 What's up everybody, it's Chris. So just a little intro to this video. This is going to be another audio chapter from my book, Cancelled. And this was one of the chapters I was most scared to write. So I just wanna explain my motives and intentions behind this and you might call me a liar and say I'm doing it to hurt somebody else or whatever. I understand that I can't force anybody to believe me, but when I decided to write this book, I wanted to not only take back my narrative, but I really wanted to give people an in-depth look on cancel culture. Like it's not just a bunch of strangers saying ridiculous things about you, but the man I'm talking about in this video, I considered a friend and he was the last person I thought would distance themselves from me. And it hurt, it hurt a lot. So what you're about to listen to in this chapter, I understand, I empathize why he did it. He had this happen to him and it happened to me, so I know what it does to you mentally. And he had to distance himself for his own mental and emotional well-being, but this is me sharing my experience. But here's the thing, so why am I putting it on YouTube? Why am I putting it in a YouTube format? Well, if you've been watching my videos, I explained kicking off this whole series that I came to the realization that people who watch YouTube don't read books, all right? So there's nothing that I'm putting out here that hasn't already been discussed months ago in this book, but I know many of you don't read books. So I decided to put this as well as some other chapters in a video format. But here's the thing, and when I was releasing the book and when I realized that a bunch of drama channels were gonna read my book as well, I was like, they're gonna figure out who I'm talking about and they're gonna go after him and I don't want that to happen. But here's the thing, I mentioned this in my last video about the right opinion. I'm pretty sure most of the people who claim they've read my book haven't because I was preparing to make videos defending this person or making statements, defending this person when the drama community attacked him and it never happened. So people from the drama community, like it proves to me that they never read my book because I was so worried that once they read this chapter, they were going to use it as a weapon towards this guy. So before I let you go and let you listen to this chapter, I just wanna say a few things. Do not go attack this man if you do, like you're no better than anybody else and I don't want you part of my community. I still believe in my heart that this is a very good person and I think much like myself, there was false narratives created about him. I feel like he did this as a form of self-preservation which is a part of human nature and what we gotta do to protect ourselves. I forgive him and I hope you forgive him too. I'm glad that he's had a lot of success recently. But anyways, here's the chapter. Chapter 20. During my time on YouTube, I have a pretty good track record of being against cancel culture. It comes from my addiction background. I don't think there are many people who should not be forgiven. Hell, I even said Logan Paul deserved our forgiveness. The next person that I thought was a good friend is someone who is not only a creator who was targeted by cancel culture, but they're also another man in recovery. I hate to say it, but I hold much higher standards for people in recovery. The reason is because not everyone goes through therapy or actively tries to become a better person, but those of us in recovery are forced to. Others, I often think, well, they just don't know any better, but someone like this definitely does. This creator was someone who was in the drama community that I absolutely loved. When I made the transition to try anti-mental health topics with the drama going on, I absolutely loved this man's content. He wasn't just sitting there talking about all the drama and how awful everyone was. He had a ton of compassion. He always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe that people should be forgiven. He also has an incredible work ethic, which I admire. He and I talked a few times through DMs about being people in recovery, but not much more. I also learned that like me, although he wasn't a licensed therapist, he had a background working in addiction treatment. Much like myself, my theory is that other people in the drama community felt that he thought he was better than them. I just saw him as someone who was trying to add another layer to the drama by giving people something that may help them out in their own lives as well. Also like myself, he was doing great before cancel culture came for him. He was gaining subscribers and was loved by many. A lot of my subscribers begged us to do a collab because they saw so much in common with our channels. Unfortunately, someone who he considered a friend in the drama community turned on him. I watched both sides of the story and it just seemed like the other person got upset over some silly stuff that could have been handled in a conversation rather than an exposed video. I thought he'd be able to weather this storm because he had a previous controversy the year before, but everyone came to his defense. This time was different. Much like what happened to me, the drama channels ganged up on him. One of the drama channels even made a video about him that was over an hour long. I started to watch a video, but I had to turn it off because there was so much misinformation in the first 20 minutes of the video. Much like what eventually happened to me, you have people who don't understand the mental health profession or laws and they're trying to Google their answers in an effort to ruin someone's life. Since people would rather believe drama channels instead of doing their own research, this creator was canceled. When I saw this happen, I reached out to him to let him know how sorry I was that it was happening to him. I let him know that I knew everything she said in that video about him, like lying about being a counselor was ridiculous and anyone with knowledge of the mental health field would know how wrong she was. While the entire community was going against him, I decided that I was going to stand up for him. I ended up making a video discussing his situation and explaining to people my views on it and saying that he wasn't a bad person. He thanked me in private for standing up for him, but he didn't want to say anything publicly like many others. He just wanted all of this nonsense to die down. As time went on, we ended up becoming better friends. We chatted more in DMs and then we swapped phone numbers. We'd talk on the phone and I'd be there for him while he was going through all of the canceling process and I'd give him encouragement. We talked about recovery and how things were going to turn out all right. Then the initial rumbling started to happen where you could tell the drama channels were going to come after me. At first, he was there for me. He talked to me more and had my back the way I had his back during his situation and I really appreciated it. He even told me that he had some dirt on other creators if I needed it, but I declined because that's not something I wanted to do. This was right around the time I went to California for some other collabs and he happened to be out there too. So we were going to link up to do a video together. We didn't end up making this video together because our schedules had changed and he had to make a flight. Weeks after the trip to California is when everything blew up. He talked to me a little, but as the snowball effect continued to get bigger and bigger, he talked to me less. Like the previous young woman I discussed who had been through the same thing I was going through, he had mentioned before that he didn't wanna go through it again. As he slowly stopped replying to my DMs and texts, I knew what was happening. Like I said earlier, this one was different because he's someone else in recovery. Not only that, but the same people who went after him were all coming after me. When he stopped talking to me completely, I felt even more alone and more betrayed because of how much I defended him during his own controversy. A couple months passed and the James Charles versus Tati Westbrook drama happened. During that time, he was still making videos and kind of steering clear of the other drama channels and he was doing fairly well, but then things went really well. When he started covering the James Charles situation, his video started blowing up again. I remember how he told me about how much money he had lost from this controversy and he even had sponsorship deals fall through. So I was happy that things were starting to go well for him again. Not only was he starting to get views again, but he was also gaining a ton of subscribers. He went from about 130,000 subscribers to over 200,000 subscribers pretty damn quick and it was awesome to see. I even sent him a text saying how happy I was for him that things were starting to turn around. But like always, he didn't reply. Not long after the James Charles situation, there was all of the news about the issues between Nickocato Avocado and Trisha Paytas in which she ghosted Nick. I was following this story and I watched one of this creator's videos and sent him the following text. Here's what happened. Me. So I watched your new video and I'm feeling pretty weird about it. You're talking about how Trisha ghosted Nick and he held onto that pain for so long and how it's happened to you, but you haven't been talking to me. I wanna keep this between us and not go public so I'm messaging you. I've looked to you as a mentor type in the community. Many people have disappeared on me and distanced themselves publicly because of the drama that happened to me a couple months ago, but it bumps me out that you haven't talked to me since you've been through this as well. And not going to lie, it hurts as well because I had your back throughout the whole time the drama community was attacking you. He replied with this, Hey Chris, okay, I feel you deserve an answer and since you promised me you would keep it between us, I'll explain. When all of the drama was happening with you, the focus was immediately put on me and I couldn't go through it again. I honestly didn't trust that if we talked, you wouldn't tell people that I was being supportive, which would directly affect me. I could not justify or defend some of the things you had done. When I talked to my sponsor about it, she suggested I distance myself from you in the situation for my own mental wellbeing, unless you reached out to me for sobriety support, which I always offered as well as my firmly believing in the responsibility statement of AA. That didn't happen, so I didn't respond and it's been hard, but I never publicly said anything against you. I'm trying my hardest to learn from my mistakes of the past and be a better person and you do deserve an answer. I'm not mad at you, I don't hate you, I think you made some poor decisions. I have gone through hell on YouTube and that is not your responsibility, but I just couldn't go through it again. I hope to some degree, as human beings, that makes sense and you understand. I replied with, I accept your apology, I totally get it and I figured that was the situation. I definitely made some mistakes, but when shit hit the fan, a lot of lies got spread and people were blowing things out of proportion. It got to a point where people were saying I told a suicidal person to kill themselves and they tried ruining my mom's career. But again, I totally get why you had to do that and sponsors no best, so I have no ill feelings towards you and just want to remain friends. Finally, he replied, Chris, every video out there about me is threaded in lies. The ramifications of those lies had directly affected me way past YouTube and social media and has been a mess for me, which is why I decided not to address it or partake in it further. I wish you all the best. I am sorry I didn't respond before. I honestly didn't know what to say without getting pulled into it. And like I said, I'm always here for you as a sober person. All right, back to the book. It's been difficult because we're taught from a young age to treat others the way you'd like to be treated. Something I learned in my sobriety was that my expectations lead to a lot of my problems. So for a long time, I had no expectations of people. The problem is that as part of human nature, we expect that when we're there for people, they'll be there for us when we need them. I also expect those who have been through what I'm going through to empathize even more. I thought that because he had every one of his friends leave him when his controversy happened that he'd be there for me, but I was wrong. One of the biggest problems with cancel culture and sometimes humanity in general is that we're all just in it for ourselves. We put ourselves first. And trust me, I teach people that they need to put themselves first when it comes to their mental health as well as their sobriety. But there's a certain point many of us get to where we can begin helping others. Working in the treatment center, I had a ton of bad days and things affecting my mental health, but I knew I had to be there for others during the most difficult times of their lives. It's one of the reasons I work so hard on my mental health so I can be there for other people. I feel bad for him though. Since I've been through it, I know why he's afraid to get pulled back into it. It's traumatizing. I was serious when I said I forgave him, but someone needs to break this cycle and that's why I'm writing this book and we'll continue to defend people when they get canceled. I just can't live with the idea of whenever someone gets canceled in the future, it's the norm to bail on them. I want to set a precedent that when someone gets canceled, we defend them. I hope we can quit being selfish and realize that standing up for what's right is more important than our own reputation because if we don't have our integrity, what do we have? When I defended him during his drama, was I worried about the hate mob attacking me? Of course I was, but that fear was not stronger than my drive to stand up for what is right. And if you're reading this book, I hope you start doing the same thing for your friends.