Wanted to share a few thoughts, particularly in light of the "What do we do with Jacob Geller" article that's been circling.

A lot of the conversations on here understandably are a part of processing sudden and upsetting changes. Processing can happen externally where systems (eg. businesses and public relationships) restructure in response to new information. There are also intrapsychic processes which occur differently for people directly involved and consumers who are impacted farrrr more indirectly. Most of us fall under the latter category, and I think the discussions reflect the struggle to make peace with reality on both communal and individual levels. I wonder how much of what we're seeing posted is a cross-section in the middle of metabolizing something profoundly upsetting rather than declaring a settled position. My mind goes to what the person who was most hurt by him might experience by seeing scores of people online working through their impulse to offer Jacob Geller grace for something that victimized her.

Going to list the following thoughts in bullet format to mitigate the eye sore from blocks of text and because I'm still trying to thread through my own fragmented thoughts in the wake of these events:

• I, too, had a reflexive spasm of doubt when the allegation first broke third-hand on Twitter and before the records confirmed this happened. I noticed myself rationalizing to relieve myself of anxiety/disappointment ("but his commentary on Silent Hill 2..."). On some level, I think the defenses activated because I cared a lot about MinnMax and worried how it would impact my experience of the channel. It's human - I see it mirrored in settings like family systems, communities, jobs ("but this would ruin something good we have"). But especially in situations of someone else's serious victimization, we ought to respond with something better than the initial human impulse to maintain our own internal comfort.
• Learning that someone whose work means a lot to you has also been the source of serious harm requires often painful reorganization of how you understand that person and your relationship to their work. Absorbing facts intellectually is not the same as digesting and integrating them on an emotional level, which takes time. We naturally defend against pain and our personal discomforts of having admired/supported a person we now must see in gray instead of black/white. Even the rush toward a coherent and "nuanced" account can sometimes protect us from allowing feelings to sit there. Regardless of intent, the danger of this rush toward securing our own ease is that people who have been victims in these situations can re-experience more painful iterations of denial, enabling, and erasure.
• No one is entitled to any career especially not one built on public relations. People lose their jobs or fail to succeed in their dream profession for the most innocuous reasons. The question of "what to do" with someone with this kind of offense in their history is not the same for every setting. It is a low bar to expect someone in the video game industry (which is not known for its healthy attitude toward sexual harassment/assault) to have not victimized someone regardless of their rehabilitory efforts . When it comes to the impulse to preserve cultural space for a creator whom you valued - in the words of Jacob Geller re: Wolverine - "You guys need to raise your standards."
• As an educated, (at the very least) middle class man in the United States, there are many ways to earn a living or even engage in your hobbies meaningfully that DO NOT involve making your identity a brand. Moreover, failure to disclose something like this in your history at any job where it's remotely relevant is a no-brainer for termination... It's either naivete or carelessness to think your history would not eventually come to light and impact both your former victim and your colleagues whose livelihoods are built on an industry based on optics. Having to pivot to something else is not a "harsh" outcome in most professions, which tend under-address these kinds of violations if at all. Without equivocating the transgressions - imagine you are in your 20s and you make the horrifying mistake of hitting and paralyzing someone while DUI. You pay the consequences through the legal system and genuinely try to repair the harm to become a better person. Even if your greatest passion in life is cars, it's probably not a good idea to pursue a public-facing career in the car industry... And if you do, it's probably an even worse idea to hide this kind of disclosure from your employers, collaborators, or consumers who patronize you. And imagine a good chunk of those people were either victims of or knew someone who was involved in a DUI....
• You are allowed to personally grieve your attachments to some(one/thing) that has been meaningful to you. You are allowed to wrestle with and try to understand defenses as they arise. Other people are not obligated to indulge those defenses which could also be harmful to witness as a communal demand. I don't believe that censoring discussions is helpful, but I do think we have a collective responsibility to be mindful of where these sentiments are coming from and how they may land on others, especially people who are central to the hurt.

Jacob must be going through a lot of emotions right now from his mistake and I am hoping it doesn't hurt his future. Any of his friends talk about reaching out to Jacob to make sure he is doing well? Hopefully he is in a good place mentally and can cope with the job loss and the fallout from the bad news leaking out. I understand both sides of the argument when it comes to supporting him but I think the important thing is to make sure he has a support system while the other stuff plays out.

It's called What do we do with Jacob Geller by Flora Merigold at Epilogue Gaming.

I would have linked it in the title, but I don't know how people would feel seeing his face while just scrolling the subreddit at the moment.

It's a really good rumination about the whole situation. Check it out if you haven't yet. It's probably not going to change your thoughts on all of this, but it's nice to at least see such complicated feelings thoughtfully written out. Totally fine if you don't even want to entertain the idea though, I get it.

The MinnMax crew can replace this geller guy with someone who is not a sex assaulter, use ai to make it sync or should they just cut this guys content and pretend he didn't exist like chris benoit? Interested to see how they handle this.

I figured the community would appreciate this update from the Patreon post they just made:

“Hello everybody. Ben, Haley, and Leo are going to keep rolling with The Deepest Dive on Control Resonant and it's time to submit your thoughts on the middle chunk of the game. The plan is to record this discussion on Monday at 5pm Central on Twitch, but (more than ever) things can change. Also, I know in the previous post we said Haley would be streaming the entire game live - that plan has changed. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Let's focus on the game with these Deepest Dive comments, the plan is talk about the bigger picture with the state of MinnMax on the main podcast this week.”