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The King of Youtube Falls From his Throne – The GW Local
Read Time:3 Minute, 55 Second

By Carly Novell, EIC News

Trisha Paytas and Ethan Klein discuss Wittek’s recent video about the allegations made against Dom Zeglaitis and David Dobrik in an Insider article.

Almost every day in quarantine feels the same, but the popular podcast “Frenemies” starring YouTubers Trisha Paytas and Ethan Klein has been one of the most exciting parts of the week since it began in September. What was initially a comfort podcast that felt like a gossip session between best friends made headlines last week when co-host Paytas and other guests, Nik Keswani and Seth Francois began voicing their harmful experiences as members of YouTuber David Dobrik’s “Vlog Squad.” 

“Frenemies” started a conversation around Dobrik’s filming environment and power dynamics after Keswani and Francois accused him of belittling their marginalized identities for a segment in the vlog. Dobrik remained silent on the allegations until an article was released from Business Insider by Kat Tenbarge featuring anonymous sources detailing a sexual assault allegation against another Vlog Squad member, Dom Zeglaitis. Dobrik was implicated in the article because the assault was featured as a bit in a deleted vlog. 

Before the article was released, Vlog Squad member Scotty Sire uploaded a video in attempt to discredit Francois who alleged that he was sexually harassed by Jason Nash without his consent as a prank in Dobrik’s vlog. In Sire’s video, there was a clip featuring Dobrik’s voice explaining text messages between him and Francois. Based on this clip, it appears that Dobrik was involved in the assembly of Sire’s film. 

On March 16, the same day that Tenbarge’s Insider article was published, Dobrik uploaded a 2 minutes and 30 seconds long video to his Podcast channel entitled “Let’s Talk” with the comments turned off. This video is a mostly vague statement from Dobrik where he attempts to evade responsibility by talking about the importance of consent in his videos and placing the blame solely onto Zeglaitis, who was able to use Dobrik’s influence to sexually assault and harrass people. 

After the article was published, another Vlog Squad member took to their channel to make their own statement. Jeff Wittek posted a 20 minute video attempting to deny his involvement in the deleted vlog and disparage the reporter of the article for using his name. In his video, Wittek plastered the reporter’s Twitter profile to the screen, sending his followers to attack. 

While some fans of Wittek took his bait to attack Tenbarge, the reporter on the Insider article, “Frenemies” decided to hold their first ever live podcast with Wittek as a guest. In their live episode, rather, interrogation, Wittek admitted that he had not read the article in its entirety after sending his fan base to attack the reporter. Klein also caught Wittek in a lie when he tried to say that he was only filming with Dobrik for a half hour the night of the assault. Wittek’s face dropped when Klein showed him a photo with a timestamp past 1 a.m. of Dobrik, Wittek, other members of the Vlog Squad, and the victim after her assault. 

Because of all the inaccuracies in Wittek’s video pointed out by Paytas and Klein, Wittek decided to take his initial video down. Sire also deleted his video, subsequently posting an apology on Twitter screenshotted from his notes app. 

Back in Fall 2019, members of the Vlog Squad visited the GW campus as a promotion with Bumble. Now, Dobrik has lost most of his sponsors including EA Sports, SeatGeek, HelloFresh, General Mills, DoorDash and his own app, Dispo, according to Insider. 

It wasn’t until Dobrik lost most of his sponsors that he decided to make another video on his main channel where he actually addressed the allegations and took responsibility for his actions and the detrimental environment created by his vlogs. He mentioned his first “Let’s Talk” saying, “I missed the mark on that one.” 

The “Frenemies” took to their podcast to do their third episode of the week, dissecting Dobrik’s second apology video. While they agreed it was more genuine than the last one, they still felt it was carefully crafted as an attempt to save himself from the thrashes of cancel culture. 

Although Dobrik apologized and pledged to improve in the future, it is unclear where his career will go from here. There are inherently harmful aspects of Dobrik’s humor, vlogs and pranks that he must reinvent. Dobrik has been taking a break from filming vlogs due to the Covid-19 pandemic; his last vlog was published April 24, 2020.

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