Hi. Not gonna stop by very much, signed up so I could keep track of this thread. I have some thoughts.
Re Spoony: I have a mental illness profile similar to his, although we differ a little in the exact diagnosis of our mood disorders, and I have additionally severe anxiety (which, heck, he may have too) and one of that is complex PTSD (which used to be called chronic PTSD, because it's the kind you probably won't recover from). For folks like us... well, isolation from social pressure is actually a good thing, even if we by nature are extroverts. Sometimes things get worse over time, especially if we've been in abusive environments.
I don't know how it is for Spoony exactly but I know when I tried to work with others after leaving my abusive work environment, which I'd been at for ten years, I just couldn't do it. My paranoia and mistrust of others had blossomed as I watched others get abused and myself get abused, and I could do nothing to stop it. In the end, I was unable to even work with people I'd been friends with for years who were astonishingly understanding. When I look at Spoony's history, I wonder if this happened to him shortly post-Channel Awesome, as it did for me.
After a year of trying to work with others and failing miserably, I tried to start a Patreon. Three times. But the social pressure of having to keep it going, my own paranoia of other people, and the fact that an abusive work environment negated what little therapy I was allowed to get during that time, just meant I couldn't run one of those things. It's not just the inconsistent output but just the pressure. And the paranoia. Lots of that paranoia stems for me from survival stuff that was difficult to do in the past.
So I slashed myself off from social media, off from Patreon, off from forums, and disappeared. And that's helped me heal. But it's been less than a year that I've done that. Even with someone supportive by my side, as Spoony's girlfriend is for him, it's slow going. I could not even begin to tell you when I could ever get to the point that I can socialize with folks again. I suspect it is worse for Spoony because he had a super toxic fanbase, while I had a small fanbase that consisted of people who told me, very kindly, that killing myself would be better for my health. Um, so I guess, different forms of toxicity, but I still think Spoony's was worse 'cause that probably happened to him too.
Mental illness doesn't make us dangerous. It makes us way open for abuse by others. We may melt down in horrible ways, but we sure as hell don't recover without drastic measures.
So disappearing from the internet is actually a really good thing. I know when I disappeared from the internet I was able to really dig into my newfound art journey, even though my illnesses knock me out for so many days. It's useful to not have more of my limited energy tied up in the internet. I suspect the same is true for Spoony.
I'm only here right now for two reasons. One is because Channel Awesome is something I used to like, although I stopped visiting the site some years back. And now CA is an open wound for me--not least because I've suffered not just workplace abuse, but physical/emotional/sexual abuse from my parents. My own father sexually groomed me.
And I looked up to JewWario because I spent many years fighting off suicidal feelings, which only lifted when I was 38 years old; I've been suicidal since I was in kindergarten. And now? Sigh.
So. You know. Don't blame me if I strongly strongly dislike him now, even though he is dead. Or you could blame me... yeah, see, that's why I'm not on the internet. I just don't trust people to not fuck me over for saying stuff like that. I've had people "both sides" me about my father's sexual grooming among other things. So like, none of what's going on on Twitter surprises me, not even Malcolm's weird turn. It's a thing that happens. People are people.
The other reason is because I have some perspective on the JewWario stuff that may help others? I posted it elsewhere on YouTube as a comment but all JewWario-related videos, whether done now or even fucking ten years ago, got such poisonous comments that they are now comment-less.
Anyways here is thing I wrote. Hopefully it helps. I have this horrible thing where I have been abused by so many people that abuse just doesn't surprise me, I expect it, but at the same time I care so much about other people that I want to help. anyways
Hey, so, perhaps I'm telling folks something you already know. But I am older (gods, nearly 40 soon) and if life has taught me anything, it's that even people who do awful things contain multitudes. Some people contain only facets of terrible things, but some contain facets that were not terrible, and in isolation even good. But those facets are not in isolation.
I say this after a very long time of thinking about the various people who abused me throughout my life. I never knew a life without some form of severe, controlling abuse until I was past 35. I've had starvation, physical torture, emotional abuse and blackmail from my mother, stalking, attempted murders, sexual harassment from superiors in college , abuse from managers throughout almost my entire career as a software developer, and what I'm slowly coming to realize was child grooming from my own father.
It's not that I forgive my abusers. It's not that I forget what they did. It's not that I forget that they had horrible aspects to them, and in some cases were all horrible aspects. It's not that I think I can separate their good parts from their bad parts; they were whole human beings, and it's complex.
But we have to remember that everything is complex. It's perfectly OK to both mourn a friend who died, even as we acknowledge and support the people he abused, even as we condemn what he did, even as we remember the good he might have done for us as well as remembering that it served as partly a smokescreen for his actions. It's hard to accept what Justin's done. But I think we do a disservice to ourselves, to his victims, and even to Justin himself if we do not accept every part of him as being real, including the dark parts that reached out and ruined the lives of others.
And it's okay to feel conflicted, and okay for this sort of processing to take years. I myself took nearly 40 years to remember that the father who in turns strangled me, groomed me, physically tortured me, and brainwashed me could also sing songs of home in an earnest and beautiful voice, and for that not to hurt or feel like a betrayal to myself because of all the horrible things he did to me.
It's not forgiveness. It's not forgetting. It's making a space for myself in the grief and horror and other complicated feelings, and to move as best I can into the future. And to leave him behind---the good as well as the bad. He can't play a part in how I develop as a person anymore.
And that's what I'm going to do with regards to Justin as well.
We can only move forwards, and leave behind those who betrayed our principles and even ourselves.
Sorry for super-long post.
For right now, I'm riding out this CA wave until the end. I need closure, even if that closure is just a final trend of CA shutting up for a few weeks. And then I'll be back to being off the internet. Even now I use browers and app blockers to limit my exposure to this for a few hours a day at most.
Note: I do sometimes update my little art blog, which is the only thing I really attach myself to anymore. It keeps people from worrying too much.
I hope to stay quiet and just observe. Can't promise that, because with the internet, that's just a doomed promise for us all. :)