#eddplant
In a tumblr post (http://olyusha.tumblr.com/post/79236837547/hmm-ok-well-more-lets-start-with-weird) his former girlfriend Olga has revealed that Milsom raped and otherwise sexually and emotionally abused her over the course of their six month relationship, which started when she was just 15 and progressed to physical abuse shortly after she turned 16, under the legal age of consent in Missouri. The two met at Vidcon 2010 when she was 14 and he was 21.
This is not the only post Olga has made about Milsom’s behaviour, this just being the first to spark widespread condemnation of the musician. Along with details of multiple alleged assaults they include a screen grab of a conversation between them which apparently shows Milsom acknowledging his actions, saying that “certainly there are things about our relationship that were questionable”.
In regards to coming forward now she has said that:
“it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t my fault ok i blamed myself for a very long time i figured there must’ve been something wrong with me if i wasn’t enjoying it because so many girls my own age would’ve fucking killed to be where i was and i had to put it to the back of my mind for a long time because it was so shameful and i didn’t want to admit to anyone that was skeptical of our relationship that maybe i’d been wrong and stupid and now years down the road i’ve had a lot of time to think about it and i’ve learned a lot more about sexual abuse and i started to really understand and line up the events”
Reaction
Milsom’s work has already been removed from the DFTBA records online shop and from the lineup of this years Summer in the City event by former close friends Liam Dryden and Alan Lastufka, organiser of SitC and co-founder of DFTBA records respectively and who -along with other prominent YouTubers- have also made posts repudiating Milsom’s actions.
“I am making no attempt to hide the fact Tom and I were once friends. He spent a weekend at my house, we worked on numerous songs and other musical projects together back in 2009. But hearing about some of the things he’s done, and was doing back then, has hurt, and I no longer wish to make another dollar off his fame or name”
Hank Green has also made a statement regarding it, making particular mention of the fact that the two first met at VidCon, the largest annual event within the community.
“I met Olga in 2010 at VidCon. She was a very smart, very clever, very cool young woman. […] I had no inkling that they had become a couple. I am horrified and extremely disappointed in myself that I was not able to realize that this was happening and put a stop to it […] […]the more fact that it existed infuriates me…sexual relationships need to be equitable and they can’t be when people are in dramatically different life stages or when one person enters the relationship as a fan of another.”
This follows a number of other allegations against popular YouTubers, namely against musicians Eddplant, Kelly Montoya and most notably, Mike Lombardo, who was sentenced to 5 years in prison and made to register as a sex offender just 2 weeks ago.
Lombardo was made the subject of an FBI investigation after a friend of a underage girl he was grooming tipped them off to his activities and evidence was subsequently found on his phone.
Wider Problem
Much has been said about “fangirls” and the exaggerated social gap that has developed between popular producers of YouTube content and the consumers of that content since the end of the relatively egalitarian culture of the website’s beginning. This gap is particularly concerning when those consumers tend to be young and impressionable.
Examples of the power creators wield over their viewers include fairly innocuous things like asking for votes to win competitions or crowd sourcing funding for concerts.
However, there have also been incidents that led to accusations of overinflated egos, such as people crowd surfing over fans at gatherings, mismanaged events that led to serious injuries and sometimes of outright exploitation.
The question now is whether what these YouTubers are believed to have done (in Lombardo’s case convicted of) is simply an example of the wider societal rape and sexual assault problem and the repugnant actions of individuals, or, whether the attitude of superiority that exists within some sections of the YouTube community has become a far, far more serious problem.
The fact is that her age and their relationship was no great secret. She was his fan, and they met at VidCon.
There is a responsibility in that and it belongs to everyone.
Yeah yeah that shit ain’t going to fly matey. He’s written a post here and it makes me sick. This is what happens when manipulative abusers hang out with other abusers and convince themselves nothing happened.
sick
He didn’t even TRY to deny the allegations when I skyped him when I found out. JUst shrugged and said “what do you want me to say?”
yeah sit the fuck down you gross human
Related to Blann’s post:
- According to RAINN, an estimated 46% of sexual assault cases are reported to the police; only 3% of rapists spend time in prison (US statistics).
- Because of the way trauma affects memory, “the typical fact-based approach used by law enforcement during interviews is unlikely to work with a victim of sexual assault.” (Washington Post)
- Blann: “we engaged in sexual activity on a number of occasions, the last of which was the result of me pressuring her after I had been repeatedly told to stop”
- ThisIsAbuse.co.uk: “being pressured or forced to have sex when you don’t want to is a crime.”
