Published , by Asif Khan
Published , by Asif Khan
The Pokemon content creator community finds itself in a very sad place this week after many YouTubers have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Many Pokemon fans and creators are young and impressionable and it appears that many people in the community have been victims of very inappropriate behavior and harassment.
Felicity Lucille, also known as AttackonSylveon on Twitch, posted a video on YouTube last week detailing her traumatic experience with Nathan Putnam in 2015. Putnam, also known as NintendoEncoder or Dekadurr on YouTube, had been messaging Lucille on Snapchat while she was on vacation with her family. She was 15 years old at the time. "He was Snapchatting shirtless pictures of himself, which I thought was weird," she details in her tearful video. Lucille goes on to explain how she felt pressured to reciprocate by sending him pictures.
Lucille did not reveal names in her original video stating that she didn't want to name names and "for the longest time I blamed myself for this and I still kind of do." The harassment allegedly continued for years, with Putnam even sending her the Tyler the Creator song "Too F*cking Young" which is about fighting urges to be with underage girls.
Lucille also called out another streamer BiseProductions in a followup video, who posted an apology tweet taking responsibility for his actions before deleting his entire social media presence. “I am truly ashamed of myself and disgusted at myself… I was in a dark place at the time but that does not excuse this behavior,” said Bise in the now deleted tweet.
Multiple people have come forward with more evidence of Putnam's inappropriate behavior with screencaps of DMs. Sliding into the DMs of underage girls comes with receipts, and it appears that some of these content creators should have known better before acting like complete animals.
Lucille released her second video last weekend when she saw that Putnam was going to be participating at PAX East Smash Ultimate tournament and he was barred from the convention and competition once the video made its rounds at the event.
Some YouTubers and Twitch streamers who had worked with Nathan Putnam in the past have come forward confirming these allegations. JayTGamer took to Twitter saying, "I will admit that in the past when this happened a few of us would pull him aside and try to speak to him and tell him to f*cking stop that pedo sh*t." Jay continued, "my approach on the situation years ago was awful and I truly apologize for not handling it properly."
A collaborator and friend of Putnam, KingNappy is also facing allegations of inappropriate messages to underage boys. GameboyLuke, TheHeatedMo and others called him out on social media which lead to a very odd Twitch live stream where KingNappy attempted to explain the situation while running periodic advertisement breaks. KingNappy had backtracked his initial tweets that "nobody was aware" of Putnam's behavior, and admitted to knowing about two instances brought up by Jay.
There is now a #PokeMeToo hashtag spreading across social media where more and more accusations of inappropriate behavior are coming to light. MudkipMama, who also goes by VegasJamie, finds herself accused of sending inappropriate and sexual messages to underage boys and Pokemon dataminer Mizumi has been accused of soliciting nude pictures from underage girls.
Several members of the Pokemon community have been keeping track of all of the accusations, deleted tweets, streams and videos. Philly Beatty, who goes by PhillyBeatzU on social media, spoke with Newsweek about the matter. “The Pokémon Community is supposed to be (a) place where people can come together and enjoy themselves,” Beatty told Newsweek. “Unfortunately, there are people in this community that exploit others because of their popularity or influence. In the end, it's the community’s job to make the platform a better place and we do that by speaking out.”
The Pokemon community is full of young and impressionable aspiring content creators and some bad actors are spoiling things for everyone. Many of the accused streamers and YouTubers have entirely removed their online presences and KingNappy has made his Instagram private and deleted his Twitter page.
One can only hope that this movement will lead to healing in the Pokemon online community, and that a new group of moral leaders can guide this group of content creators to a much better place.