A Hop, Skip, and a Jobst

Hi, I specifically joined your Patreon BECAUSE you made that video. (I watched a reupload.) I've followed the Jobst/Completionist situation from the start, at first with skepticism and then with horror as it developed. I've lost sleep over it -- because I saw what was happening was wrong, and it seemed like no one else did. A lot of what you said in this video were conclusions I'd already come to based on my own cursory research, and by god it felt good not just to hear someone else say them, but to hear them from a lawyer. First video of yours I've seen, by the way. So, look, thanks for that, wish you hadn't taken the video down but I presume you have your reasons.

You worked with the evidence SomeOrdinaryGamer and Karl presented. Karls defense of "I didn't present all my evidence" is pretty bad IMO and seeing people praise him and jump to his defense disappoints me immensely. The backlash in your community post comments compelled me to back the patreon. While I believe Jirard might be guilty, I'm not a fan of mob justice. Might be guilty is not the same as IS Guilty as we (in the US) live in a system of Innocent until Proven Otherwise. If they have a real case to make, they could've made it in the multiple videos they've made on the matter. If you can handle the mudslinging then feel free to post such content again. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and I hope this in some twisted way reminds Karl that he has a responsibility as a creator with clearly a lot of fans when making such lofty allegations.

The big thing I think about the reaction is that the well is pretty much already poisoned. You could give the best legal argument ever but not only are they convinced that Jirard is guilty, they WANT Jirard to be guilty. They WANT him to go to jail. It's a really weird hatred. After all, Jirard and his family could have not formed the OHF, and they could have run Indieland as a for-profit event, making hundreds of thousands of dollars over years. In a different world, Jirard could have spend $600k on a yacht this year and no on would have cared. So at the very worse, what Jirard's negligance did was a 'less good' action than what he was going for. He's in a very odd situation where he's getting publically thrown to the jackals for escorting 5 grannies across the street when he was perfectly capable of escorting 7.... but he would have been fine if he escorted no grannies. Finally, I present to you this possibility. Jirard left the running of OHF to his family, and then found out that the money was just sitting in an account, was outraged, and knew that if this was found out, it would have destroyed his career. Jirard's family, however, who were more actively running OHF, were going with strategy of: Trying to gather a large enough amount to generate interest and donate the interest. Jirard, who also doesn't understand the law and just does his youtube channel where he plays games and talks about them, gets into fights with his family and pleads with them to just donate the money, he doesn't understand the strategy and rightfully knows that if word of this gets out he will be thrown to the wolves. So when Karl and Muta confront him in a call, he panicks and makes a bunch of uninformed statements and pleads with them not to go forward with this. All of that is not only plausible, I'd say it's likely, which means that Jirard and his family are in the clear.

I became a Patron after seeing your community post on YouTube. I already left a comment there, but I'll also add some additional thoughts here. It's understandable if you wish to avoid YouTube drama in the future, but I think it would be a shame to lose out on your nuanced and insightful legal perspective. Of course, I also don't want you to dive into the toxic depths of the internet on a regular basis. Do what you think is best and most comfortable. I will respect your decision. Considering the range of topics your videos go into, I think it was inevitable that you receive some *enthusiastic* responses. I hope I'm wrong, but I have a gut feeling that your upcoming (and personally highly anticipated) video about the Korean Gender War may also receive some similarly enthusiastic responses. I don't say that to discourage you, but rather to illustrate the point that it just comes with the territory of divisive subjects. In fact, I'd say making videos about such topics and generating discourse qualifies you as a fully-fledged YouTuber™ now. Congratulations! Happy New Year and keep up the good work!

Hey Moony! Long-time viewer, first-time patron here. I really appreciated your video on the topic, and would appreciate you doing more of this kind of thing. As a layman (not a lawyer) I was quite convinced by Karl's videos, and I'm really glad you shed some light on the situation with your expertise. I've also read through your conversation with Karl and the other comments on the subreddit. You took a lot of rude and unfair flack, even for points I thought were well made. For example, the section of your video on definitions was really well put, and as a layman I found it really helpful. Karl seems really backed into a corner on that point and unwilling to give it up - "a very paranoid bear" seems like an apt description. That being said, I think there were parts of the video that could have been better, and I think some of the pushback is valid. For example, when addressing the topic of WHY the money hadn't been moved, you speculated it was for an endowment. I appreciate the importance of endowments and would have been fine with that as a justification - if Jirard or Open Hand had ever mentioned it. Jirard and Open Hand provided three (different) explanations for why the money had not been moved, between the initial email exchange with Karl, the Discord call, and Jirard's response video. None of those explanations mentioned an endowment. There's interpreting people's statements charitably, which I agree with, and then there's pure speculation. I think your comments about the endowment fall into the latter category. That also affects your section on Karl and Muta taking away future money from dementia research - that's only true IF the plan was to do an endowment fund. Then there's the fact that a lot of people's anger over the whole controversy is more moral than legal - they're not mad that Jirard and Open Hand potentially broke the law per say, they're mad that they were mislead about what was being done with their money. I think including a bit at the end of your video stating that you're not MORALLY comfortable with the way Jirard handled the money (as you said in reddit comments) would have gone a long way towards preventing the negative reaction you got. As is, a lot of people feel like you're letting Jirard off the hook, since you (mostly) exonerated him legally and didn't really touch on morality. I'd really appreciate a response from you after you listen to the Discord call, even if it's just "the Discord call didn't change my opinion." I understand not wanting to make a YouTube video, but even a Patreon post or YouTube community post would be appreciated. Most importantly, though - Happy New Year! I hope you have a great 2024.

I was a bit annoyed when I first watched it, but I understand that you were being objective in your video. While it wasn't an attack on any party directly, I can definitely see why people got offended or felt the need to defend the parties that brought it to light. Would be best to leave a pinned comment if it hasn't happened already.

I wouldn't really worry about the "backlash" too too much. People are in their own camps and will be more or less unmoved from whatever preconceived idea that they have in their head. especially when it's validated and spread from the content creators they enjoy watching. You will almost always have a backlash if you remotely give a nugget of charitability to the monster of the week on internet drama. I personally don't think that the "leaked" discord call really changes all too much because at the end of the day most of the things both Karl and Muta said aren't hard fact backed up with provable data. at the end of the day, people don't really care who's "lawfully right" and alot of these drama cases comes down to morals and what's ethically correct imo. anyway, I think regardless you should continue creating videos about subject matter related to these kinds of happenings. I think it's insightful to have different perspectives whether or not it's the right one or not. I think the legal angle for this case is probably the right way of going about it regardless of what the community on Reddit and Twitter think. I think that most of the accusations levied at Jirard almost require you to think it from a legal angle because the morality and ethical angle is boring. Jirard admitted to holding onto the funds for 10 years and that it was wrong for him to do it, as well as admitting to "possibly being a little deceitful" on how the money was handled so there's nothing more to talk about in the morality aspect. As well as the main accusers using language that can only be interpreted as "Jirard being unlawful." and honestly I don't think it really matters that much if both muta and Karl use "probably" or "most likely" before using the word fraud and embezzler. The last thing I can say about this is you could maybe limit comments or have a stricter filter for held comments or maybe even add people from your community as comment mods to limit the really really nasty messages people might leave that aren't there to be really nice and wholesome.

As far as I am concerned, you present the FACTS and stated your viewpoint clearly. I imagine that works for us, your core fans. Please feel free to make whatever videos you want, even if they have drama attached. However, I do understand that if you are concerned about your family and close loved-ones.

Hi Moonie! I just joined as a Patron. Definitely appreciated your video for helping me make sense of the situation, which I'd avoided watching too much about beforehand. I was skeptical of the claims due to my impression of someordinarygamers as a shit-stirrer, so it was helpful to hear a more measured perspective I did see you got some heat on Reddit. You definitely stepped into the fires of YouTube drama, and some folks get so, so, so intense despite not really knowing what they're talking about. If it's any consolation, I don't think most of your viewers feel that same heat, since we got to learn about the situation through a calm, informed video rather than through a lengthy series of accusatory drama videos. So as a viewer, I'm not bothered in the slightest I suppose the downside of getting my info through you is that you could be missing the complete picture or even have an agenda as Jobst suggested. I, like you, haven't heard the leaked call which some redditors seem to think is pivotal, so I don't know if it truly implicates Jirard as part of a fraudulent scheme. However, I have come to have a lot of trust in you since discovering your channel earlier this year, as you've covered topics which I am more knowledgeable about Wouldn't blame you for laying off anything approaching YouTube drama territory given how seriously some people take it. Hopefully they'll forget about it shortly. Hope you have a happy new year

Personally, I don't mind either way if you keep making videos about this kind of stuff, but I am not really someone who sends much time on social media, so perhaps I am not the kind of viewer who would be most concerned. I can't say I was horribly surprised that something went down, and I mostly say that cause you got involved at all and had an opinion contrary to the current cultural zeitgeist. People are liable to project any motivation they can think of onto something like that. Perhaps ya could have be overly exacting in clarifying your intent, but there is diminishing returns in doing that. One may need to be very careful in clarifying what exactly that are doing so that reasonable people don't get the wrong idea, but unreasonable people won't really care. So, while i think actions could certainly be taken to mitigate drama like this, there is also only so much that can be done without compromising the message. Possible futility aside, I still think there is value in presenting videos like that, public opinion is quite reactionary, and any force that counteracts that and promotes cooler heads is one worth existing. Perhaps greater care could be taken to understand where exactly the public opinion sits, and construct points in the video to address common trains of thought, but A) who knows how ultimately effective that would be and B) You might just not want to deal with any of that stuff and that is understandable. Either way, I think something is better that nothing in this case. Anyway, to summarize my incoherent rambling into actual points: I'm perfectly fine either way with videos like this continuing or not. stirring up drama is inevitable and it is futile to completely mitigate it, but I also think it's valuable to put something out there that promotes people to broaden then perspective on horrifically complex issues. So, I'm good either way.

I'm not going to tell you to keep making these videos as I understand that they perhaps go against your goal of making relaxing video essays, and I can't imagine the past few hours have been relaxing for you (and perhaps some others in the community). Here's some food for thought though: - I loved the video. These types of videos are my favorite on the channel, and believe it or not your conclusion was pretty much in line with what I expected it to be. Personally I'd love more videos like this but of course it's up to you whether dealing with the drama is worth it. - Although it might seem to you and some others that there is a huge backlash, that wasn't at all my perception until I got the email from Patreon. Youtube comments are very positive, your fundraiser has been pretty successful, etc. It seems like the backlash is mostly on a subreddit which (in spite of the name) seems to be a completionist hate forum, and was started by the very person you criticized in the video. Understandably it's pretty brutal and one-sided on there, but I don't think that reflects the overall response. - There might be some drama over this, probably they're going to make response videos to your video. My advice is to not respond back with a video unless you have a substantial update to make. I'm definitely interested in what happens in this case in the long term, but I don't think subscribers to your channels are particularly interested in constant drama, and I doubt you are too. Take care of yourself, although I'm sure you have thick skin as you've said, I doubt many in the community are being attacked nearly as viciously as you are (though I might be wrong on this).

I think that the video was very clear. You're not saying that Jirard is neither guilty nor innocent - it's not the point of the video. The point is to analyze the plausibility of the claims and how they reached it - and you made it clear that there was a serious lack of legal background in reaching the claims. Even if turns out that there was fraud, getting to the conclusion that such shoddy research was vindicated by it is a dangerous prospect. Now ... people are gonna be on a crusade for the week's villain, and reddit is a bubble - even more so communities dedicated to personalities *or* to hate personalities. There's no space for nuance and, unfortunately, the only good way to deal with that on an individual level is to disengage.

i enjoyed the video a lot, i thought it was very well written and informative!! personally i would be happy to watch more videos like that one :) i was completely ignorant to this whole situation until seeing your video so i wasn't watching it with any already formed opinions going in, and when i checked the comments after watching the premier i was surprised that there were some negative responses but i figured the situation is an emotionally-charged one so it's not surprising to me that some people may have equated the criticism of one party to "defending" the other party (if that wording makes sense...?)

It was awesome to see how respectfully your conversation with Karl was handled on Reddit. A shame he sees an agenda. I was nervous for you the moment I found out you were making the video. This particular case is one that won’t seem to leave the zeitgeist and you’re usually a little late to the party (for your own benefit) on stuff like this. I do wish you listened to the call but I don’t consider that “faulty research” like others seem to. I get you wanted to stick to what was presented in the videos. In the end it’s not like you’re a big channel losing millions of subscribers or something, but it does suck seeing how many people were instantly willing to lose respect for you purely based on your conclusion. It’s purely up to you whether you wish to make more videos on matters like this, obviously. If you do, I just hope you do so at a slower pace and hopefully not frequently. I would hate for Moon Channel to be mistaken for a “drama channel run by self-righteous lawyer.” I gotta stop reading comments and Reddit now, I’ve had enough for a while. Hope your new year is good and you don’t get any legitimate attacks or problems from vigilantes on behalf of Karl.