I've been listening to the jstlk stream since he started covering the Turkey Tom video. I agree with the vast majority of his analysis, but I also think he's obviously trying to save his own ass in a way.
However, some of his statements regarding Max, and his article have been bugging me, and I've actually been thinking about it for a couple hours now.
I don't know whether people will agree with my argument but I'll make it anyways.
jstlk, and probably other people, give Max credit for "falling on his sword" because he kept quiet, and refused to leak a lot of information that he had, and calling this behavior noble.
I actually don't think it was noble at all, nor do I think Max was making any real sacrifice.
Max gets off on being a savior and believing himself to be morally superior to everyone else. He genuinely gets off on it, so I wouldn't really respect neither of those two actions, either betraying the victims by leaking all of their info, or by keeping quiet, as he gained satisfaction from both results.
I actually think that Max's article, and his analysis for most of the stuff was rather superficial, and I don't think that is an indictment of Max's intelligence, rather I think it shows that for Max it was far more important to publicly BE THE ONE to take down Destiny and save all of these women, rather than actually making a proper investigation and ACTUALLY taking down Destiny.
I'm pretty sure Max didn't even read/look up details in this thread until recently, and I'm sure of that because for months, maybe even a year, after he started his investigation he didn't actually know how so many random fans knew about the Lauren Southern affair. He thought it was because of Destiny likely spreading the information behind the scenes.
Some of the behavior that I'm talking about could actually be noticed when Dr K got reprimanded, he immediately started going and responding to tweets, making interviews with journalists, and tried his hardest to make it known not only that Max had spoken about it before, but that he submitted the complaint.
The funny thing, is that if I'm not misremembering, the complaint that ended up getting Dr K reprimanded was actually filled before Max's did, so it wasn't actually Max's complaint that got it done, bur rather a guy (who's internet @ I'm forgetting) who had contact with Reckful's families and friends.
The point I'm making with this is that Max didn't even consider for a second that it couldn't have been him that got Dr K reprimanded, because he's a narcissist with a God complex.
But I think that is the point I'm trying to make. Max was never the guy that could have, or should have, taken Destiny down or should have done that investigation, and I neither respect or give any credit for creating the article or keeping quiet about stuff, as both served himself, and because both also ended up helping Destiny to continue his behavior for a couple more years.
I actually respect President Sunday's behavior far more, of being weasly rat and leaking Pxie's shit without her consent, both because he knew it would hurt Pxie and did it anyways, and because he knew people would shit on him for it, but he also knew it was the right thing to do, to force the current situation to happen.
Obviously, President Sunday also had his selfish reasons for doing it, but again, President Sunday was a far better person to go after Destiny than Max ever was.