My name is Jo and I’ve been making videos on youtube for 5 years. I’ve a combined total of about 200 videos and hundreds of hours of content. On October 6, 2020 I did a live stream of the early access release of Baldur’s Gate 3, and during character creation I did a bit where I briefly sing a genderbent parody of Lizzo’s “Boys”

 

It seemed to go over well with my audience and all of my friends. I typically do these kinds of bits for my live streams sometimes. I was also partly inspired by the source of where I first heard Lizzo’s song - Hakkim Animation’s video

 

Running the idea by my friends, who are all very encouraging and supportive of me, I decided it could be a fun project to animate the brief stream moment for my youtube audience who may miss or not be interested in my live streams. And so on April 2nd of the following year, I finished and uploaded my I Like Girls video, and it got a universally positive response from my audience, my peers, and my partner.

 

About a year later, it seemed to have reached outside its target audience and ever since then I have seen and received many assumptions about my character, my history, my beliefs, my relationships, and all those of my partner, as well as threats of violence to me as well as my family, doxxing attempts, and mocking from even people I look up to and respect. All from a single 30 second video, out of 200 other ones.

 

Granted, a lot of this has been primarily on twitter, where I could simply log off and ignore the haters, but no small amount has leaked into other parts of my regular day to day that is harder to ignore - private DMs over discord and twitch, suspicious packages being sent to my family - but I’ve always kept quiet about it because speaking out about it publicly, defending myself, any reaction to it would just encourage more, and be presented as my own fault as well. But if that’s the tradeoff to do something like share the things I make that I’m proud of on the internet, seeing as I’m writing this, it’s probably an indicator that I’m just not cut out for it, and the best thing for everyone would be to stop and pursue something else. Despite being very grateful for what this job has done for me and my family, I’m simply not strong enough to keep doing this if it means having to just accept this kind and amount of distress. Perhaps that makes me weak, but I’ve rarely ever really thought otherwise.

 

I never meant to make anyone upset, I only ever just wanted to make things I was passionate about for fun. I never intended for this one video to really be all that much deeper than just a thing I wanted to do on a whim because I thought it could be fun. I never planned to have youtube be my job, but people happened to like what I made so I thought it could be a good idea to make more of it, and use it to pursue projects I’ve always wanted to make as well as be the change in youtube I wanted to see. I was inspired by the channels I watched growing up, and the wonderful friends that have encouraged and inspired me to be who I am and make what I want.

 

I still want to make things, but perhaps I should just keep them to myself for the time being. For anyone that cares, I’ll still be continuing Heart of Elynthi and the JOmega charity, but once those are finished I will be taking an indefinite break from posting anything online. It’s a decision I’ve considered ever since the first hate wave from about a year or so ago but wanted to sit on it and see if the feeling would persist. I know now this is the best choice for me.

 

If you took the time to read all of this, thank you. I’m sorry for causing so much trouble. Thank you for watching my videos

 

• JoCat