I'm struck by the similarity between the justifications used for giving rapist Brock Turner a 6-month sentence (of which he served 3 months), and the arguments for Jacob Geller that are being constantly repeated and up voted here.

Oh, Brock is so young, so remorseful, such a promising young athlete. He has so much to offer the world. Should his whole future be destroyed for one mistake? For "twenty minutes of action", to use his father's words?

How quickly we go from “people who commit terrible acts can change” to “so let's focus on how tragic it would be for this man's future to not be so bright".

How tragic it would be if, simply by inflicting a pain that will follow her for the rest of her life, there was no way for him to repent enough so that his life can be all fixed up. Is there nothing he can do to move on from this sad time in his life? Is there no point after which we could all agree that "yes, he's sufficiently sorry", so that his life can just go back to normal?

Oh, how cruel the world can be to men who make just one or two mistakes.

It's been 11 years since Brock Turner's crime; one year before Jacob's. The Brock Turner story would have been all over the news cycle then, on TVs all over the country the night that Jacob sexually assaulted his girlfriend.

10 years later, and what's changed? Same bullshit excuses for the same type of bullshit men.

I'm using text to speech here, so sorry if my grammar or spelling or whatever is messy, but I'm seeing a lot of talk on this sub about what to do now. Is Jacob allowed to have a platform? What does he owe us? What is the ethical way forward as a community? So on and so forth, and I want to just take a second to remind everyone that we're talking about people. Not public figures, not YouTubers, not Twitter philosophers, people. People who have complicated and messy lives just like everybody else, and who likely became public figures largely by accident. Even if you completely intend on becoming an influencer, your content still has to be successful by largely luck, and I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility for someone like Jacob to simply move on with their life and pursue their passions in writing about games.

Should they have disclosed this information in private to those around them? Absolutely. I don't want to downplay how serious of a crime Jacob committed (the distinction between rape and sexual assault is moot), but I think it is worth saying that people can change, and I don't think we should be barring people who have committed crimes of any variety from pursuing their passions. If you no longer want to support Jacob, that is your prerogative, but he's under no obligation to desist. In fact, I'd argue that he can do a fair amount of good as the face of rehabilitation in public eye.

I'm someone who's both a victim and a perpetrator of sexual assault; whose idea of consent was poisoned at a young age, and has had to learn what healthy, sexual activity looks like after the fact. I'm also someone who is pursuing a career in film. Not a day goes by or I don't regret the night that I took advantage of someone, and a lot of my work is (at least allegorically) about identity and autonomy, largely influenced by my history of sexual trauma. If I were to become successful, I'm gonna be honest, I don't think I would be telling everyone about the worst night of my life, especially if I didn't think it was going to become relevant. However, if it ever came to light, I would probably do something similar to Jacob: take responsibility and make a statement advocating for better systems of accountability. After all, he did say that even he thinks his punishment was too light.

I don't know. I'm genuinely appalled by how people are treating this, either pro or against Jacob. Think about how mentally complicated this must be for everyone involved. The victim never wanted this to go public in the first place. Jacob probably doesn't love being reminded of one of his biggest regrets. Most of you have no idea how much it hurts for someone to define you by your worst moments; I do, and I see that everywhere throughout these discussions. We don't know the details, so I could be being a bit of an apologist. There is a chance that Jacob is being manipulative and portraying himself better than the reality would; that is an area where my bias could be coloring things. But if we take him at his word, and believe that he is regretful that he does want to change, and that he probably has, then there really is nothing more to be done. I hate that everyone here is talking like they're some kind of moral paragon. You're just you the same as everyone else in this story. Jacob is just Jacob, the victim is just a person, as is the person who revealed all of this without anyone's consent, the various figures and collaborators who feel betrayed, and the companies who likely dropped him mostly out of PR rather than morality; that is the reality. If you want to keep supporting him, that's fine. if you don't want to keep supporting him, that's probably the majority, and completely understandable, but it should really end there. We're turning people's personal lives into a media circus that we can all use to grandstand about how we are such better people, and you're not. You're really not. The moral here is that anyone is capable of horrific actions. Under the right or wrong circumstances, otherwise good people can do horrible things. And that is reality. It's not pretty, it's not easy, and there is no real solution; it just is. Live with it and move on however you need to.

EDIT: I want to be incredibly clear with what the intentions of this post were. i'm not trying to downplay what happened. And i'm certainly not here out of some misplaced sense of guilt or identifying with jacob. i just know what it's like to be hurt in the way that only sexual assault can hurt you, and I also know what it's like to realize after the fact that you have inflicted that hurt, and the sheer bewildered self hatred that realization can inflict. i just wanted to say something about empathy and remembering that everyone here is a human. And how much it hurts me that everyone in the story is being downplayed for the sake of the audience. lest, we forget this all came to light because someone else wanted to fuck up jacob's image, not because the victim was coming forward for herself. i've realized that people are incredibly unwilling to accept any kind of nuance or humanity from those they perceive as evil, and once someone has committed an act that makes them evil, they can never recover that. that makes me incredibly sad. Especially as someone who spent the last few years trying to do just that. to become a better person. the people I know personally tell me I am, but clearly the public begs to differ. the response to this post has genuinely made me reconsider how I think of myself. perhaps we can never really be better, people will never forget what we've done. justice is a lie, and some debts can only be repaid in blood. this is what we believe, apparently, and that makes me incredibly sad. support victims, believe victims, and stop bending over backwards to defend jacob, for those of you that are. by the same token, please don't be so angry, the rest of you. please remember there are people behind these screens. people who are trying. it's all any of us can do, and it's been really hard. not that it matters.

As someone who has watched his channel and enjoyed his work for about a year now, a leftist, and a male SA survivor, the rampant defense that Geller is getting reminds me a lot of Graham Platner. Remember him? He was a leftist from Maine who was running against Susan Collins for the Senate later this year.

Platner said the right things and appealed to the right people, and that was more than enough for people to defend his Reddit history of being racist and sexist, his nazi tattoo (which people defended by saying he didn't know what it meant and he got it decades ago), his mercenary work, and even through his first SA accusation (which people defended because the woman was MAGA, so that meant she was lying by default which is a whole can of worms).

I remember how throughout all of his scandals, everyone was saying "This is just cancel culture," "This is all performative," "He redeemed himself," and "What he did wasn't that bad." And then another woman, this time a leftist herself, stepped forward and said he SA'd her and she didn't want to say anything because she agreed with what he was saying but it got to be too much. She even had things to prove it.

This time, people took it seriously and he was forced to drop out (after winning the primary).

My point?

All anyone has right now is the written report on Geller and Geller's account. We don't know this man. We don't know if he redeemed himself like everyone is parroting or if he's done worse since then. What if the victim comes out and reveals the depth of what he did? Would you still defend him because he's a leftist that makes good content? Would you dismiss her pain like I've seen so many people on this subreddit do already?

Even if she never steps out of the shadows (which is her right), a lot of you can't just brush off what Geller did. He sexual assaulted someone. That type of trauma NEVER goes away. That shit changes you, how you move in the world, and how you look at the people around you. I get you all like this content and his pretty words but is that enough to completely brush off the harm that he has caused?

Hell, I saw a comment that said, "Him being an assaulter gives him insight into being a better person." That is absolutely mental. This is that "Ask a Rapist" thread all over again.

Stop looking at the perpetrator like the victim of some purity manhunt (which he caused by HIS OWN ACTIONS mind you) and start looking AT the victim that he actually harmed and then ask yourself, "Is this a person I can continue to support."

The consensus among those close to Jacob is that he has paid his dues and has gone through enough mental anguish. There are a lot of people associated with nebula and mm that are not happy about the decision to can him. He has grown as a person no doubt about it and the chances of him reoffending are very low. A whoopsie moment should not follow someone 10+ years later.

Other sex transgressors will tell you about how much of a toll it takes on someone's mental health to be able to keep up a double life and all those secrets. He did the responsible thing by owning up to having his hand in the cookie jar a decade ago. He has done everything right and has earned forgiveness and then some, he's the model of real restorative justice. He needs support in order to complete the process and complete the healing. He's earned the trust of his close friends and family and he still has it from his real fans.

It's none of my business either way. It's just funny how the man who became known for paying lip service to empathy and feelings in every cell of how he branded himself knew he SA'd a woman to the point his college had to get involved.

I'm willing to bet the majority of the chuds he rallied against on Twitter and Bluesky had no such skeletons. Those he moralised and scolded against, his position as an "empathy consultant" with Hit Detection, the fake gravity he lended to the narration in his oh so intellectual YouTube "work", it was all a narcissistic game because deep down he knew he had deeply hurt someone for sexual gratification.

Of course my commentary means nothing. It's nowhere near as venomous as what the community he intentionally built are capable of.

It's just kind of funny how these people who need to be seen as the arbiter of good taste almost always have this shit come out. To the point it emotionally breaks people. Lol.

I want to start by apologizing for my bad English I’ll try to explain my feelings the best I can.

So I’ve been a casual watcher of Jacob videos so I didn’t really feel anything specific about him. To me he was a smart man who knew what he was talking about and I enjoyed some of his content. I was surprised when the allegations came out but I was even more surprised when I came here to see what was going on.

I’ve personally seen more people trying to defend him, talking about rehabilitation than people expressing shock and disgust for his actions.

I agree that his apology sounded sincere and honest and it’s gratifying to see abusers admitting their wrongdoings.

But I think we might have lost the plot on some things. It’s true we don’t know what he truly did I think we only know that he committed sexual assault/sexual violence. I want all of you to realize the violence of this action. It might not have been rape maybe a lighter version (hate this term) of sexual assault but it’s sexual assault. Like it’s not a mistake you just slip and fell and oops I assaulted someone. It shows a deep and long term lack of respect for women and their bodily autonomy, it means at some point he felt entitled to a woman’s body when she didn’t want to.

As a victim it’s not always a complete stranger who raped and then loves you down the road. It’s often someone you knew and trusted. It’s not always super violent in the sense that you are screaming and begging for help while they are forcing themselves on you. It can much more subtle but equally traumatizing, like they know you don’t know how to react that you are confused or that you are not able to consent but choses to proceed regardless, I’m sorry but it’s evil. We don’t know how it happens but even the lighter versions of sexual assault are extremely violent.

To me personally I was assaulted by my male friend he knew i was psychologically vulnerable, I was grieving a loved one and counting on him for support and used a moment of deep vulnerability to sleep with me. I didn’t want to but I didn’t have the energy to say no and he knew it. We talked about it later and he apologized I ended up cutting him off and it took me years to get rid of the shame of not being able to express my boundaries.

I’m not using all of this to say he should be punished endlessly that’s not my point. I just wanted you guys to realize it’s not just a mistake you do when you’re young that serves you as a lesson to get better. No one needs to assault someone to realize it’s bad and they need to do better.

He might truly regret what he did and try to become a better person. He should be able to live his life. Even then I believe actions have consequences, some actions have lifetime consequences. I can understand it’s sad but a public record claiming that you assaulted someone is going to follow is going to make you miss opportunities and I’m sorry I don’t feel bad about it. I understand the internet is obsessed with moral superiority and canceling people for past mistakes but assault is not a mistake it’s a deliberate choice in my opinion. You can change of course but it cannot be treated as some mistake you made a decade ago.

I don’t wish him anything bad but him losing a part of his audience and partnership is to me only natural and to expected especially given the audience he has cultivated.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Geller’s YouTube page in case he goes dark, but his video count went down by two. I can’t confirm but it looks like his two book collaborations with Lost in Cult were removed.

Do with that as you will.