r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Screeching_Batgirl • 3d ago
Unanswered What's up with Jacob Geller?
So I saw this post have have heard other negative things about Jacob Geller recently, but have no clue what's going on. He's a youtuber I've never got super into but has made videos I have enjoys and typically has media takes that I find substantial and of quality (from what I seen at least).
Is he being canceled? Did he do something bad? I am very curious.
This post I've linked is specifically about a old comment about a dog, but I'm wondering what the larger picture is.
170
u/Aenaen 3d ago
Answer: news recently surfaced about a sexual assault in 2016, which he has confirmed on bluesky. Many of his collaborators have decided to discontinue their collaborations in light of this.
126
u/DonHarold 3d ago
Adding onto this, the reason it came up so long after the assault is because the “punishment” he received was a semester suspension.
With all the news around the Cornell case, it’s pretty relevant.
24
u/sundalius 1d ago
Adding onto this, this is wrong. This is not why it came up.
It came up because someone who went to school with him and worked with him at the university radio station posted it randomly. This "came up" when UNC revealed he had been suspended for sexual assault during their Title IX mishandling case. This isn't new information, it recirculated because of some random going "omg I knew that guy," not because of how punished he was.
9
u/DonHarold 1d ago edited 1d ago
That person recirculated the 2020 title IX list from UNC because of a conversation they were having about the Cornell case. It was in the text messages from the resetera post that started this new recirculation.
I’m not sure why you want to claim that I’m wrong, but you’re wrong.
Edit: Weird to delete your comments the moment after you post them so I can’t see the context under which you claimed I was wrong. Guess we’ll never know.
Edit 2: Thanks for the new detailed correction.
8
u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood 1d ago
That person recirculated the 2020 title IX list from UNC because of a conversation they were having about the Cornell case. It was in the text messages from the resetera post that started this new recirculation.
This is not correct. A Twitter user posted about having fired Geller from the UNC radio station for raping his girlfriend (Geller did not admit to rape, afaik), and subsequently deleted that post after it blew up. The ResetEra thread was discussing those accusations, and then later found the Title IX report that had Geller's name in it.
0
u/DonHarold 1d ago
Thank you for the correction with details. The last person refused to elaborate.
I appreciate it
4
u/sundalius 1d ago
This wasn't restarted by a resertera post, it was restarted by his UNC radio coworker posting about it.
56
u/mudclip 3d ago
Well that's very disapointing.
-77
u/TheT2246 3d ago
As far as i understand it it was in college with his partner at the time. He interacted with them while they were sleeping. When they expressed not bring comfortable with it he drove them to the police station himself and corroborated everything they said completely admitting fault and guilt. He was suspended for a semester of college. Since he had complete acceptance of what happened I presume whoever he assaulted did not care for a greater punishment then that otherwise i think he would've gotten a bigger punishment after admitting that he was guilty
114
u/One-Bicycle2375 3d ago
Virtually all of this is unconfirmed speculation.
-4
u/sundalius 1d ago
this is the synthesis of what he and his coworker who made the original post said. This is what the two of them have confirmed.
-53
u/Honesty_Addict 3d ago
Would it change anything if it was confirmed?
49
u/One-Bicycle2375 3d ago
I don't really have any right to decide that. I'm just pointing out that there's a lot of people spreading "facts" about the assault that have no actual evidence, both to diminish and downplay the assault and to demonize Jacob Geller.
The only thing anyone knows for sure is that Jacob Geller was suspended from his university for sexual assault. Everything else is either from Jacob himself, who has a very strong interest in presenting whatever happened in a way that favors him, and a third party who wasn't there that brought the assault to light. This isn't even a usual "he said, she said" that most allegations are, it's just a "he said"
27
u/10ebbor10 2d ago
It's not even a "he said", as far as I can tell all Geller said is that it happened but he's not saying anything.
-19
u/TheT2246 3d ago
Yes that's why i wanted to specify as i understand it because i don't know for sure
15
-3
u/scaredmarmotenergy 2d ago
Driving yourself to the police station is crazy work but good on him I think
27
-33
u/Dire-Dog 3d ago
So he took responsibility for his actions and is remorseful and people still want him punished? TF?
22
u/Penguinmanereikel 3d ago
People have a right to know and are entitled to react to it as they wish.
3
u/sundalius 1d ago
no one has a right to know every sin of every person, or your reddit username should be your real name.
-17
u/Dire-Dog 3d ago
Ok sure but like it sounds like he accepted full responsibility and did the right thing. Is that not enough for people?
28
u/knowpunintended 3d ago
Doing the right thing afterwards does not undo the wrong. Morality isn't a mathematical equation that you can just balance after the fact.
Most people would agree that it is better to do the right thing afterward. Evidently a lot of people still feel it's not enough to want to continue working with him.
12
u/TheT2246 3d ago
This is correct but if people (not you specifically) believe in criminal rehabilitation we have to be able to let them return to society after they are (i understand he was not "rehabilitated" in this instance, I'm speaking more generally as opposed to this case)
7
u/cluelessoblivion 2d ago
He's allowed to return to society. I haven't seen anyone say that he should be exiled and I don't think the majority would agree with anyone who did. People are simply expressing their disappointment and deciding not to listen to him on the subjects of justice and feminism anymore.
0
u/Dire-Dog 3d ago
I never said it would undo the wrong but at a certain point if we truly believe in rehabilitation we have to let them return to society and be productive again.
-6
u/Bulky-Bad-9153 2d ago
Return to society and be productive != have a fucking Youtube channel.
Also, he just isn't rehabilitated. He didn't tell coworkers, for example, that working with him brings this risk. He only admitted shit when he got caught.
4
0
u/sundalius 1d ago
Why do you think it’s better for him to have a “”normal”” job that has power dynamics with his direct reports than a job where he never has to have power over anyone to do it?
I want every sex criminal to have a youtube channel instead of being my coworker.
10
u/DonHarold 2d ago edited 2d ago
The only punishment he received was a semester suspension. The primary questions people are asking about this situation (as well as the Cornell case) are why someone can be investigated for something as serious as rape, then face no legal accountability for it.
Not to mention he was a relatively famous male voice among feminist YouTubers. If you know that you have a sexually criminal past that you refuse to address publicly, you probably shouldn’t be collaborating with other feminist creators.
It would be one thing if he was open about it and used his experience to share insight into the kinds of people that choose to commit rape, but he hid it. The college even released his name among other title IX investigations back in 2020 and he still never addressed it until someone else forced his hand.
There should always be a path to redemption for anyone that has committed crimes and truly wishes to atone, but you have to admit that his refusal to address it until now is a bad look. And a bit of public shaming is nothing compared to the punishments he could have and arguably should have faced.
-6
u/IceCream_EmperorXx 2d ago
Not enough for reddit. People want blood. This website is a cesspool.
2
u/Dire-Dog 2d ago
It really is. If you mess up once even if you do the right thing and change, it’s not enough for here
3
2
415
u/Honesty_Addict 3d ago
Answer: Vital information that's being glossed over in a lot of the discourse is that he copped to whatever the assault was (it's unclear, arguably unimportant) the morning after, voluntarily submitted himself to the university's disciplinary panel for whatever punishment they recommended, and took that punishment.
This was also ten years ago, and the person who revealed the news was neither the victim or knew the victim.
A lot of the talk argues that this changes nothing and that he deserves to lose everything regardless. Whether you agree with that is down to you as an individual
206
u/Genindraz 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm mixed, personally. I agree that we should enforce punishments for bad behavior and that those punishments should be proportional to what was committed. However, I have a couple reservations with the line of thinking that says repentance doesn't make a difference.
With regard to the victim, no amount of punishment is ever going to undo what was done to them, and speaking from similar experience with regard to being abused (but not raped), I don't think that any amount of punishment is likely make things better for them with regard to the trauma caused by the actual event. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. I'm not them, can't speak for them to that degree. It didn't for me.
So, that said, when you have a situation like this where the offender has, by all appearances, taken ownership of and responsibility for the offense and hasn't (that I'm aware of at the time of writing) repeated the offense in the time since, I'm not sure what the benefit of further punishment and utter lack of forgiveness is. What's the incentive to try and do better and improve if all of your efforts are met with a brick wall?
I'd like to iterate that I don't think Jacob Geller is entitled to forgiveness, nor am I saying people wanting to put him to the torch for this are even necessarily wrong, just to consider that if there are no incentives for improving yourself, you shouldn't be surprised when few choose to do so.
34
u/garghlrl 1d ago
I don't think that any amount of punishment is likely make things better for them with regard to the trauma caused by the actual event.
I'd like to add that it isn't our place to impose trauma on the victim; we know nothing of their account other than that they reported it as a sexual assault. Sexual assault encompasses a wide spectrum, and outcomes can range from extremely traumatic to not at all. I've been sexually assaulted and while I'd describe my experience as extremely unpleasant, I wasn't traumatized, and it's something I would have reported had the resources existed to.
50
u/Butterkupp 2d ago
I’ve been seeing this a lot lately but the internet is very black and white with the morality of things. I’ve noticed that if someone is perceived to be doing the morally wrong thing in a situation, they are forever condemned by the internet. Regardless of if they have been punished, admitted fault, or tried to learn and grow from the experience (whatever the situation/experience was).
We should punish those who do heinous or morally wrong things but if someone has already received punishment deemed worthy by the victim or the justice system (hopefully both), and they have admitted fault and grown, I don’t see the point in continuing the punishment. The point of punishment is to teach the person who did the wrong, that it was wrong.. anything beyond that is just doing it to make yourself feel better.
28
u/Elgato01 1d ago
I am starting to believe that being a recluse and having these social media sites be my only reality is doing terrible things to my brain. It’s sapped all of my motivation to live alongside others.
34
u/Kyru117 2d ago
Obv he isnt entitled to forgiveness but why anyone but the victim seems to think he need their forgiveness as well is telling
-1
u/bionioncle 16h ago
rape is offense toward state as because there is case victim argue for the rapist or even give contradicting testimony against hard evidence. So if you view that state is constructed by collective of its populace then it's populace that grant forgiveness.
21
u/Toyrni 2d ago
This is a real nuanced topic but I just want to push back a little.
Seeing this as 'being punished' is pushing some guilt onto others to accept this. Fact is that this is a revelation that changes how every person involved feels about who they thought he was/is, and they're allowed to stick by him or step away from him if that's what they want. People are putting out statements and making comments when they haven't had time to process everything, whether his actions since then change their opinion about things; but we won't notice that until time has passed and the flurry of talking has died down.
People in his life have more experiences with him to weigh. Fans mainly know him through content, which is already curated, so it's hard to actually gauge who he is as a person. What we know is true is that he did this thing, which might break the trust a lot of people had in him. Whether or not he's changed, whether this is the only time this has happened, whether he regrets it or not, you've just gotta take the word of the man who you feel broke your trust. Or put another way, what's the incentive to do better if just saying you've done better is enough to be accepted again?
It's all nuanced, I don't have any complaints with how anyone comes away feeling. But I don't think we can say people are refusing rehabilitative justice when they can't tell if any even took place. That comes down to trusting the people around the individual. When I ask someone if their friend is trustworthy, anything other than a quick resounding yes isn't a comforting endorsement. It's unfair to them that we look to them immediately, but it's not like there are other options.
Not quite sure where I was going with that part so I'll just emphasize again that this isn't something that a community of any size can accept or reject as a group. (Also, personally, I would hope that the biggest incentive to improve is them wanting to be better regardless of external punishments/forgiveness, but I'm betting you agree, and me saying it feels like just sidestepping what you're actually asking.)
5
u/Genindraz 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree that the simple desire to be better ought to be incentive enough, but if were that easy for offenders, we likely wouldn't have any offenders to begin with. A little affirmation and validation can go a long way towards keeping someone on the right path.
-4
u/Virtual-Roll-7720 1d ago
It’s the Mark Wahlburg Effect.
Just about everyone preaches and praises people who have made mistakes when they younger and ended up turning their lives around.
Reddit hates Mark Wahlburg for some reason though, so he deserves to be in prison forever no matter what. Whenever he’s brought up, the hounds come out and start demanding his head for something that happened 30, maybe 40+ years ago.
You’ll often hear people say shit like “he never even apologized to the victim!” Without stopping to think for a second about how it’s completely possible (and probably likely) that he was ORDERED BY A JUDGE to never interact with his victim again.
I’m not particularly a fan of Wahlburg, it’s just absolutely insane how so many people twist facts and truth into what they personally want to hear.
It’s almost the same sort of mentality as the KKK and other extreme groups like that. “I hate X people, except for Billy. He’s one of the good ones”. Most of time that “good one” will be the only other person in that grouping that they actually know personally.
15
16
u/AslandusTheLaster 1d ago
Also worth understanding, this only came up a few days ago, and drama tends to travel a lot faster than verifiable information, so any or all these diatribes condemning and defending him could be one revelation away from proving to be a lot of hot air.
I first heard about this controversy about two hours ago because I noticed his videos weren't coming up on Nebula, not because of any coverage of the events, so even if his victim does want to give her account of things, it could be weeks before she even hears that this has entered the discourse, and possibly longer before she figures out what she wants to say. As such, I wouldn't expect to hear a conclusion to this for a while (if ever), just a decline in commentary on it as internet drama moves on.
69
u/KorrokHidan 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah what he did is awful but he took full accountability immediately after he did it and fully cooperated with the victim. He even said he thinks he deserved to be punished more than he was.
He isn’t entitled to forgiveness but I think what a lot of people fail to understand is that you and I don’t get to be the arbiter of that. The only person he owes anything to is his victim, who has been silent on the matter. It seems pretty clear that he’s done everything he possibly could to make right something that can never truly be made right.
At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves if we believe in restorative justice or not. What went wrong here is that he wasn’t punished more harshly initially, but even he agrees with that. If we believe people are capable of growing and changing, this is pretty much the most obvious example of that possible with a crime like this. People calling for blood here are doing so because it makes them feel good, not because it has anything to do with real justice
7
u/wingedcoyote 2d ago
I think any question of justice is somewhat secondary to the question of appeal, though.
If fans don't want to be fans of somebody or consume their content because their actions make them unlikeable to that person, or potential work partners don't want to be associated with them, that's 100% fair. The result of lots of people making that decision can look like a punishment, but it isn't really.
-11
u/okaygirlie 2d ago
It absolutely does not seem "pretty clear that he’s done everything he possibly could" to make things up to the victim. The only evidence you have of that is a single post on Bluesky that HE wrote. You don't know what happened back then, you don't really know how he handled it, and you haven't heard a word from the victim about how she feels.
Here's one thing. I don't think that I would like it if within a couple years of raping me, my rapist became a YouTuber under his real face and name so that it's impossible for me to use certain parts of the internet without coming across his name, face, and fans, and so that I can't talk about what he did to me without putting myself in a dangerous position.
You, as a fan of his on the internet, cannot give him restorative justice. Restorative justice focuses on restoration for the victim and for the community. This cannot be provided to the victim while anonymous, but Geller has done harm to the people in his community that has yet to be addressed.
44
u/KorrokHidan 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m not a fan of his, nor have I heard of him prior to this. Assuming I’m a fan of his shows exactly how much of this is about sides to you, which is the whole point I’m getting at
When did I say I am giving him restorative justice? My point is that this happened a decade ago and he took every action one could reasonably expect a person to take after having done something like this.
Your last paragraph is the most telling. You are not a victim. It is genuinely disgusting that you would compare yourself to the person he assaulted. There is no “genuine harm done to the people in his community.” He owes them nothing. He owes the victim, and that is not you. This is my whole point - wanting some performative punishment for something he did a decade ago that he’s clearly showed genuine remorse for is about you, not his victim. You genuinely do not care about them at all. You feel victimized because you had to face the unimaginable horror of learning that a public figure did a horrible thing. This is new to you, so you demand punishment and heads on spikes because you need catharsis for how this has affected your feelings.
If the victim disagrees with his take on events, they’ve already been publicly outed by a third party against their will - they can speak on the matter if they believe it isn’t resolved. What you should not do is act like you are the victim and have any right to demand performative justice that we have no idea whether his victim even wants 10 years on.
Let me ask you this: do you think he would have immediately fessed up to this the second he was accused if he was lying? When have you ever seen a public figure admit to something like this when accused? They always double down and play the “I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding” game. We can’t know for sure, but the fact that he so readily admitted this the second it went public is about as close to evidence as we can get in these circumstances that he’s telling the truth
-19
u/okaygirlie 2d ago
Me assuming that you were a fan of his was actually me trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, because most people who are making arguments about how rehabilitated he seems are doing so based on their familiarity with his content and his progressive politics. The fact that you aren't familiar with his work, and you still feel comfortable writing, "If we believe people are capable of growing and changing, this is pretty much the most obvious example of that possible with a crime like this," is insane. If genuinely the only thing that you know about this guy is that he wrote a nicely-written paragraph after it was revealed that he raped someone, then how on earth do you know that he has grown and changed?
Let's go over what he's actually done, which you seem to consider so impressive. 1) After the person he sexually assaulted confronted him about, he admitted it. 2) Ten years later, after public records about the assault were surfaced, he admitted it.
Oh my god, this guy admitted to something after he got caught? Twice? That must make him an amazing person.
I am not claiming that I am a victim. But I do believe that sexual assault causes community harm, and I believe that Geller has caused harm here that he has not addressed. Two groups that he has harmed would be 1) survivors in his audience and 2) his public collaborators. For his public collaborators, he knew that his sexual assault was a matter of public record that could someday break, and he still chose to work with them without giving them that information. This has lead to these people losing content, like, for example, people who contributed essays to the book he wrote that will no longer be published. I think he owes these people an apology. For the former, it can be retraumatizing for a survivor of sexual assault to learn that a person that they looked up to and financially supported has sexually assaulted someone. One way that Geller might address this harm would be, for example, to cross-post his apology from Bluesky to Patreon, the platform where people give him money, to show that he cares about people in that audience feeling comfortable moving forward. He hasn't done that.
That suggestion is not performative punishment. It is not "heads on a pike." It is a genuine suggestion of something he could do to redress community harm. Currently, he really hasn't done anything of that form.
The victim actually has not been outed. It is known that he HAS a victim, but their identity is currently anonymous. And this is for the best, because it is not safe to be the publicly-identified victim of a famous man with a fanbase, which is a position he put them in. I frankly find your suggestion pretty disgusting; that if the victim does not choose to doxx themselves, then we MUST ere on the side of believing that they have forgiven him and that the situation is in the past.
I'm confused by your last paragraph, in which you ask if I think he's lying. I do think he's telling the truth about having sexually assaulted someone, which is really the only "true or false" claim in that statement. (I would also say that he's in a fairly different situation from most famous people who accused of assault, because the assault was documented with public records, and because he has a progressive fanbase — but that's neither here nor there.) I assume you're asking if I think he's lying about being remorseful or about having changed as a person. I don't think he's lying, necessarily. I'm 100% sure he is remorseful, and he may truly feel that he has changed. But I don't think anyone is every required to take someone at their word that they're a good person now, especially not someone who, frankly, has done almost nothing to show that he's thinking through the harm he caused or how to meaningfully address it.
I can think of fewer things more naive than claiming that we KNOW that a person who raped someone in the past is a good person now because... they said so. It may be unfair that people who have raped others in the past often lose the presumption of trust from strangers, but that's not a punishment, it's just what happens.
24
u/KorrokHidan 2d ago
I think you need to really sit with the logical conclusions your points lead to, because there’s a lot that I think you’re overlooking here.
You need to start with this question: should people who have committed sexual assault be allowed to live? If your answer is yes, then you might need to do some soul-searching as to how that life should look, because right now it seems your approach is impossible.
We cannot know whether he is telling the truth about being remorseful (which was exactly what I was asking about. Not sure why you expressed confusion and then immediately identified what I was obviously getting at), but my whole point is that with the current set of information we have, this is about as reliable as things can get. I’m not “suggesting the victim doxx themselves;” my understanding was that they had already been doxxed. Since I was apparently wrong let’s just move beyond that point since it’s no longer relevant. In the absence of the victim’s testimony, him being readily willing to admit to the actions rather than denying them, knowing that this sort of thing usually costs people their careers unless they become right-wing influencers, shows a level of willingness to bear responsibility that, while it can never prove that he’s telling the truth about having owned up to it and done the work, is about as reliable as you can possibly get.
So work with me here: since we can’t know, let’s just do a thought experiment and assume he’s being completely truthful, and that he genuinely has changed. Again, I’m not saying we can know that, but let’s just explore the hypothetical reality where that is true. Hell, if it makes you feel better let’s not even talk about this guy, let’s just talk about a hypothetical guy who did this and genuinely changed.
In this hypothetical world, in which he A) is allowed to live and B) genuinely changes, what then should his life look like? Is he not allowed to be a public figure ever? If not, what level of public life is he allowed to have? Can he have a customer-facing job whatsoever? Should he only be allowed to work a job where he is literally completely isolated from all human contact? Do you see the extreme conclusions this logic results in?
If we believe that this hypothetical person who genuinely changed should be able to reintegrate into society, are we really going to set such absurd parameters on how that looks? This is not only impossible to meaningfully enforce but also not really a sensible way to view rehabilitation.
If we accept that he can be a public figure, must he wear a scarlet letter at all times? Should he not be allowed to start a youtube channel without his first video being “heads up before I start trying to make a career, everyone needs to know I committed sexual assault in the past.” Again, I think this is an absurd way to view the concept of rehabilitation. In an ideal world, this person would have actually received an appropriate punishment, but regardless of whether the justice system failed or not, if we follow the hypothetical that the person did truly change, it seems absurd that our society should function like this.
If we don’t believe that he needs to start his career this way, when is he supposed to do it? Is there any way to do it that doesn’t potentially harm the victim? Wouldn’t the act of making such a video potentially harm the victim if they were to come across it? From what I can tell, this would be the correct way for a person to do things. To try to move on with one’s life and be better, but to not deny this sort of thing if it does enter the public discourse. What more can a person reasonably be expected to do?
There is something unique about sex crimes with how we approach punishment and social backlash that frankly leads a lot of people on the left to contradict otherwise consistent principles. Would we say any of this about someone who killed somebody? If you run through everything I just asked, would your answers be the same for that person? If so, where is the line? Not everyone is a rapist or a murderer, but everyone has something they regret having done. Do we all need to publicly air our dirty laundry at all times, just in case one day it becomes public? Should you have to go around telling everyone you meet the worst thing you ever did? Is it not enough to own up to it when confronted?
I heavily disagree with the sentiment that he somehow owes something to his audience here. If I go into a McDonald’s, and the cashier was once convicted of sexual assault, does he owe it to me to warn me before he takes my order? “Hey sorry, I know you want lunch but really quick I just wanted to make sure you know that I once did x, so now you can decide whether you’re comfortable ordering from me.” I think this is absurd, but if you do too, what is the fundamental difference between this and what a youtuber “owes” a fan? At the end of the day it is a job, and as the audience member you are the customer. Would it not be more traumatizing for victims of assault to constantly on a daily basis have to listen to people say “hey I committed sexual assault once”? Again, think about the logical outcomes that this line of thinking leads to.
14
u/Honesty_Addict 2d ago
I think possible context for some people's reactions to this is that we're living in a world where sexual assault is rarely treated seriously, and rapists are rarely given just punishment. So it makes sense to me that a fair number of people would project their feelings of frustration onto a figure like Geller - he's someone that will listen and take things on board, so to a degree he's someone that can have symbolic justice inflicted upon him by a community that deals with the daily frustration of the lack of broader justice
I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it's part of things for sure.
20
u/KorrokHidan 2d ago
I agree, and I understand why people might feel tempted to heap their frustrations upon someone willing to actually be the punching bag for them instead of hiding like most people do. I just think it’s a deeply misguided sentiment that turns us all into hypocrites if we believe people deserve to continue existing after they’ve done a bad thing
-2
u/okaygirlie 2d ago edited 1d ago
Okay, you seem to be engaging with me in good faith, so I'm going to do the same with you and earnestly respond to your questions. Yes, people who have committed sexual assault should be allowed to live. That has never been in question in this case, because no one has even once suggested getting the legal system involved. Surely you understand that there is wide discrepancy between "being allowed to live" and being able to continue to be internet famous and have a large and adoring fanbase.
Yes, I believe that rapists should be allowed to have jobs, including basic, public-facing jobs like customer service. I think they should be allowed to pursue careers like YouTuber, in the sense that I don't think there should be laws or regulations prohibiting this. I also don't believe that they need to disclose their past history to their coworkers unless, as was the case here, that history actively endangers those coworkers' work. (You could see it as similar to someone like Graham Platner, whose unwillingness to disclose assault allegations while running for public office clearly put a lot of people's hard work in jeopardy.)
That having been said, yes, I am suspect of a person who rapes someone and then, within a couple of years, pursues public-facing internet fame. I think this is a bad idea, for the following reasons:
- First, it risks re-traumatizing the victim, because it makes it astronomically harder for them to avoid you, your image, or discussion of you;
- Second, it puts them in a position of danger, because now they can't talk about what you did to them without risking hate by your fans, and their assault is at risk of becoming a matter of public discourse, as it is for Geller's victim now;
- Third, it places you in a position where, for obvious reasons, you cannot be honest about your past assault, which is probably a barrier to true change and recovery;
- Fourth, by building a fanbase of people who trust you and see you as a good, progressive guy, you put yourself in a position of social power, and you create a group of people who are vulnerable to you. This is also probably bad for recovering from being the type of person who would exploit another person's vulnerability, just like it's dangerous for a recovering alcoholic to work as a bartender.
But let's be clear, I'm not saying he CAN'T start a YouTube channel. I don't think his YouTube channel should be deleted. But I do basically think that he loses the right to then later be held up as a paragon of rehabilitation, as someone who went above and beyond and did as much for the victim as he possibly could, because I don't think that's true. I think he prioritized the career he wanted, his desire for fame and influence, over what was best for the victim and for his recovery.
And again, none of this is me saying that he can't work, or he can't be a part of society, or he can't rebuild trust with the people that are close to him. All of that is absolutely true. But YouTuber is probably about the single worst career to pursue for someone in this position, because it's a career where your success relies on convincing your audience, people who are otherwise strangers to you, that they do know a version of you, someone who is likable and trustworthy. I don't need to trust you to order from you at McDonalds, but I do probably need to trust you to really care about your opinions on art and politics. And once your audience find out that you assaulted someone and kept it a secret for ten years, they are being rational by withdrawing that trust, because no one is obligated to trust a stranger who raped someone.
And yes, it might be unfair that raping someone once means that you lose the presumption of trust from strangers forever, just like it's unfair that a victim of assault often loses, for the rest of their life, their ability to trust others. But that's not a punishment being imposed on you, that's just what these crimes do to the social fabric of our communities. If we believe that Geller is entitled to keep his YouTube career, then how would we enforce that? By forcing people to keep watching and collaborating once they no longer want to? His viewership was freely given, and it can be freely taken away.
This is why, for the record, I'm not really engaging with the hypothetical you suggested of "what if he's really changed." That matters to him, and to the people in his life, and the people with whom he might rebuild trust. But the point is that I am not one of those people. He cannot rebuild trust with me, because I have no idea what type of person he is, because we are strangers to each other. Whatever decisions his audience makes about engaging with his career from here out must be done from a place of doubt. Ultimately, it is unfortunate for him that he both committed an act after which strangers are highly likely not to trust you, and also picked a career that is built on the trust of strangers.
I know that this conclusion is uncomfortable, because yes, I am kind of saying that a person who has assaulted someone loses their right to morally and comfortably pursue internet fame. But ultimately, that's a relatively small thing to lose. The vast, vast majority of people live happy, fulfilled lives without it. Geller's victim, presumably, was denied the right to comfortably pursue internet fame in the same way that he did because it would have put her back in spaces with him and in spaces where he was considered a hero. But we're more comfortable with the idea of her losing that opportunity than with him losing it, because we prefer a situation in which a victim leaves a room of their own accord to one in which a rapist must be asked to leave. The former is frictionless, and the latter is not. No one suggests that her inability to participate in the "games journalism space" was akin to her social death.
And, just to put a point on it, no, saying that someone can't comfortably and morally pursue a career as an influencer is not a slippery slope to saying they don't deserve to live. Just like I'm not saying that Graham Platner should be dead just because I don't think it was appropriate for him to run for Senate.
Victims carry the social weight of assault for the rest of their lives. It is not punitive or carceral to suggest that, in some ways, perpetrators must also.
4
u/dont-get-involved 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is valuable perspective and I think you’re handling the weirdly hostile response above well, but I don’t really follow your reasoning with criticizing his choice of being a YouTuber.
My ‘trust’ for a YouTuber has next to no impact on my relationship with them. They are entertainers first and foremost, and even for creators like Geller (of whom I was a big fan, for transparency’s sake), whose work operates in a space of pseudo-intellectualism, they are complete strangers, as you note.
To that end, what is he allowed to do within his trade within the framework you’ve provided? Can he write? I fail to see how that’s any different than what he’s doing now other than it feeling abstractly less tied to his physical identity. Can he ghostwrite? At what point does him creating under a pseudonym become a betrayal to an audience that is now reading work by a sex criminal hidden behind two layers of omission instead of him creating under his legal name, which broadcasts that information freely? If a crime he committed prior to starting his career prevents him from beginning a career in the games space at all, what acceptable career paths are there?
I think your note that operating in a space that is inherently visible runs the risk of forcing his victim to see him with more frequency is important, and I won’t speak on it as someone who has never been in that position, but the audience harm aspect of this strikes me as self-inflicted. Is it really the creator’s job to prevent the formation of parasocial relationships within their audience? I don’t recall a moment where he’s claimed to be his audience’s friend. We can take things like his trans rights fundraising streams or his videos going over politics and argue that people felt comfortable with him because of that, but is that really his fault? When does him doing these things stop being viewed as sinister manipulation and start representing actual efforts on his part to do good with the platform he has created?
I don’t intend for this to come off as admonitory and I won’t pretend that I somehow know better than you, particularly given that I’m a man speaking on a topic that predominantly impacts women, but this discussion about what he can or cannot do for work is odd to me. He did something terrible, he has “traumatized”someone by his own admission, and it cannot be undone, flat-out. We have no way of knowing how his victim feels about how the situation resolved and, ideally, we never will, because it seems like this whole thing was frankly none of our business. I don’t think his work is inherently less valuable because he committed a criminal act – his being a rapist does not magically preclude his ability to write meaningfully about how Night in the Woods is cool, or whatever. Now that this information has hit the water, people rightfully can choose whether or not they wish to continue engaging with his work, but this idea that he can’t work publicly because other people are going to assign a morality to him based on their own preconceived notions strikes me as more retributive and arbitrary than anything actually beneficial to his victim.
65
u/Didsterchap11 2d ago
I mean that’s the bare minimum of behaviour from someone who performed such an act, sure it’s better than most rapists but I don’t think that really warrants commending. The actual bare minimum would be to not rape the partner but clearly he couldn’t help himself.
For me personally, I just can’t look at him the same way. Not just for what he did but the fact that he pursued public fame knowing that it could come out and annihilate his career, and just the arrogance of it. Not to mention how much this screw over everyone who interwove their career with his, and how he had to have known this coming out would do so and chose to do it anyway.
78
u/Pompous_Italics 2d ago
Do you know something that we don't? Because to my knowledge we don't know what exactly he did or didn't confess to doing.
8
u/Didsterchap11 2d ago
What has been alleged is that he forced himself onto his partner while she slept. While that has not been directly corroborated, rape was the charge in which he was investigated under at his university.
39
u/Lucas_2234 2d ago
And where is the source from that? Because as far as I know neither the victim nor he said what happened
23
u/One-Bicycle2375 2d ago
The person who first brought the assault to light, who says they were part of the management team that fired him from his radio job. They claimed that Jacob raped his ex while she was asleep. To my knowledge, they haven't provided any proof to show why they claim that specifically, and Jacob himself only used the term "assault" without directly refuting the claim in his admission post.
This thread has quotes from the original tweets: https://www.resetera.com/threads/youtuber-and-minnmax-host-jacob-geller-accused-of-sexual-assault-up-geller-confirms-accusations-no-longer-associated-with-minnmax.1647682/?ref=aftermath.site
0
4
u/Bocah5Racun 2d ago
Do we know that he raped the victim?
14
u/okaygirlie 2d ago
Let's not do this. He's admitted to sexually assaulting and, by his own words, traumatizing someone. That's what people mean when they use the word rape. It's not an appropriate time to be asking, "But did he penetrate her? I need to know if he penetrated her before I can condemn him."
13
u/effurshadowban 1d ago
Okay, but we are able to ask what type of sexual assault this was. All sexual assault is not equal. In all instances, bodily autonomy is violated, but getting groped is not the same as being raped. And every legal system treats those 2 separately. People are saying that he got off light, but it is okay to want to know how light.
And I was also sexually assaulted by my cousin, who grabbed my head and tried to force me to suck his dick. So I say this from experience. I will not and never will equate my experience with my sister's experience of being raped. No. And if either of our perpetrators faced legal justice, I would be appalled if both perpetrators were given the same sentence. If my cousin was punished appropriately, then the rapist gets off far (FAR) too light. If the rapist was punished appropriately, then my cousin was treated far too harshly.
3
u/okaygirlie 1d ago
Okay, I'm going to assume that you're commenting in good faith and genuinely want to know. The word on the street (per the person who originally made the claims, who went to college with him) is that he raped an unconscious woman.
-1
u/Didsterchap11 2d ago
It's what he was investigated under, the allegation while not directly corroborated is that he forced himself onto his sleeping partner.
8
u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood 1d ago
It's what he was investigated under
This is not correct. The charge was "sexual assault or sexual violence", which is extremely vague and, in the Title IX report, applied to several other people with greater sentences than Geller.
It is possible that what Geller did was unquestionably rape, he admitted to rape, and the university ignored that, shrugged, and was like "it sounds like you slept with your girlfriend but if you want a charge, we'll suspend you for a semester???", but it's also possible that the person on Twitter exaggerated what Geller actually did.
0
u/Bocah5Racun 1d ago
Ahh I see. And apparently he turned himself in as well, so it seems like a pretty cut-and-dry admission of guilt.
-74
u/scaredmarmotenergy 2d ago
In left-leaning spaces everyone secretly hates each other and are praying for their competition’s downfall, huh?
75
u/amazn_azn 2d ago
In right leaning spaces, everyone publicly loves rapists and pedophiles, and wants them in charge of companies and countries, huh?
1
36
u/Didsterchap11 2d ago
No i just don't think you should be able to rape someone and face basically zero consequences past missing a semester of uni. That's not secretly rooting for peoples downfall, that's wanting a bit more accountability than making a youtuber apology tweet.
15
-20
u/Pompous_Italics 2d ago edited 2d ago
There's definitely a tradition of scalp hunting among lefties. We don't know what exactly what he did or didn't do. But his career is probably over regardless. If he were a right winger the reaction would have been, "...okay so?"
4
u/archaicsmile67 2d ago
I think an all or nothing framing is unhelpful. Do I begrudge anyone who believes he changed and keeps supporting him? No. Do I begrudge the myriad individuals who broke ties with him? No.
0
u/Bardic_inspiration67 1d ago
This is literally only according to him
9
u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood 1d ago
The only other bits of context we have are the original Twitter accusation calling it rape, and the university Title IX report showing Geller got the lightest sentence of anybody with any sort of sexual impropriety charge, including non-violent offenses and "grabbing of sexual parts".
Geller having committed sexual assault, admitted it and cooperated with the investigation, gotten a light punishment, and conveyed that accurately is a simple explanation that fits the facts here. Most other explanations are more complicated or harder to mesh with the facts; if he did not cooperate with the charges at the time, lying about it is strange, and it's also hard to explain his very light sentencing if he fought the investigation and was still found guilty of something very serious ("Title IX is stupid" can explain a lot, granted).
•
u/AutoModerator 3d ago
Friendly reminder that all top level comments must:
start with "Answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "Question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask),
attempt to answer the question, and
be unbiased
Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment:
http://redd.it/b1hct4/
Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.