEARNED MY EX-HUSBAND WAS FUCKING HOLLY BEHIND MY BACK" and then, after proof was shown of this not being true "Well, I did know about this, but I tried to make it work." You see, if she lied about that and she admited that, why should we believe anything she says? Jared and Holly put up proof of their side of the story, Heidi just has the value of her own word, and she already run it throw the mud with that first malicious lie.

i remember feeling so sad for humanity when every content creator i watched started ragging on someone's appearance like high school bullies. everyone jumped on believing Heidi right away. but if i didn't watch Jared's channel for 10 year, maybe i would have been on Heidi's side too...

I think this is an important lesson in "Evidence does not equal Fact." This is something that is lost on the mob mentality and gets sadly drowned out when drama like this crops up. While evidence is an important factor in establishing Fact, it cannot become Fact without it being heavily scrutinized. Folks take things at face value too easily, I myself have fallen prey to this as well. I hope those folks that threw wood onto ProJared's burning at least came out of this better able to scrutinize information that's presented to them.

I only became aware of the controversy when seeing Jared’s video “you’ve been lied to”. Because I would actively check for new uploads from him. I really enjoyed his content. After hearing his side. I looked at as much of the rest as I could. And I gotta say, his sex life is none of my concern. His marriage isn’t either (provided we wasn’t actually abusive). It sounds like a horrible break up and I’m glad he got through it.

I see this as a Rise, Fall, and Rise again of Jared rather than a fall. He's enjoying what he's doing, he's happier than he was, and his content is still good. I will never understand how folks will make themselves out as perfect and better than Jared enough to attack him.

I actually met ProJared when I was working at a movie theater. I was working the concession stand and he came up. I talked to him and said, "You look like ProJared" and he said, "I get that a lot." Eventually he told me it was him. It was hilarious lol.

man the sequence of youtubers mocking his looks at 42:00 is brutal considering all the fuckers talking about him are on the same level of attractiveness

I had a friend who was a big fan of ProJared, I was unfamiliar with him myself. When all this went down I felt a little bad because I thought my friend might feel betrayed, but we lost contact for unrelated reasons. I hope he held out and remains a fan.

Never seen such an interesting flip, from "ugh, yet another big RU-vidr cheating" to "holy shit this guy took his time to get ALL the evidence lined up instead of fall prey to internet drama" Really inspiring tbh, mad respect gained for Jared. I do wish most people who piled onto him had come out and properly apologized, but internet drama is what it is, a race for attention then go silent when the truth comes out. Also felt really bad that *no one* reached out to him, damn.

We need to see an in depth ScrewAttack retrospective. They really revolutionized a lot of how content was produced on RU-vid. I already know Craig is down. Make it happen.

I think the saddest part of this is Jared still get called a cheater and struggle to even get back 900k subs when he was at a million before eveything happen

The ProJared situation hammered home how important taking the "wait and see what all sides show and tell" first is to true critial thinking

I met Jared at Zulu's in Bothell, WA. I recognized him even with his mask on and he was super cool. let me get a pic with him then we talked about content (I'm a very small streamer/sometimes youtube uploader). Got to tell him how much I loved his OG Nuzlocke with Nuptup (Oddish). Anyway, what happened to him was disgusting. He didnt do anything wrong. His kinks are his own but nothing he did with/showed that girl was outside of consent at all.

ProJared's drama was actually the reason why I am always so doubtful of any accusation. I blindly went against him and felt stupid later.

I've never understood why people dogged on Holly's appearance. Like wtf, Repzion making the Gollum reference was embarrassing to see. Small thing to fixate on, I know. Just confusing. Internet mobs are weird.

"I want a poly marriage." **Jared listens** "WOW, I'M UPSET YOU'RE SEEING SOMEONE AND I DON'T LIKE IT, STOP IT NOW!" No heros in this story, but there's a clear super villian. Edit: Jared said a lot of, "hey, I did this, I did that," with a decent amount of evidence. Heidi said a lot of, "he did this, he did that," with very, very little evidence.

Should be called, "rise, fall, and rise again." Jared did what many on the internet couldn't and he came back better than ever IMO.

Morals of the story: 1. Keep your relationship drama off of the net 2. Don't invite fans to send and exchange nudes 3. Polyamory is probably a bad idea when you have a pre-existing LTR

His rebuttal video is legendary. He absolutely wrecked everyone with evidence. Biggest turn around I’ve seen on RU-vid. Definitely showed how jumping on the angry mob bandwagon is just plain stupid. This just shows how fucked the internet really can be.

Projared's Two Worlds reviews and many of his others are so good I'll go back and watch them fairly regularly. I'd recommend them to anyone into game reviews

I lived this drama when it was out. Huge bits of the story were missed out in this video - and I wish I still had the 'receipts' from the time - were Heidi found Jared's old mobile phone and the nudes were primarily leaked from that device, as there were texts where she was blackmailing/threatening him with it. And that she assumably stumbled upon both Charlie's during this period. It's unsure how involved she was with the minor-soliciting scandal, but she was a part of it as she mentioned it first. When JTK says Heidi was quiet during an early period of the scandal...yes and no. She was quiet on her own Twitter, but she was active everywhere else spreading the narrative alongside the two Charlies AND on facebook (where she was the first to drop a post about the whole ordeal). And lastly, though there wasn't concrete evidence it was Heidi who wanted an open relationship just for herself originally. She forced Jared to do it later as he had issues with the arrangement, but he eventually benefitted from it emotionally connecting with someone as his wife was - and let's not kid ourselves - abusing him emotionally. That is known, what isn't clear is if she had a side boyfriend the entire time, but it was suspected a male consplayer she was seemingly at every event with from a certain point (prior to them opening their marriage for her) up until the scandal was the guy, as fans had come forward noticing them together and Jared's marriage was a hot topic in inner circles due to Heidi flaunting herself with another guy at conventions. Yeah, Heidi was a selfish abusive monster, and she only proved the point with her tirade for weeks after his clapback video. Girl wouldn't let it go, but it was noted she stopped saying specific things, so she probably got a stern letter from his lawyer to pack it in otherwise he'd seek legal action, which is something he alluded to but didn't want to take legal action and just call it quits.

I'm a fan of Jared even met him twice when he came to cons in my state; absolutely sweet and funny guy, he even remembered me. It sucks that he got pushed through the wringer and I felt so bad for him. I'm happy he's still making good videos and I love his FF retrospectives recently.

this whole thing was a massive moment for me to get away from h3 and that community, he took such a weird stance on it

A Screwattack documentary would be great. Early online gaming community was awesome to be around to see.

3:30 my girlfriend heard this and went “He DOESN’T want his head crushed by Chun-Li?! Coward!” 😂

The ProJared situation really reminds me of a line from an old Simpson's episode. A joke then, but far too common in recent years. "Your tears say more than real evidence ever could."

This whole thing was a chaotic mess and in regards to the whole cheating/not-cheating/poly/not-poly mess especially. However, it’s messy in the “you shouldn’t open your marriage in an attempt to fix it, that’s not healthy” kind of way. Like Jared says, that’s the private kind of mess that shouldn’t involve or affect us. But the Tumblr stuff is the finest example of actually having receipts to shut down nonsense cancellation fails. Textbook perfect example of how to handle that BS.

Ethan and Hila laughing over how another person looks is wild.

This was a cool video. I found his videos late last year and never knew any of the drama he went through and so unfairly. I loved all of his final fantasy and 90s jrpg reviews and he seemed like a good guy just from those videos, so I was shocked to see him on this channel. But it sounds like he was mostly not at fault and got the ire of a hatemob very unfairly. I'm glad he's managed to keep doing what he loves to do creating fun content. "The rise, fall, and rise again" of ProJared.

For a long time Jared fan watching all the drama unfold was painful. Seeing a channel get destroyed like that (a channel he worked really hard on nonetheless) was very upsetting. I was so glad when he came back. Maybe his channel will never recover for the aftermath of the drama but it's still nice to watch new videos he puts out. He works hard on them so he really deserves more success.

I remember tuning into his first Twitch stream after everything went down, and watching how grateful and overwhelmed he was with the support was a moment that will live with me forever. Dude was in tears at points, and the sub-train lasted for like an hour or two.

The projarad drama was so out of left field but man he handled the accusations and stuff like a champ. Lots of people dog piling on him after it. Yet no one bothered to notice Jared kept quiet for a long time after his short update video. Just sucks that other videos with him from collabs got erased due to his presence and the drama that followed him. Which it makes sense from normal boots but yet they didn't reinstate the videos after he cleared his name. So that sucks

It was interesting being a fan of Holly, Ross and Jared before all of this happening. As much as I liked seeing the relationship of Holly and Ross in their occasional blogs together, from an outsider looking in, you could see that that it was a case of opposites attracted. The energy between Jared and Holly was very interesting though. They were both passionate about a lot of the same things. As close to a “soul mate”as you could find (once again from an outside observer perspective). It almost seemed like a shame that they were both married then haha. When it became really weird was during their time in DCA. Seeing the community ship their DnD characters romantically and seeing artwork of their characters being “intimate” was a bit odd, but they both enjoyed the art regardless. It wasn’t that surprising when the drama dropped. It was disappointing. The amount of people who were like “you dumped her for HER?!” Posts was almost comedic. Because just like Holly and Ross, the relationship between Jared and Heidi was oddly similar - a mismatch of personality. I cannot deny it was amusing seeing all the dunking on Jared, but whenever people would comment on how he would “trade his beautiful wife for a gremlin”, it was obvious how little people knew about the whole situation. I mean once again, I was an outsider too, but this made a LOT of sense. It’s a shame how everyone handled it, and I feel bad for Holly most of all. Outside of all this drama that brought out her personal life, she was thrown to the wolves. You never get to really know any of these people, but her content before all this was the nicest wholesome community.

He really does some of the best writing and explains why he does/doesn’t love the game he reviews

I like how a simple accusation is enough to kill someone’s image. Good thing history doesn’t show us burning women at the stake of being called a witch or anything.

I have to say, this is one of the best-executed videos I've seen on this topic. Kudos.

Ethen Klein mocking anyones looks is embarrassing. His wife giggling along. those 2 are amongst the few people who look weirder than Jared.

I still enjoy ProJared's content but when I see him nowadays I want to cry. All the stress has aged him immensely. He will live a lower quality life for the rest of his life and the people who lied about and abused him will never see a second of karma drives my blood to boiling temperatures.

Forgot about this guy till this notifaction, I've watched probably every single one of his old style review videos I loooooved them

Honestly I've never really understood all the harassment about his appearance. He certainly isnt the most attractive person to have ever lived. But he looks like a perfectly normal person.

Imagine how much better society would be without social media

Jared handled himself through this whole ordeal pretty maturely. He waited until he had enough evidence to prove his side before making a statement video, he didn't air his dirty laundry on social media like his wife at the time did and I recall hearing he voluntarily left NormalBoots to avoid causing trouble for them. I don't know when or if Jared's channel will return to its former glory, but he's done really well putting this whole thing behind him.

I used to follow him, until the drama in 2019. While I don't follow him anymore, mainly because of my own change in content interest. I do regret some of the things I was so quick to believe and said offline while speaking with others. I am just glad the truth is out and everyone has moved on from it.

Good video, man. I didn't know or care enough about Jared at the time this all went down to follow it, but I saw someone mention his debunk and went looking for info, and this was the most balanced and well-researched of the videos I've watched about it. GG, thanks for the informative watch, you've got a good thing going :)

It is strange how people switched on a dime to be pro revenge porn.

Man... It's sad to see that his former partners are at multiple million subs and on partnerships while Jared was ultimately left alone with a shadowbanned channel and a blacklisted presence on the internet. He's still one of the most talented game reviewers and presenters on the platform btw.

The lesson here is if you are a internet celebrity or content creator with a well known, channel dont do anything explicit, dont engage with any fans in any sexual or creepy way, just create your content stay away from controversy and stay humble.

Pro Jared has a new RU-vid "Now in the 90s." It comes out every Friday and they talk about video games that came out that week 30 years ago. I like it quite a bit.

Honestly im super glad i ended up watching this video. i remember when the drama was live and i only saw bits and peices and never got the full picture, im glad this video exists to change my long outdated perspective on projared that aside, that apology video was hands down the best one ive ever seen when it comes to yT drama apologies. No crying, no dramatics, just going over the situation and reciepts for it

Imagine wanting an open relationship, then getting mad when your partner follows through with it too

"Ugly man with big nose did horrible thing, lets make fun of ugly man with big nose hahaha. what do you mean he didn't actually do anything wrong"

Yo that woman really tried to destroy his life all because he was honest with her about how he felt. What a crazy person.

This reminds me so much of the Slazo situation. No matter how many times this happens, no one will ever learn or change their behavior. It's not about actually holding people accountable for their actions, it's never been about that. It's just sad, pathetic people trying to convince themselves that their high horse is the highest.

Wow, it’s stories like this that make me happy I go outside for fun and not on Twitter.

Jared deserves a hug tbh. Imagine your life being ruined because of lies, and knowing you can't do shit. Props to him for sticking around and redeeming himself

I didn't really pay much attention to Jared prior to the drama, but I've been a subscriber ever since. It's in my nature to want to know both sides to a story like this, and (this could be a bit of a flaw) to root for the 'underdog' when both sides aren't known, because the 'underdog' on the internet is almost always shouted down or prevented from speaking out at every opportunity. I was rooting for him the whole time and was really happy when he uploaded that video that shed light on things.

Wish annotations were still a thing. Need to add a correction. Screwattack never worked with Doug Walker. TGWTG always saw Screwattack as competition.

This whole situation is a perfect example of people just showcasing their own rotten cores. Everybody just got real 3rd grader-y with it and started insulting these people's looks. As if every one of them was sittin there at their computer looking like George Clooney. All those people calling them names were rotten on the inside and in my book, that's way worse than looking like an average human being on the outside. They wanted to shame people for cheating and lying (without evidence) as if they were on the right side morally but then also just shit all over them for their looks. Yeah, sounds great. Sounds like you're all just really upright, upstanding citizens.

32:15 this was so well timed that i refuse to belive this wasnt intentional. AMAZING 10/10

When your partner asks for an "open relationship," youre already in one. The only correct response is "goodbye"

I actually met Jared about 10 years ago at SGC 2013, and he was really such a nice guy and was more than happy to take both a photo with me, but also entertain the idea of being the “jerk” on camera while I was recording with a camcorder (this was a long time ago, kids lol). He was one of those creators for me that when this news broke out, I was hoping for a happier resolution, and I was happy to see that he truly was the lovable dork I had met all those years ago after all.

It's a shitty situation, because what Jared did was worthy of criticism, it was just paired with awful awful lies

This should be called the Rise and Fall and Rise of ProJared.

I like how people use to love Hollie, say stuff like “she’s a queen” and saying she’s pretty and then instantly turning to “she’s Gollum” after she did something people didn’t like lol