I was always a contrarian in Nick's YT fandom. The resident "liberal" with a good mind who superchatted Nick (usually smartly and with good humor) frequently on the contradictions in his arguments - ie Libertarians were pro-choice until 2021, for obvious reasons.
Frankly, I think Nick loved that I was there. Nick loves a battle... but in those days it was FAR friendlier. He also loves a good paypig (me).
Anyway, I was an active chatterer on YT streams, made many online friends (who I rarely consider actual friends, fwiw; online is not real life) mostly due to moxie, laughs and rapport. (Ironically, many of the conservatives I sparred with on YT have now become comrades in the anti-Nick "movement" - largely in Elissa's comments - IAmFriedChicken and MarkGado, for example.)
There was once a solid contingent of "the left left me" crowd on YT of which I consider myself.
Anyway, it was a strong community with established rules in which (credit where it's due), Cory/Cgoody steered stupidity and fuckery with excellent skill and humor.
From Depp, a lot of things happened in close succession - Nick's banning on 2 platforms, an influx of new fans (to this day I still don't understand why they're so much dumber), Lawtube infighting, the creation of Locals, and a "Cgoody" discord (created by Xino - she likes doing that) for the "popular" kids. I was part of it.
I'd argue Nick changed profoundly in this period and, along with that, his "fandom". The personal/marital issues Nick was having, along with the banning, created an amplified vitriol from him, and therefore his chat, for which I had never seen in the 18 months I'd been there.
I joined Locals, of course - as one does. That crowd was initially large (hundreds, sometimes over 1000, on any given Locals stream). Nick was sort of melting down (August 2022???) but it was still okay-ish. The YT crowd was still around. It was awkward for us bc of all the newbies but we did our best (most OG YTers have since left, many becoming detractors).
Then Nick made it Locals 24/7. His fandom genuinely became a hateful place - for which I contributed. I will own that. EliePhant made me crazy with her dumbness. I posted pics of elephants fucking each other. I never bought that Egal was a hairdresser considering the split ends in her pics - and told her to get better hair product.
Xino, Art, ACompleteRandom, MrStirFry, CrusaderJoe, Egalitarian, Sally, Xino, and EliePhant (with about 10 orbiters) came to dominate. Most got up into Nick's DMs. They were all newbies. (Xino was on YT but only at the very end. Funny, I got Nick to mod her on YT when she and I were Discord "friends"..)
Lots of the YT crowd left or were barely hanging on. Lewds were posted constantly, regular violence/rape threats were made to literally any woman Nick would bring on his show. Discussion of drugs, guns, and porn gifs became 80% of the chat.
When Art and Egal went after Megan Fox relentlessly I lost it. Around this time Branca called Faran's sister a cunt on stream. She's gorgeous and smart, btw, and was a YT newbie who legit had NO idea that she was supposed to be over-the-hill and pathetic at 30 yo. She'd not even considered it. Nick said nothing. Not even a "duuude". I realized then that Nick had no moral soul.
We're in late 2022/early 2023 now. Art was having long drug trips/tirades in chat. Cory was absent. ACompleteRandom had 3 hours of thinking he'd fucked his cancer survivor wife to death bc her vag was bleeding uncontrollably but he was too drunk to drive to the hospital. Xino and Cookie would go on for hours with 'hood' ebonics trash talk,
It was insanity.
Meanwhile, I may be a Gen Xer, but I'm not new to social media or the Internet. I've been in vitriolic fandoms since The X Files. I'd never seen such over-sharing from tragically broken people.... and couldn't believe there were no lifeguards for this shit. - to protect themselves, if nothing else.
So, unlike Hydro, I did not go after Nick - for the most part. I went after the retarded assholes in Locals.
This is 3ish months before Himedall was logging.
Until New Years 2023 (it was all from memory) I called out Art, in chat, on what I remembered about where everyone was from (from their own comments). Art accused me of tracking and lost his mind. (This is why I think he IS in the Oakland area - as origianlly reported. Why lose your mind?)
So, ofc, I started a spreadsheet. 0 fucks given, motherfuckers. And it was SO easy. The over-sharing went on until Himedall kicked in. There are still another 8 people there (usually with new user names) who could be easily doxxed based on my silly screenshotting and spreadsheet.
Like, Hydro, I kind of knew I'd be banned and there was, admittedly, a sort of dare going on with Nick once 0 fucks are given... how much free speech is too much?
Ultimately, Elie whined to Nick, Art whined to Nick, Egal whined to Kayla, Xino whined to Nick - probs a few others.
I just started randomly posting pics of these people's social media profiles - for those I could generally find via 3 clicks from the information they posted or told to me.
That's why I was banned.
Thankfully, Himedall saved me from most of this work and several people found me pre and post banning to join the "other side."
As for Nick's "business" - he ruined that. TOS violations go on to this day - on the regular. I had no motive to remove an income stream for him. I had motive to call out retardation.
That's the story.
Note 1: The CGoody discord that Xino started is a soap opera in itself. I've posted previously about it. I left it after a couple months and the 3rd call from Xino about "WHERE IS CORY?!!" and crisis about Stormy or DarthHideous overdosing and calling cops for wellness checks. I was touring a kid around colleges and had no room for that druggie nonsense.
Note 2: Schree was privately doxxing Xino bc Schree's husband works at Verizon - she fed me everything though I knew Xino's first name. It's not hard to find her, regardless.