Every time I use my situation as an example of why abortion should be legal it usually goes like this-
“If I get pregnant as a result of rape I will die if I can’t abort the fetus before it kills me.”
“Then get your tubes tied.”
“My insurance won’t pay for that and I can’t afford it. Are you going to pay for it?”
“No, why would I do that? It’s not my responsibility to make sure you don’t get pregnant! (Even though I’m making it so you can’t abort it.)”
People are actually trying to tell me to “keep my legs closed” or to “use protection” when the example I gave was “as a result of rape.”
I reported and blocked those people because they don’t deserve the attention they’re starved for but imagine telling an actual rape victim that they should’ve kept their legs closed or use protection? Disgusting.
It’s been 2 days since allegations against Tom Milsom, and later former Sons of Admirals bandmate Alex Day, were made and the YouTube community is still deeply in shock.
“I stupidly shared a bed with Alex because he was holding my hand and I thought that was just gonna be it […] I’d never experienced anything like that before, especially when someone kind of ends up on top of you in the dark”
Furthermore, referring to Day’s cousin Danny and an un-named person, she states that:
“I had to listen to people who were 11 years apart having underage sex”
John Green
She also adds further credence to the theory that this was a long standing pattern of abuse by Day and a significant problem within the YouTube community as a whole, saying that:
“Alex texted Danny something along the lines of “which one do you want” because apparently he got first choice the last time this happened”
“when I first met Lindsey and I told her I had only been hanging out with youtubers for a few months, she told me to run away as fast as I could, and she was right. She was always right about that”
Shockingly, she says that none other than Vlogbrother John Green himself may have had suspicions about Day for years:
“John Green’s been warning girls after they have been in videos with Alex about him for the past few years”
“I used to be really good friends with Kim and she was in contact with John on skype and stuff, and after she was in a video with him (the test thingy one) John kind of gave her a warning about hanging out with him”
“Until yesterday, I thought that I had had only appropriate, though occasionally manipulative relationships with women. However, the model of consent that I followed, not that I specifically thought about it at the time - was that only “no” meant “no.” That is not what consent is.”
This has not been helped by completely fabricated accusations directed at Tyler Oakley and popular bloggers and now radio presenters Dan and Phil. Both sets have now either been recanted and removed by the author or outright disproven.
Frustration has even been directed at Vlogbrother Hank Green, his previous silence over the matter and Day’s as of then continued presence on the DFTBA website, in contrast to the almost immediate disowning of Tom Milsom after the original allegations were made against him, has prompted accusations of a lack of transparency.
In response, he said that:
“I am proud and honored that people look to me for guidance and I take that responsibility very seriously. Because I take it so seriously, and because so many people look to me, I have a responsibility to act carefully and productively”
“I didn’t mean to say that I was burying this and that the silence was the “appropriate” action. I meant to say that I am spending every second of this day working toward appropriate action, but I think that there is little to no value in reacting immediately when it is likely that further information is on the way”
It’s been 2 days since allegations against Tom Milsom, and later former Sons of Admirals bandmate Alex Day, were made and the YouTube community is still deeply in shock.
“I stupidly shared a bed with Alex because he was holding my hand and I thought that was just gonna be it […] I’d never experienced anything like that before, especially when someone kind of ends up on top of you in the dark”
Furthermore, referring to Day’s cousin Danny and an un-named person, she states that:
“I had to listen to people who were 11 years apart having underage sex”
John Green
She also adds further credence to the theory that this was a long standing pattern of abuse by Day and a significant problem within the YouTube community as a whole, saying that:
“Alex texted Danny something along the lines of “which one do you want” because apparently he got first choice the last time this happened”
“when I first met Lindsey and I told her I had only been hanging out with youtubers for a few months, she told me to run away as fast as I could, and she was right. She was always right about that”
Shockingly, she says that none other than Vlogbrother John Green himself may have had suspicions about Day for years:
“John Green’s been warning girls after they have been in videos with Alex about him for the past few years”
“I used to be really good friends with Kim and she was in contact with John on skype and stuff, and after she was in a video with him (the test thingy one) John kind of gave her a warning about hanging out with him”
“Until yesterday, I thought that I had had only appropriate, though occasionally manipulative relationships with women. However, the model of consent that I followed, not that I specifically thought about it at the time - was that only “no” meant “no.” That is not what consent is.”
This has not been helped by completely fabricated accusations directed at Tyler Oakley and popular bloggers and now radio presenters Dan and Phil. Both sets have now either been recanted and removed by the author or outright disproven.
Frustration has even been directed at Vlogbrother Hank Green, his previous silence over the matter and Day’s as of then continued presence on the DFTBA website, in contrast to the almost immediate disowning of Tom Milsom after the original allegations were made against him, has prompted accusations of a lack of transparency.
In response, he said that:
“I am proud and honored that people look to me for guidance and I take that responsibility very seriously. Because I take it so seriously, and because so many people look to me, I have a responsibility to act carefully and productively”
“I didn’t mean to say that I was burying this and that the silence was the “appropriate” action. I meant to say that I am spending every second of this day working toward appropriate action, but I think that there is little to no value in reacting immediately when it is likely that further information is on the way”
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.
You are not to blame for being battered or mistreated. You deserve to be safe and happy. You are not alone and there are people that can help. You can contact a helpline & the police. Look for domestic violence or sexual assault programs in your area and identify safe houses you can go to. Abuse doesn’t just occur within a relationship. It can happen in friendships, with a family member, a coworker or classmate, a boss or manager, a teacher or coach.
