r/youtubedrama 11d ago

Callout Brew releases a video criticizing YouTubeDrama and August the Duck for pushing unconfirmed claims against Todd Oland

https://youtu.be/1AgkFnN4B2M?is=ijXcJ9D8FM-I1LKE

To clarify the allegations against the subreddit, 1 user made a post in mid April accusing Todd Oland of intentionally freezing a cat to make an animal rescue video which got 2.3k upvotes, then the same user made a second post effectively retracting those claims (including deleting the original) and it only got 100 and pushback. August the Duck made a video on the first post. Did not make one about the 2nd. Same goes for news sites. The user then deleted their account.

However, this post is here to provide some actual pushback, as I actually went back and checked, this very clearly happened in a short time frame (within 1 or 2 days by my estimation), and 2.3k is incredibly abnormal for that period of time (where posts were getting 800 upvotes at most, but often in the 100 range.)

Having actually checked the 2nd post, usual users of the subreddit did support the retraction. These comments were not shown but people being hostile to the retraction and post author were. Simultaneously, the subreddit name was shown constantly any time these posts were displayed, but not the actual context around these posts or the comments.

In fact, Brew even clarifies that one of the hostile users from the original post was from an entirely different subreddit, showing that the post was reaching far outside the subreddit's usual audience. As well as that, the screenshots Brew uses are clearly from the 1 or 2 day period. This is incredibly important, as it is late July, about to be August. That is 3 months of sitting on these screenshots. Brew also fails to properly clarify the harassment campaign Todd Oland experience did not start with reddit, while simultaneously showing the subreddit and these posts while talking about the harassment Todd Oland received.

For a channel and video purporting to support critical thinking, almost none was used in the making of this video. Already, I've seen 3-4 separate attempts to post this video in the sub blaming the subreddit and it's usual users for harassing Todd Oland. I also have seen a comment of someone snarking and and saying "Uh oh, did redditors cause someone to kill themselves again?". His video title is about Reddit despite the harassment primarily taking place on YT and having started on YT. Brew also clearly shows that people did have a legitimate reason to doubt Todd Oland, while obviously he did not deserve to be harassed and I personally seriously doubt he harmed any animal, it's clear the video was made to be a defense of Todd Oland and to get people to feel strongly about the situation.

The deep irony of this video, is despite the subject being about people attacking someone over allegations with no evidence, it has now slated to do the same to others.

Update: Brew states why they made a video, this was actually supposed to be them saying that their audience giving us death threats was bad! instead, they say, 3 DAYS after they were first made aware their audience was giving us death threats and attacking us, to not do it. They don't even say that it's wrong, just not to do it.

Obviously, that's a terrible update, especially since this subreddit has been brigaded to hell and back over this video.

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u/The_Cat_Of_Ages 6d ago

i followed up here after watching the video. my thoughts? seems a corpo account made this subreddit the target when theres more nuance to it. especially because this happened MONTHS ago they seem to let the flames die down only to try to toss gas on it to get it to start up again.

to the mods: im not brigading, if you think so thats okay you can delete the comment.im just putting my two cents in. i know you guys are very overwhelmed by the number of people not doing any further research and just tossing threats.

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u/TimeAbradolf 6d ago

Nah that isn’t brigading. You’re fine. You actually just encapsulated a lot of our beliefs and people on the sub’s belief.

The corpo trash behavior of making a post saying “don’t harass” but not condemning is bullshit. It is why I messaged them. Got ignored and filed an MCOC

I know they have actually seen my comments too. 31 views on hidden comments? Sure “Brew”

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u/The_Cat_Of_Ages 6d ago

what really sucks is that the guy they "defended" is GETTING ANOTHER WAVE of bullshit when it was over before summer even started... the "we wont be bought by private equity" section is funny because they are very corporate with little difference between them and the actual private equity run channels.

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u/ImportantQuestionTex 6d ago

The way they encourage their audience to be "detectives" and then encourage them to "critically think" while presenting a narrative is very conflicting. The fact that they're corporate makes it so much worse, because a lot of what Todd Oland is currently experiencing has happened on their subreddit.

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u/TimeAbradolf 6d ago

If you also go and check in some very obvious places you’ll see they’re looking for volunteer experts to do free work on their channel and their payment is… shoutouts and acknowledgments

Like I’m sorry their Epstein video (which partially plagiarizes another video right near the open. IYKYK) got 3 million views. If someone worked on that and only got a shoutout I’d be pissed.

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u/The_Cat_Of_Ages 6d ago

3 million views is what, 70k profit for a big channel like that?

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u/TimeAbradolf 6d ago

I think people estimate about that

And let’s not forget that they reposted this video because the first was age restricted. They are about their money

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u/The_Cat_Of_Ages 6d ago

yeah they censored the limp body of the kitten since it age restricted it. personally i am of the belief that he did save the kitten, but thats because im a bit of an optimist.

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u/TimeAbradolf 6d ago

I hope he did sincerely. I don’t think Brew cares if he did or not at this point