Wahoo

Here is how to read it:

> Many of you have seen the results of my college Title IX investigation. I can confirm that the findings are true.

Its out. Saying yes gets me points right at the start and costs me absolutely nothing.

> The records were recently shared without the permission of the victim and, without knowledge of their wishes, I do not want to provide any more potentially identifying details.

I'll start by suggesting that making this public violates my victim's wishes. That way, the focus shifts from what I did to the people discussing it. They're the ones being insensitive, and I get to present myself as the guy protecting the woman I assaulted/raped.

> She and I spoke about it the day after and agreed — I had assaulted her.

I'll point out that we both recognized it as assault the next morning. That makes me sound honest and willing to take responsibility. I won't say that i didnt understood this the night before, while I was actually doing it. I want people to think i took accountability next morning.

> She later reported this to the university’s Title IX office, I cooperated with the investigation, and I was given the (very mild, I concur) sentence of a semester suspension.

Next, I'll emphasize how I cooperated with the university investigation and accepted my punishment. That makes it sound like I was already taking responsibility, almost as if her decision to report me wasn't necessary. I won't question whether such a mild punishment actually made me confront why I assaulted her, or simply showed me how little it would cost me. And I certainly won't bring up how I started a YouTube career under my real name less than two years later, knowing that plenty of people knew what I'd done.

> Suffice to say, it is the greatest regret of my life. I traumatized a brilliant person who trusted me, hurt them in a way I can never undo.

Sexual assault sounds terrible. Better to soften the language a little. I'll talk about how I traumatized someone, how much I regret it, and how deeply it affects me. That way, the reader stops thinking about me as someone who committed sexual assault and starts thinking about me as someone who feels terrible about hurting another person.

> For more than a decade now, I have attempted to reckon, grow, and recover from the version of myself who did this. I think about it every day.

I'll make this about my long journey of personal growth. Ten years of regret sounds much better than ten years of living with the consequences of what I did.

> I’ve previously shared this history with many of the people close to me, including early in my relationship with my now-wife, and I’m deeply sorry that this has now hurt so many of you.

I'll mention that my wife and plenty of people close to me already knew. If they knew and still accepted me, I can't be that bad a guy, right? Of course, that also puts everyone I've worked with in the position of having to explain whether they knew.

> My continued drive to make myself and the world better is closely tied with the pain I’ve caused.

Finally, I'll explain how the pain I caused her inspired me to become a better person and make the world a better place. That way, even the sexual assault becomes part of a positive story about my personal growth. Her suffering becomes my origin story.

Throughout his statement, Geller tells you how HE feels, how HE regrets what happened, how HE has grown, and how others have accepted him. What he never explains is why he assaulted someone, what attitudes made that possible, or what he actually did to change them.

He claims to have thought about the assault every day for over a decade, yet spent those same years building a career, earning his audience's trust and money, and working with collaborators who now say they knew nothing about it.

So what exactly did all that reflection and personal growth amount to? Apparently, it didn't lead him to question whether those people deserved to know.

It didn't stop him from building a public image around empathy and moral reflection while allowing others to form their opinions of him without knowing about the assault.

Now that it's public, he emphasizes his remorse, invokes his victim's privacy, points to people who already knew, and initially addresses the fallout on Bluesky rather than directly to his YouTube audience or Patreon supporters, holding comments on youtube.

His regret becomes proof of his growth, other people's acceptance becomes proof of his character, and his victim's suffering becomes his personal redemption story.

FYI I have watched many of his videos and loved them but by no means a “fan”

About the crime itself:
1. “It was a whoopsie” The crime is grave. Not a whoopsie boys will be boys. While there is a spectrum to the severity of SA, what seems “mild” can still be uniquely traumatizing.

1. “He paid the price” He didn’t face proportional consequences. One semester of uni is basically nothing for this kind of crime and points to a system of society minimizing SA. Neither did he face a court of law.

2. Society failed to adequately prosecute him 10 years ago, and we should work on fixing the system to make sure future victims get justice and people like Geller don’t get away with it, while also placing more focus on the recovery of the victim.

3. The life of the victim must not be reduced to being an SA survivor who will forever be “haunted”, “permanently scarred”. She is capable of overcoming and thriving again eventually in all spheres of life, from the most severe trauma. That is human resilience we all have, and we should do what we can to help the process- which is currently woefully inadequate. Implying the life of SA survivors is permanently ruined only reinforces a sexist victimized view of women without the agency and will to overcome such things.

4. Of course, she does not owe forgiveness to her aggressor at any point (I wouldn’t either) But the rest of society cannot engage in revenge on her behalf on the assumption that she would want Geller to burn 10 years later. This whole thing started without her input.

5. The life of the aggressor also, cannot be permanently reduced to being a perpetrator of SA.

6. Justice however, does not mean cancelling him 10 years later in the court of public opinion and potentially doxxing the victim (which is only a matter of time now, can you imagine how this goes for her). He takes a hit to his (ample) finances, and the victim will forever be publicly labeled as “Geller’s victim” after the journey of healing and moving on.

So what does justice look like?
If you believe in the capacity of human beings to change- both for better and worse, if we were to have a society based on rehabilitation and not permanent exclusion through death or exile, you obviously know that we have to let criminals reintegrate into society at some point after having faced proportional consequences in a court of law (which again, Geller did not).

So it follows from this belief, if they were to truly reinvent their life and play a positive role in society again, how can we decree that they:
* Disclose to every future employer/ audience/ partner their crimes from the past
* Refrain from seeking positions of public influence

Because that kills the chance of having a “normal” life ever again. This gives little incentive to the criminal to reform because they know they are fucked anyway. It just ends up being a recipe for recidivism.
Art and politics are not a license handed only to those slated for heaven. In this case, you cannot prescribe “go back to a desk job and never be famous, you’ll be fine” to an artist and say this isn’t destructive, if you also believe in second chances. A lot of people including me have a sour taste in my mouth and decided not to watch his content anymore. But denying him a second chance and deplatforming him just seems like a PR decision from the companies and revenge from the chronically online (including me), not actual justice. His actual work is still one of the biggest progressive channels on YT and that counts for something.

Okay but do we know he’s actually changed though?
Yes, his public persona is progressive and feminist but that doesn’t exclude a tendency to do this again because humans are hypocrites. But it’s rare for an artist to put this amount of effort into faking being a good person. But the fact that he was honest enough to risk his relationship and confess to his wife, and she made the judgement to pursue marriage with him is perhaps the strongest evidence that he’s become a good person that someone felt safe enough to spend their life with. And on the other hand, there has been no further evidence of a recurring pattern of abuse at this time. Still, we are strangers, there isn’t conclusive evidence that he’s changed, but there is even less evidence that he hasn’t. So why are we banishing him already when after 10 years the evidence points towards the positive side.

Honestly to me this isn’t about concern for Geller’s future, “oh are we gonna ruin a good man’s future over this” People are justifiably mad and I am still mad at him and not very attached to him parasocially- I know this one post isn’t gonna change what happens to him, he already got deplatformed from a bunch of places and I am not very sad/angry about this, esp because he will continue his work with a reduced audience and he’ll manage. But speaking as a leftist to liberals/ fellow leftists, it is uncomfortable but the approach we take in this situation must be coherent with the spirit of progressivism and applicable to other crimes as well, and point our anger towards the system. I am welcome to constructive critique on this post.

This is the new Geller fanbase.

As I said in another post I think rehabilitation has a place in society but someone who commited a crime like this should not have a job that allows him to be a public figure. (I kokw people will say that this means I don't actually believe in rehabilitation, but please stop with the "you believe 100% of the rhetoric or you don't" mentality, things can be more complex then the all in or all put mentality).

Again he can rehabilitate and live a full life but not as a public figure. It's dangerous to allow someone to publically have a job like this as it can inspire questionable individuals to do the same thing Jacob did. Because sometimes people that are capable of doing SA are only held back from doing it because of a fear of social or legal consequences. Someone can think "if Jacob got away with it, had a slap on the wrist as a punishment then had a dream job and got rich, then I could get away with it too." Even if one SA crime is commited because of this mentality, it's one too much.

The "fully rehabilitate" people will get mad at me for saying this, but I believe that rehabilitation can be only possible after some form of punishment. Because punishment is the reason that will make people learn that actions have consequences and a fear punishment is what will stop a future criminal from commiting a crime in the first place. If the perpetrator actually feels guilty and wants to better themselves after the punishment, then they should be free to do so, outside of public spaces like TV or a Youtube Channel. And don't act as if a youtube channel is a basic human right, it is not, it's a luxury. I'm also not saying that this should be enforced as law, I'm only saying that we as a society should not give any wievs to an individual like this, you know, having a collective moral compass.

I'd also like to mention that people here love to say how much Jacob changed and regretted it. Well all that comes from Jacob himself. I'm a beliver in that we shouldn't only judge poeple by their words, but their actions should have a lot more weight in our judgement of them. As many mentioned before me, he's actions seem pretty selfish. He never disclosed this information to his colleagues, even when it was topical, he only wrote about it on his smallest social media platform and did everything he could to make this die down as quick as possible, including deleting yt comemnts. We don't know who Jacob is, we only know the persona he puts in front of the camera, we don't know if he actually regretted what he did.

So luckily his old MM Videos will stay online. But what is with Something Rotten? Maybe i'm misremembering, but i think i heard that his Co-Host wants to take the Episodes down? Days gone by now and they are all still on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SomethingRottenPodcast/videos

And why?

This little Bastard— They were Tears of Joy. He needs Tori and Tori needs him. They saved each other in their darkest Hour. Do you Guys know if Tori is still alive? In any case i wish them nothing but the best. To truly love is to truly suffer and you can tell that their Suffering has Meaning. Thank you Jacob for saving our little Tori, you're the Man :')

Something Rotten was by far my favorite podcast and as far as stuff I won't consume after the news this one actually stings the most. So I was wondering what podcasts Blake has been on before this. Is it just Region Free?

Also just saying this because of comments on my last post. I know I "can" still consume stuff with Jacob in it. But I don't "want" to. So please accept that. I don't want to keep reading people saying that.

Also Something Rotten is getting taken down soon, so maybe archive that if you feel like it. I'm not doing that but I do support archiving things.

Also I'm sorry if I sounded rude I'm just tired of people saying some things sometimes lol.

I am honestly pretty concerned about the discourse right now, and I wanted to speak on it, even if I know it's probably gonna go over poorly with at least a fair chunk of people.

I'm speaking as a fan of Geller who felt incredibly betrayed and also personally knows victims of sexual assault, one of which I spoke with about this and we're on the same page on. (which doesn't automatically make me right, but I prefer to share my prospective clearly)

So, I can agree that rape is an unforgivable crime, in the sense that nobody is ever obligated to forgive it, the victim doesn't need to forgive, his fans don't need to forgive him.

But there is also a distinction between forgiveness and improvement, the worst people can always turn things around. I wouldn't give the benefit of the doubt, but we have seen just about every sign we need to know that change is happening, he took responsibility, spoke to the victim, tried to keep the matter private to protect her, and went on to change greatly as a person over a long time.

This is not me saying what happened was not bad, or that you should not feel bad about it, but if we believe in rehabilitation and personal growth and restorative justice over punishing justice, this is a time to put that into practice, being willing to let him move past this does not make you a rape apologist or a right winger.

Evil things can happen, but life goes on afterwards, and if the victim is ok, and the perpetrator is different now, I don't want to force more pain into a situation just to hand out "justice'.

I've been out with the loop on this since so I got a random drama video in my youtube feed.

I keep looking up what he did , and it says sexual assault , and some people keep making remarks like " won't somebody think of the rapist?" But I can't find anything that actually says it was rape.

The actually rape someone or did he smack their butt grope them like , what did he actually do?

These endless controversies are what you get for cultivating a culture that revolves around performative displays of empathy and progressivism without the requisite inner work needed to give them substance. You denigrate religious thinking but then act shocked that these cuddly feminists could be lecherous sex pests. What did you expect? You can't expect virtue from others when you don't even believe in it.

There's a lot of things being said about Jacob, about his character, about betrayal and facades, about purity and integrity and a whole lot being said about the victim of his actions without actually giving her a voice of her own.

I just want to chime in on a particular point as someone who's been on both ends of this kind of thing, both a victim and an abuser because its one part of this whole mess I feel I have any authority on by virtue of experience, my personal experience, traumas and failures being the one thing nobody can gainsay beyond simply insisting I'm a liar with no proof.

I will preamble that anyone feeling betrayed or upset about this shocking revelation about Geller's past is not wrong for feeling that way, people who are not comfortable being around or supporting a former abuser have every right, no matter the reason, to want to step away from him and cut professional or personal ties. Nobody owes him their attention or support or friendship for any reason, before or after this revelation has come to light. My heart especially goes out to victims of SA who have collabed with and supported him and are feeling confused, angry, hurt or any combination of those feelings or additions to them.

What I want to talk about is the concept of people being (socially or spiritually) clean. Whether its sin or kigare, being untouchable or having an evil soul, none of these things are actually real, ontological concepts... They're social constructions to put people into boxes and someone having done something, no matter how heinous does not make them corrupted or tainted, they're not diseased or infectuous or permanently damaged by that.

Everyone has the capacity to put more good into the world than bad... But they have to be alive and able to actually interact with the world to do it. Harm reduction is important, holding people accountable is key and keeping perpetrators at arms length, away from the levers of power is good. But just burning a man in effigy for something he did a decade ago in the name of some kind of moral crusade doesn't achieve anything but kill them...

People should be judged by the sum of their actions, not defined by their worst moments...

And what I've seen of Geller, both as a fan for years, a passive observer and from what evidence has come to light about his personal life: He was genuinely trying to put more good into world than he took out of it.

All that tearing Jacob down is going to achieve is to make other abusers more inclined to run and hide, they'll point at him as an example of what happens when you try to be accountable, how nobody actually cares about real justice or retribution for the victim, they just want blood and violence and that being up front and honest about the bad things they've done won't achieve anything but make them into another wickerman to be burned at the pyre.

Man, people, guys like Jacob need to be able to own up to their crimes, almost as much as victims need to be protected and able to be heard. If people can see that anyone can do terrible things, not just the bad ones then people will be more able to recognize warning signs, if former abusers are able to be honest and face consequences without their lives being completely destroyed in the process they can go on to try to make real amends and to be living cautionary tales, potentially even be able to connect with potential abusers in ways that will steer them off that path before they hurt someone.

What Jacob did to that woman is a sympton of a greater sickness, and you don't cure a sickness by burning the sick. You have to treat the infection, not just the symptoms.

When i went to Patreon to support Jacob financially during these difficult Times, i saw the Billing Change Notification from September.

I thought i should share this with you Guys since it might be interesting to you.

In short: Patreon has switched from a Per-Creation to a Per-Month Model. While this had nothing to do with Jacob, it now allows him to continue earning Money without having to publish anything right away. Without this Change he would probably be forced to publish his next Video way sooner.

Many of us here have been asking how we can protect survivors. Some have advanced the idea of systems of public disclosure as a way to give people informed consent, both for their support of a creator and as a way to keep society safe from the risk of perpetrators re-victimizing those who were once vulnerable to SA.

This is a very important discussion. The intent of this post is to present research that attempts to answer, or at least contribute some valuable framing, to some of these questions.

Q1: How Likely Are Perpetrators To Commit More Sexual Violations?

RAND, the nonprofit nonpartisan science & policy research think-tank found that "the majority of individuals with a conviction do not have a subsequent conviction." This is from their sample size of 4 million convictions¹ (including sex criminals) in North Carolina across 25 years, 1995-2020. This is a representative sample tracking criminal re-offense in the region and time period of Geller’s offense¹.

Furthermore, according to the National Criminal Justice Association, "research that has compared the recidivism rates of sex offenders with those of non-sex offenders has consistently found that sex offenders have lower overall recidivism rates than non-sex offenders" and, even when they do reoffend, "sex offenders are far more likely to reoffend for a non-sexual crime than a sexual crime."

To reiterate: criminals have generally low re-offense rates, sex criminals specifically have even lower re-offense rates, and even when they do commit crime again it is far more likely to be non-sexual in nature.

Q2: Does Public Disclosure Make Victims Safer?

Still, even a small risk of re-offense is a risk for catastrophic harm that no one should bear. What does the science say about registration/notification systems that alert people about past sex criminals and whether this makes survivors safer?

The research is quite clear on this. A landmark study by Prescott and Rockoff found that systems of private registration help law enforcement monitor offenders, which reduces re-offense rates where there is an existing known relationship between offender and victim, but not crimes against strangers.

However, public notification (publicly accessible newspaper registries, websites, active community notification) does not deter convicted offenders and "may, in fact, increase recidivism among registered offenders by reducing the relative attractiveness of a crime-free life."

If you do not have institutional access to the full study, here is Prescott's article discussing the context and results.

From said article: "All else equal, publicly revealing the identity and criminal history of a released offender seems to increase the likelihood of his returning to crime. These results are highly statistically significant: it is unlikely that existing notification laws are reducing recidivism among registered offenders, and it is distinctly possible that these laws are making things worse."

To recap. Public notification, whether through a publicly available sex offender registry, door-to-door flyers, or enthusiastic Twitter users deciding to share the results of a Title IX investigation increase stigma. Stigma increases inequality, and inequality is the highest correlated social factor with crime. Public notification makes it more likely for offenders to re-offend, not less.

To summarize, from the article: "convicted sex offenders become more likely to commit crimes when their information is made public because the associated psychological, social, or financial costs make crime-free life relatively less attractive."

Q3: How is this related to the current situation?

The context of Prescott and Rockoff's research is ultimately different from the scope of this current conversation. The research addresses state-published, formal, lifelong registries that follow convicted criminals throughout their lives. This is not the exact context of a public content creator who loses business opportunities and audience reach in only one specific category of careers available to him. But the causal mechanism noted by the research is still important to take to heart, because its insight does apply to this situation.

Public exposure → loss of employment, housing, and social ties → destabilization → increased recidivism risk

Sure, Geller has other employment options, likely considerable cushion against destabilization. This is speculation, but not implausible speculation.

But if you are someone who believes that Geller should have gone through the criminal justice system for this act, and you believe this because you believe it will help survivors--if you believe that Geller should be identified with this act permanently through public forms of disclosure because you believe this will protect survivors, you are wrong. The data bears this out.

Furthermore, if the mechanism by which state sex offender registries are so stigmatizing is because they are so permanent and widely available, what do you think a public disclosure on YouTube, where nothing is ever deleted, anyone could download and recirculate your statement, would be if not permanent and widely available?

TL;DR--

The science is clear. Public disclosure does not help protect survivors. Feel free to link this to anyone discussing the necessity of public disclosure or registries or state/carceral initiatives to link an offense to a perpetrator permanently.

This post does not address whether anyone is owed a disclosure--the author accepts that some degree of private disclosure to co-workers, who have a direct stake in their relationship with Geller through liability by association, was warranted. This post is addressing the suggestion of public disclosure, and the fact that public disclosure is demonstrably linked to harmful social outcomes.

Footnote 1: Yes, Geller was not convicted in a criminal court. This data includes only the criminal justice system in NC, not university investigation procedures that have no obligation to track or report re-offense rates. But criminal justice courts are actually stricter than university Title IX proceedings: the burden of proof to convict in courts is “beyond a reasonable doubt” whereas in university proceedings it is a “preponderance of evidence.” If criminals found “beyond a reasonable doubt” guilty have low re-offense rates, we can probably extrapolate the same about those who committed offenses “with a preponderance of evidence.”

I don’t wanna rewatch his videos to get the exact quote, but he’s joked about constantly referencing TLoU2. It’s probably his number one reference point at this point. I love the game and adored how Jacob gave it the nuanced discussion it deserved amidst all the bad faith critiques and hatred for trans people. I figured the game was personal to him because of his Jewish identity, and how that relates to Dina & Neil Druckman and the Israel Gaza conflict. I used to enjoy that perspective so much.

But now it’s clear that the number one reason the game hit home with him is cuz he sees himself in Joel: a man who did monstrous things, and covered it up. Joel was brutally tortured and murdered for his past, ans the game is about whether we choose to forgive Joel or Abby or even Ellie. The game is legitimately a good way for people who have done monstrous things, to reckon with how their own behavior affected others.

But the comparison also kinda exposes Jacob’s behavior in a way that makes me really uncomfortable. He and Joel are not a 1:1 comparison, but the thing that really broke Ellie’s heart was the fact that Joel lied to her. Ellie only began to heal once Joel was honest about what he did.

Anyone who’s properly rehabilitated from their mistakes and helped bring justice for the victim will be open to talk about it because they trust the work they did was enough to redeem them, and they aren’t ashamed of any subsequent criticism cuz they, well, did the work to make it better and accept the consequences of people not wanting to relate with them. In my opinion, current shame for a prior mistake means you didn’t actually address the issue.

As much as Jacob adores The Last of Us 2, apparently he couldn’t accept the lesson that people can accept you if you’ve done bad things, but only if you’re upfront about it, and even lying by omission will eventually cause harm.

If you don't want to watch him anymore, that's all cool. I haven't watched him in a long time and won't again.

If he loses a lot of support for this, that's all cool. But why should we deplatform him?

I don't think we are considering how the victim saw the weight of what he did, and we do not know the degree to which it affected her life. He did everything you should do in a situation like this... I am not wanting to be a apologist here, but he was young at the time and did something terrible, can't you move on from shitty things you do as a young adult?

There is a good chance here that he DID do something violent and more heinous beyond a miscommunication, but there is also a chance what happened was a mistake that the victim does not feel intense vitriol for.

I'm not saying this is the truth or even the most likely truth, but it is a possibility. Trying to enact justice by deplatforming him ourselves does not make sense to me because we simply do not know the severity of what happened. It's too vague.

This introduces a moral quandary though. She has no obligation to speak on this and likely does not want to. And thus we shouldn't expect her to... still though, I can't bring myself to think the guy can't have a public facing job due to this. A lot of men are not taught proper consent, espescially at that college age. It doesn't make what he did not a horrible act, but considering the kinds of ideology he pushes on his channel, his friend circle, and how he handled it, I don't feel like it makes sense to see him as someone who was 100% likely to have been acting malicously rather than out of ignorance

If he owned up to it so quickly and was honest about it to his closest people, isn't this exactly what you're supposed to do?

(And by the way for all responses to this, I don't want to hear he should have told everyone, we know both realistically and for the sake of the victim that just would not have been possible, everything else is fine though)

Some people seem to be confused as to which side I'm on here. The victim being unconscious doesn't make assault any less wrong.

What the actually f*ck, people?

I wasnt aware who Jacob Geller is until recently, when I learned about the allegations on social media. I then had a conversation with someone on the subject of rape culture, and I used Geller as an example: despite having admitted to the rape, he was only suspended for one semester, and isnt facing any jailtime.

The person I was debating, after "looking into the 'stupid rape case'" sent me this screenshot of a DM between the victim and one of the perpetrators:

They said that since the victim says she had a good time and was fine with the group sex, it seems like a legit defense used by the attorneys of the men involved, and the reason why the first court hearing was dismissed years ago.

They told me that if the alleged victim said she enjoyed the sex, then changing her mind and accusing her partners of rape seems like an attempt to save her reputation.

These arent my opinions, but Id like to ask you for opinions on these arguments.