In his publication on YouTube entitled ”The Dark Secret of Stuu and YouTubers: Pandora Gate (Boxdel, Dubiel, Fagata)” Sylwester Wardęga revealed materials in which he indicates that many of the most famous Polish YouTubers have committed scandalous behavior towards underage girls. Most of the accusations were directed against Stuart ‘Stuu’ Burton. However, others are also involved in the practice, including: Michał “Boxdel” Baron, Marcin Dubiel and Michał Gała.
The film shocked public opinion. During the live broadcast, Wardęga’s comment was watched by over 400,000 people. viewers.
The film “THE DARK SECRET OF STUU AND YOUTUBERS: PANDORA GATE (Boxdel, Dubiel, Fagata)” had over 8 million views on Sunday morning.
After the material was published, traditional and social media were abuzz with mentions and articles on this subject.
According to data provided by PSMM Monitoring & More, in just three days there were as many as 76,552 publications, of which 2,874 in traditional media and 73,678 in social media, with a total reach of PLN 153,173,249 and an estimated AVE of PLN 22,059,196. The medium whose users were most active was YouTube (32,898 publications), X – the former Twitter (17,905) and Tiktok (16,347).
Much of the information published concerned directly the accused persons. There were 70,969 mentions of Stuart ‘Stuu’ Burton reaching PLN 114,311,041 and AVE (advertising equivalent) PLN 12,372,123.
In the case of other creators, these numbers are equally high. Marcin Dubiel’s name appeared in 44,214 publications with the amount reaching PLN 64,997,852 and AVE PLN 9,195,910, and Michał “Boxdel” Baron – in 73,197 with the amount reaching PLN 90,105,233 and AVE PLN 8,501,536. The fewest mentions concerned Michał Gała – 5,570, reaching PLN 7,962,409 and AVE PLN 629,766.
Brandy wants to distance themselves from the scandal
“The information about Pandora Gate is already shocking, and we haven’t seen the next announced movie, whose premiere has been postponed until tomorrow [sobota 7 października – red.]. This situation will certainly change the approach of brands to cooperation with influencers. Advertisers, learned from this experience, will select ambassadors with great care, focusing not only on the scale of the profile (number of followers) and the quality of content, but also on their personal lives,” comments Katarzyna Popławska, marketing and PR manager at PSMM Monitoring & More.
“The current situation may have a very negative impact on the image of companies that have cooperated with the people mentioned in the material. Brandy is currently doing everything they can to distance themselves from this scandal. The matter, of course, requires clarification, but its image-related consequences will be devastating for YouTubers’ personal brands,” adds Popławska.
Politicians about Pandora Gate
Politicians spoke out about the scandal. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that he had ordered “all services to immediately deal with this matter”, emphasizing that the authorities were taking it very seriously.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Justice Piotr Cieplucha announced a few hours later that he had notified the National Prosecutor’s Office about the possibility of committing prohibited acts of a pedophile nature by some YouTubers and celebrities associated with the Internet creators’ community. He noted that there may be more cases than those involving Stu.
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Image cataclysm on Polish YouTube
COMMENT Klaudia Charzyńska, managing director at First PR
The Polish Internet is currently being shaken by the issue of sexual abuse and violence committed by YouTubers. Some Internet users are not familiar with characters such as Stuu, Dubiel or Boxdel, but millions of recipients in other information bubbles – especially young ones – have been following their channels for years. The course of the case says a lot about the power that comes from reach and awareness of the nature of social media, especially when this world intersects with reality. We also have a number of examples of better or usually worse crisis communication by influencers loaded with screenshots – comments Klaudia Charzyńska, managing director at First PR, for Wirtualnemedia.pl.
– For the uninitiated: in recent days, evidence has come to light incriminating the creators of entertainment content aimed at young audiences – Stuu, who is no longer active on the network, Marcin Dubiel, known from Team X, and Boxdel, associated with FameMMA. Each of them has achieved enormous popularity on YouTube and other social media channels. Today, the prosecutor’s office is handling the case, YouTubers have suffered a real image cataclysm, and a real series is taking place on the Internet, created by Sylwester Wardęga, who collected the evidence so far in the form of a film. The presented screenshots and recordings of messages to teenage girls caused a wave of reactions towards YouTubers – from harsh criticism and direct accusations of pedophilia or helping to cover it up, to memes devastating their reputation. The publicity given to the case even attracted PiS politicians, who devoted a lot of time to declaring their opposition to the problem.
More doses of emotions
The first breakthrough in the Stuu case was Jakub Wątor’s interview with one of the alleged victims. Soon after, Internet users were shocked by the news about YouTubers who used violence despite their declared feminist views. We are talking about Gargamel and Krzysztof Gonciarz, considered to be the “conscience of the Internet”, who, by contrast, quickly faded into the background of the scandal, although it was the former’s violence that introduced the concept of grooming into the discussion.
Then there was only a domino effect – abuses in the world of YouTube and streaming came to light years later, and the current image of people whose behavior is controversial today is significantly different from them. However, the main role is no longer played by Gargamel, who coped with crisis communication relatively well and apologized for his behavior, without crossing the line of playing the role of a victim. However, it should be remembered that in Polish public debate the standards of apologies are dramatically low. It didn’t take much to show empathy and humility that would lead to solving the public conflict, but subsequent accused creators did not dare to make this move.
Another breakthrough is Wardęga’s film and live reports summarizing the course of events and the facts revealed so far about YouTubers’ abuses. This significantly strengthened his image – he presented the case, including Boxdel, with whom he seemed to be friends on screen, and so he immediately gained credibility and trust of the audience as an impartial judge and source of information. From a crisis communication perspective, it took a long time to respond to Boxdel, who faces proportionately less evidence. However, he did not use this opportunity to efficiently explain his role in the case and stop the wave of hate that hit him the hardest. – also because of their slightly better reputation than Stuu or Dubiel. However, Jakub Wątor’s previous interlocutor took part in his desperate film. By presenting her experiences in a completely different light, she damaged her own credibility and that of the defended YouTuber. Moreover, some data appeared in the recording that allowed the identification of one of Stuu’s victims. Many viewers considered this an attempt to divert attention from themselves and make it difficult to further clarify the matter.
Voice of the victims
Social moods on the Internet are changeable and filled with almost as many biases as the audience of a given creator or topic. It is dangerous when this group is the center of verification of a given behavior, and its reaction will decide who is the victim and who is the perpetrator at a given moment, and how both parties should be treated. The source of abuse is the power resulting from having hundreds of thousands of fans, millions of views and an image that is difficult to shake, especially in the case of emotionally engaging content.. The fear caused by this circumstance was directly talked about by Laura, Gargamel’s former girlfriend, who initiated the topic of violence, grooming and risk in establishing relationships with a large age difference. The consequences of making the violence experienced public were also felt by Stuu’s victims. Victim blaming is associated with cognitive dissonance – the brain suggests as many doubts and contexts as necessary to maintain its original view. In this case, sympathy for the influencer. Unfortunately, the lack of rules and framework for discussion on this matter, the dizzying pace and intensity of mass emotions result in constant twists and turns.
Role confusion
Influencers act as friends for fans and shorten the distance – but in reality, the most famous ones run an extremely attractive business. It is worth considering the nature of social media now and how the boundaries between creator and recipient are blurring. Together with the possibility of earning money by creating entertainment online, this relationship has completely different proportions than in the early days of the Internet, when we all played similar, relatively equal roles there. Today, it is the viewer-receiver and the numbers he generates, giving the creators attention, that is the most valuable commodity. That is why it is so important to be able to use the media and recognize the processes that take place in the relationship between the sender and the recipient.
People harmed by YouTubers’ actions could not consciously navigate the Internet – due to their young age and the general lack of this skill in Polish society. Deep reflection among Internet users and effective actions of the services can help balance the disproportion in which the voice of a popular YouTuber means so much that it is able to influence the perception of the roles of perpetrator and victim. This will not directly protect anyone from crimes or abuses, but it may take away some of the sense of impunity for creators who take advantage of their privileges and remain in a system that protects them, creating extremely hostile conditions for victims to reveal the truth and seek help. Consciously deciding who to devote our attention to online and on what basis remains a challenge for everyone.
In the world of journalism, there are organizations that monitor the media in terms of ethics, mission implementation and compliance with generally accepted principles and enable journalists to fulfill the expected function. Their activities and accumulated knowledge provide the basis for viewing the situation, creating reference points and, as far as possible, a general consensus on where the boundary between on-screen illusion and real life (and real victims) is. It may seem that the grassroots nature of social media does not correspond to any methods of control or formulaic evaluation, but the people concerned by the current discussion sometimes have a greater (and direct!) influence on the recipients than top media titles. In social media, the most important indicator is still reach, which creators also work to achieve in an unethical or harmful way.
Time will tell whether such a major image crisis of Polish YouTube will increase awareness of the impact of online content that we devote our attention to on a daily basis. This is another dimension of the crisis of trust and authorities who turned out to be opportunists of social trends. Others, it seems, simply used their popularity to harm young viewers. However, the next days may bring many twists and turns and verify the current news – after all, hundreds of thousands of Wardęga viewers are waiting for the continuation, announced by another creator of the commentary category, Konopskyy.
2023-10-09 01:19:04
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