He's a predator.
Like I know how that word is typically used, from anything from the manipulative sex pervert billionaire to the guy who stares awkwardly on the subway. But psychologically he is a predator. Whether you want to call him a psychopath or something else, his behaviors pretty clearly indicate that he has a pattern that fits with predation. Like a serial killer that never goes all the way, it's clearly as much about the hunt, the tracking, the bringing down the target and then taking your trophy.
Ryan wanted power to go with his pleasure, and from what we've seen everything he's done has been about exercising and letting himself feel that power. In fact the idea that the victim took no pleasure in it and yet that he got her to consent over and over again was most likely a bit part of the power play for him. If he pleasured her and she came back to him, it's far less of a trophy of his ability to manipulate and control her than if he hurt her, scared her, defiled her, and she still came back.
Minor celebrity does come with a power over certain people... people for whom any celebrity at all is intoxicating, people with low self-esteem, people with no ability to self-validate, people who have nothing else going on in their lives but their brush with someone that is Known. For people particularly deep into this void of self, it really doesn't take a lot of celebrity to give someone power. Not the power of being able to threaten, that's bullshit, I'm sure none of them thought he could actually do anything to them, but the power to remove himself and therefore their access to celebrity. That's how some abusers work... the threat isn't "If you don't do what I say, I'll hit you", the threat is "If you don't do what I say, I'll leave and you'll never see me again." When the abuser has convinced you they're a vital part of your life, that seems like a valid threat to you. Even the little quisling that came forward to protect her own ass, you notice that her actual worry is "Could he take youtube away from me?" She wasn't afraid of losing a job, she was afraid of losing him and the deflected glow of celebrity on youtube that he shone on her.
That's the whole reason it's called "grooming" and not "blackmail". Groomers, especially outright predators like Ryan, don't typically get some sort of leverage and then force the girl to perform on threat of the leverage, like a hentai plot. They convince their victims that they, the groomer, are a necessary, important, and deeply significant part of their lives, and then the threat is in being able to take themselves away at any time.
