 As a young woman sits in a psychiatric hospital for suicidal ideation, it's clear that the I'm Alec situation with Slazo has gone way too far and we're seeing just how toxic cancel culture can be. While people do need to be held accountable for their actions when they're in the public spotlight, when is the point where the hatred becomes disproportionate to the crime? There are currently dozens of channels out there contributing to the dog piling of this situation for their own personal gain under the guise of wanting accountability. The reality is that cancel culture is taking lives and we need to do something about it. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel, what I try to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community and try to see what lessons we can learn from them. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So all of you who are not following me on social media in case you missed it yesterday afternoon depending on where you live, my brand new book, Canceled, is out now. It's over on the website. It is free. It's a free ebook. All right. So go check it out. The audio book should hopefully be coming out this week and by the way, anybody who does a donation of $5 or more, you will get the audio book completely free and Zach should have it edited by the end of this week. But anyways, just real quick, I just want to thank all of you so much. Like I just released it yesterday and there have been so many downloads and I'm so happy because cancel culture is something that's really toxic and something that I'm really against. So I'm excited that people are going to learn a little bit more about what's going on from my own personal experience as well as experiences like the ones I'm going to talk about in this video, but I'm also kind of nervous. But anyways, check out the description and the pinned comment down below and let's get started with this video. For those of you who don't know what's going on, I'm Alex as well as others have been under attack lately. This all started about a month ago when another YouTube creator named Slazo with almost 1 million subscribers was accused of sexual assault by his ex-girlfriend Shay. When this happened, many commentary channels started spreading this story to condemn what Slazo had done to this young woman. During that time, I'm Alex also turned on Slazo. Slazo and Alex had been friends and Slazo even lived with Alex for a few weeks when he was in the UK. After the accusations came out from Slazo's ex-girlfriend Shay, Alex and many others stood by the side of the victim. Slazo stayed silent for weeks and then he finally came back with a video titled My Side where we learned that his ex-girlfriend Shay had lied about many things and the screenshots that she had shared were mostly taken out of context. The screenshots made Slazo look extremely bad, but then we found out that these were basically just two kids doing some awkward sexting. When we look at this story and see that I'm Alex defended the alleged victim, it's something that's not abnormal. Yesterday, Andy Signor released a video titled Me Too Misfire. Andy is the creator of Scream Junkies and Honest Trailers and in 2017, during the height of the Me Too movement, he was accused of sexual assault as well. Over a year later, due to fighting this in court, he was finally able to tell the public his side of the story. Much like Slazo, he was innocent of almost everything that he was accused of. Although he had cheated on his wife, his relationship with the accuser was consensual. With so many victims not getting justice, it's no wonder that people immediately defend them. But like when we see with the case of Andy and Slazo, sometimes there are false accusations. While not all accusers are lying, these are two prime examples of the internet turning on two innocent men. So do me a favor, down in the comments below, what are your thoughts on this subject when it comes to believing the accusers but also when innocent people are being accused? With Slazo's video, he was able to clear his name but the damage was done. Since posting his video, he's still taking a break from social media and discussed what this whole situation did to his mental health. He's currently in therapy to try and work through what happened. It's also important to note that at the time of their relationship, Slazo was only about 16 or 17 and Shay was only about 14 or 15. Much like many of us, he admitted to being bad at relationships at that age and he apologized for it. Although he was accused of sexual assault, it turned out that he was just an immature boyfriend. When Slazo's side of the story came out, creators like myself updated our stories. Myself as well as some others have unlisted the original videos because the claims against Slazo could ruin his name forever. So it's only right to try and get that off the internet. Unfortunately, people like I'm Alex stated that although Slazo cleared his name, they didn't want to be friends with him anymore because he was a controlling boyfriend. Since then, the community has turned on I'm Alex. Large creators like Kavos and Keemstar have made videos about Alex turning his back on his friend. The primary criticisms are that Alex never asked Slazo for his side of the story and that Alex has yet to apologize for helping to spread the narrative against Slazo. Whenever something like this happens, smaller commentary channels smell blood in the water. Immediately, more and more smaller channels started to dig into the story and now there are dozens of videos out there releasing more information about I'm Alex and everyone else involved. I actually discussed more details of this story in my book Cancelled, which is free and here's a passage. There's this medium tier of commentary creators that consist of creators who have anywhere from tens of thousands of subscribers to a few hundred thousand. This community often bands together to create the moral standards of the internet with claims of holding others accountable. They see it as their duty to hold larger creators like I'm Alex accountable while nobody is holding them accountable. They're able to shift their moral standards on a regular basis without anyone noticing. But I do. Now, aside from I'm Alex, these commentary channels went after another creator named Heogen who is also a friend of Slazo's ex-girlfriend Shay and defended her at the time. The commentary community has made multiple videos about her claiming she's an animal abuser as well as a pedo. All of this ended up leading to this tweet just a couple days ago. Heogen tweeted out, and for my next trick I'm going to effing kill myself. The question is if these commentary channels were real life schoolyard bullies or bullies anywhere else in the real world rather than just making videos online, would they receive as much support? Or would people call these creators out for being in the wrong because they're taking this way too far? So I guess the question is like what are we doing as a community? Is this a community that you want to be a part of? When are we going to learn? Shane Dawson just released his video with Eugenia Cooney. And Eugenia Cooney opened up about everything that was happening to her and the hate comments that she was getting, alright? When the pro-Jarrod situation happened, Holy Conrad was attacked by the hate mob which led to her going into a psychiatric ward for thoughts of self-harming. And now Heogen is actually in a psychiatric ward as well. And just a month ago we had the tragic loss of Erika. So when are we going to learn? Like for those of you who don't know one of the reasons I wrote my book is because earlier this year I was canceled and I'm extremely fortunate to have such a great support group and to work so hard on my mental health. But to put this in perspective for you, even while promoting my new book about how toxic cancel culture is, the hate mob has regularly been leaving nasty comments and tweets about me. It's as though so many people from the hate mob who are screaming and leaving these nasty comments don't understand that they're proving everything that I discuss in this book about why this thing is so toxic. One of the main problems is that these small commentary channels are incentivized to make these videos and incite the hate mobs. Many of these creators are young and they may not even realize that they're being incentivized to bully people. Sometimes I sit back and I ask myself, my son who's 10 years old now, what if I found out that when he got a little bit older he made an entire YouTube channel that was based around trying to hate people. So now I'm going to show you some statistics to kind of show you what I mean about how YouTube incentivizes creators to make these videos. So I'm going to do my best to leave these people anonymous though. This first creator, during his videos creating them about I'm Alex and Heojin, this creator passed over 100,000 subscribers, alright? Now if you notice there was a big, big, big red number for views because this creator sent out this tweet. They said, these videos aren't gone, they're just unlisted for now. Heojin has tweeted and said multiple places that she is going to take her life. Her friends are concerned as well. They won't be gone forever. He followed up with this tweet, I want to relist them for people who enjoy because I know a lot of people did like them and I certainly dedicated lots of time to them. But in the end people will needlessly harass her no matter what sadly. So as you can see us creators are sometimes put in a weird situation because you the viewer want to see videos like this and we create content based on what you want to see. So I would love to know your thoughts on that aspect of it down in the comments below. Now here's another example of someone who has gotten a huge increase in views since making videos about the I'm Alex and Slazo situation. This creator subscriber count has almost doubled. Next there's this creator and check out his subscriber numbers and his view numbers. They're skyrocketing. His final creator a month ago he was barely, barely getting any views. He was lucky if he broke 100 views. Now look at his videos and look how many views they're getting. He currently has over 4000 subscribers and within the last month he's gained 3940 subscribers. So think about that for a second. And the whole reason I'm showing you these statistics is because YouTube kind of incentivizes people to make these types of videos. Just hours after heojin sent out that tweet, Slazo tweeted this dropping in to reiterate please don't harass anybody involved with my situation. Guilt by association is dumb and I think most involved were just trying to help a close friend. Wanting answers I can understand but I know firsthand how it feels to be made a spectacle of online and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It can be disastrous for your mental health so please don't be a part of it. Two wrongs don't make a right. That's right the person these commentary channels are defending is telling them to back off. As a community we need to realize that justice isn't about destroying someone in retaliation for someone else. This just becomes petty revenge. I can so relate to what Slazo was saying like although I got canceled earlier this year and I still get a ton of hate from random people on the internet I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. Even the people who have made hate videos about me I would never ever ever ever want them to go through what I've been through. And that's something that I talk about in this book like until you go through this situation like even me like I was completely ignorant I had no idea what these creators went through and like even now like I still don't know the full weight of what some of them went through like I'm a small channel and when you look at people like Slazo and others or I'm Alex like there are so so so many more people coming after them. So lastly Leon Lush came back from VidCon and posted a vlog where I'm Alex appeared. Some people weren't happy about this and Leon ended up receiving this comment. Seriously you had to have that tool I'm Alex in your video I'm so disappointed in you Leon Leon replied with this oh shut the f up already you expect me to abandon a friend because he may have had a lapse in judgment and now the entire internet hops on the wagon that wants him destroyed what kind of friend would that make me I'm gonna let him deal with this stuff but until then I'm not gonna pretend we don't have a history and haven't been friends for years that's what wooses do that's all I'm gonna say about it and yeah yeah like I hope to God any of you who go through this situation you get a ride or die homie like Leon Lush like if it wasn't for the people who stuck by my side throughout my whole situation I don't know where I would be right now I don't know if I would still have a YouTube channel I don't know if I would still be sane you know what I mean like I had people despite what was going on who stuck by me and I appreciate them more than they will ever know I talk about it a little bit in the book but I appreciate them so much because I had so many people turn on me who I thought were friends so I'm glad that people like Leon Lush as well as many other creators are saying yo our boys screwed up but I'm not just gonna absolutely hate him and never talk to him again because he screwed up like that's not what friendship is you know what I mean but anyways anyways like please go check out the description and the link down below I do a whole inside look on cancel culture in my new book and I've like I've worked so so hard on it and I made it free just because I want more people to get an inside look as to what is going on in our community all right so check it out and like I said the audiobook will be out within the next week and if you donate five bucks or more you get a free copy of the audiobook all right but anyways that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you're all amazing and thank you so much to everybody who has already downloaded the book everybody who's donated I'm getting so much support I love you all so much all right thanks again and I'll see you in the next one