That DM from a guy whose favorite creator got canceled...

I posted a pretty mild take about a YouTuber I used to follow, just mentioned how their apology video felt off to me. A random dude DMed me on Reddit, said he was a fan of that creator for 5 years before the scandal. He told me 'it's tough when someone you looked up to turns out to be a different person than you thought.' We chatted for like 20 minutes about parasocial stuff, just two strangers being honest. Has anyone else had a random conversation like that that stuck with you?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_allen2d ago

Yeah I had this happen to me once in a gaming discord where someone DMed me after I said I didn't like a popular streamer. We ended up talking for an hour about how hard it is to separate the art from the person when you find out they're a total mess behind the scenes. It's wild how these moments actually show you something bigger about society like how we all kind of project our own hopes onto random internet people we've never met. That convo with that rando made me realize how lonely it is to be a fan of someone who lets you down because you don't have a real person to talk to about it. I still think about that chat sometimes and it's been like 8 months.

irismartinez2d ago

8 months and you still think about it? That's wild, @grace_allen.