If you haven't been following this, Jacob Geller is a video essayist who apparently does some good things about video games. As I say, I've never watched his stuff (and am probably not going to now) but, prior to all this, he seemed to have a pretty solid reputation as being a decent human being. Progressive, even. Now, of course, that trust has been broken; in a statement he put out yesterday, Geller noted that the whole situation is "the biggest regret of his life", but regardless of those regrets and what he has done since that time, to a lot of people — particularly his biggest fans — that past indiscretion is a permanent blot on the copybook.

And I'm not even saying that's wrong. Sexual assault is, of course, no laughing matter, and for it to get as far as the victim invoking "Title IX" (whatever that is, I don't know American law for obvious reasons) means that it must have been pretty serious. It's entirely understandable that, even though that offence took place many years ago at this point, some people simply cannot trust this person ever again.

What I find myself wondering is how this keeps happening. I feel like for the last few years, we've seen a steady stream of people who build up a following and a fanbase in the public eye online, only for it to come out that, at some point in their past, they were a despicable human being and may or may not, in fact, actually still be one, despite the front that they've been putting up to the world. And every time it happens I just wonder: what happened to these people? How did their life end up that way?

Perhaps it's a personality type thing: the person who is likely to find success at YouTube and streaming in 2026 is also the type of person who is likely to have sexually assaulted someone ten years ago. I don't really think that's true. I know people personally who have been doing YouTube for that long and, to my knowledge, none of them has ever done anything like that. I guess that's always the point in these kinds of situations, though; you never really know until something comes out about them.

Does that mean everyone should be looked on with mistrust? Of course not; that's no way to live. But I don't blame people for being wary at this point. It's happened too many times.

I think in my case I'm just confused because everything about all this is just a completely alien concept to me. I'm not saying this in a self-aggrandising "look at me, I'm a wonderful person" sort of way; I just mean that the very idea of treating another human being with such a lack of respect is so utterly unthinkable to me that I simply cannot imagine how people like this ended up doing what they did. But it only takes one lapse of judgement to bring a career to an end — those consequences might not be for ten years or more, as we've seen here, but it seems they are pretty likely to catch up with them eventually.

Perhaps it's for the best that I've always been riddled with social anxiety and have thus led quite a straightforward, normal and boring life. If nothing else, it means that Past Me has never been in a position to acquire any skeletons in his closet. And I'm glad about that. Not because I have any particular designs on Internet Fame or anything, despite the amount of stuff I post publicly. But because it means I can continue existing with a clear conscience.

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The post #oneaday Day 847: Skeletons appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.