The Berkeley Beacon
October 21, 2021
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Keemstar, The Bogeyman of YouTube Kaitlyn Fehr Beacon Staff
Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of racism, homophobia, sexual assault, suicide, and pedophilia. YouTube drama trending on Twitter can only mean one thing—Keemstar crawling out of the basement he lives in to spew out the worst take anyone’s ever heard. Whether it be James Charles’ interactions with minors, Tana Mongeau’s racism, or Jake Paul’s overall shittiness, Keemstar takes the cake. Keemstar has remained relevant solely by commenting on every terrible thing a person can do on the internet, despite his own terrible history online. The “Keemstar” persona is derived from his actual name, Daniel Keem, but avid YouTube viewers may also know him best as “DramaAlert” or “Killer Keemstar,” one of the hosts of the “Mom’s Basement” podcast. Through these platforms, Keem “reports” on internet and YouTube drama, and often digs a hole for himself in the process. Keem’s bad takes—and his apparent love for dating women half his age—have gained him name recognition beyond his wildest troll dreams. His recent controversies follow a torrid history that would take hours to describe at-length, as Keem doesn’t know how to remain relevant beyond saying and doing the most offensive things he can think of. As someone who pays too much attention to YouTube and internet drama, Keem really feels like a bogeyman. Whenever he’s been quiet for too long, he comes slinking out of the shadows to say something that will piss off half of the internet. Keem thrives on drama, and it’s hard not to feed into his trolling. His takes are so bad that you can’t help but fight back, and then inevitably, you spend too much time arguing with his 13-year-old fanboys. He’s a bogeyman that you throw metaphorical hands at as he lurks, jeering at the end of your bed, glaring up at you from the glow of your phone screen. Keem’s takes are genuinely scary in the context of how many people believe and support him. His podcast has just over 40,000 followers on Twitter, and clearly, people are interested in his terrible takes. Keem’s “DramaAlert” channel, which he describes as a “news source” for online entertainment, currently has almost six
million subscribers. Keem got his start on the internet by bullying, berating, and trolling other players in the game “Halo 3” for a group called the Federation of Asshole Gamers, the acronym for which is a homophobic slur. Of course, “asshole gamers” would go out of their way to be as offensive as possible. In the late 2000s, long before Twitch existed, Keem live-streamed on a platform called BlogTV. At the time, another website called BattleCam was popular for ranking users, through which Keem eventually landed a moderator position because of how long he spent ranked at number one. In order to maintain his relevancy, he did what he does best, and started drama. Keem and another moderator who went by the username AlexXx8 often feuded, which led to Keem telling his viewers on stream to call Alex the n-word with a “hard r.” At the time, Keem apologized for his use of the word, as reported by The Daily Beast. That apology has now been made moot by Keem’s insistence that he is 9 percent Black, as if that excuses his previous and current racist remarks. Following this racist incident, Keem managed to keep a (mostly) low profile on the internet for the next few years. The relative peace couldn’t last forever for a guy like Keem, who is constantly fueling an online dumpster fire to keep his image preserved on the internet. In 2016, he wrongly accused a 62-year-old man of pedophilia. The 62-year-old man livestreams himself playing “Runescape” under the alias “rsgloryandgold” and goes by the name of Tony. Keem claimed on his YouTube channel that Tony was a convicted pedophile named John Philips—but the real Philips is currently in jail. Tony cried on stream following the allegation, showing proof of his identity before Keem relented and apologized. Keem’s DramaAlert channel, run by a team overseen by him, tried to ruin a 62-year-old man’s life over their own incompetence in research. Also in 2016, Keem started another controversy when he tweeted that he couldn’t wait to report on YouTuber TotalBiscuit’s death after TotalBiscuit announced he was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. Keem using a person’s impending death as content, as if his human life is as unimportant and disposable as his opinions, becomes even more concerning when we
learn he might have led another creator to suicide. In 2019, gaming YouTuber Desmond Amofah, better known as Etika, died by suicide just days after posting a series of concerning videos and tweets. In the days preceding his death, Amofah had a conversation with Keem on DramaAlert where Amofah claimed that life was only a video game. In response, Keem replied, “If you really think about it, then why live? Just jump off a cliff? If it’s just a simulation, who cares?” Days later, Amofah was reported missing, and Keem speculated that it must be a stunt. Unfortunately, police later discovered Amofah’s body, and let the world know that it wasn’t just a stunt. Encouraging someone who is showing suicidal tendencies to believe that life really is all a simulation is one of the worst things you can do. Keem has shown over and over again a disregard for mental health issues, having tweeted things like, “The drug companies invent all these illnesses so they could sell drugs to morons. Social anxiety 100% is a fake and invented illness. Stop being weak… Society is literally going to die if you keep this bullshit up.” When news of Amofah’s untimely death spread with Keem’s name attached, it propelled Keem’s infamy to new heights. It doesn’t help that Keem is bad at staying in his own lane, and he loves to pick fights with other creators that have nothing to do with him. One of his biggest feuds is with fellow YouTuber Ethan Klein, also known as H3H3. The full situation between the two would require an entire article to describe, but if you have the time, Klein’s video about Keem is a great watch. After Klein’s video, Keem went even further off the handle and has attempted to terrorize Klein and his wife ever since. Keem claims that Klein tried to “ruin YouTube” and that he’s trying to “ruin America” by supporting vaccine passports. It seems like every week Keem finds a new reason to harass the Kleins on Twitter. This behavior causes Keem to look more like a jealous troll than a well-established YouTuber. In more recent years, Keem has also come under fire for his treatment of women, specifically in regards to how he treats victims of sexual assault. In 2013, Vine-star Jessi “Smiles” Vazquez
accused her ex-boyfriend and former Vine user Curtis Lepore of sexual assault. Lepore pleaded guilty to the assault, but Keem continued to publicly tweet his support of Curtis years later. In 2019, he tweeted admitting that he never believed her story, despite Lepore’s guilty plea. In 2021, Jake Paul faced sexual assault allegations, which you can read about in a previous Beacon article. Keem took to Twitter, posting a video where he claimed that there’s no way to sexually assault someone in the way the victim described. Massive trigger warning here, but the victim was orally assaulted, and Keem believes the victim would have had to choose to open her mouth. Keem said, and I quote, “Is there really no way to get away? I just really don’t believe this story at all.” Keem’s treatment towards these sexual assault victims goes hand-in-hand with his treatment of women in general. In the past few months, it has come to light that Keem has a penchant for dating women in their early 20s, while Keem himself is almost 40 years old. His most recent girlfriend was only 20 years old, and Keem met her at a fan meetup, though he claims she wasn’t a fan. Do we even need to talk about the gross power imbalance here? After posting a picture of his girlfriend on his Instagram, Keem’s comments were filled with people questioning and making fun of the age gap. People on the internet expressed their (valid) concerns while Keem made jokes about how young she was for the entirety of their public relationship. In the beginning of September, Keem felt the need to tweet the Google results for “39 year old women,” implying that the women featured were ugly and that is why he doesn’t date women his own age. He also added a wonderful statement of, “If you remember where you were on 9/11 I’m not interested.” All of this becomes even more concerning when you learn that Keem has a young daughter of his own. What kind of an example is he setting for her with this kind of behavior? Keem has also come under fire recently for allegedly playing a role in getting Twitter user @defnoodles banned. Defnoodles, named Dennis Feitosa, covers drama and controversies in the online sphere, and often covers Keem. Feitosa has said he believes that Keem is the reason his Twitter account was perma-
Daniel Keem. / Creative Commons nently suspended by the platform. This would not be the first time Keem got someone banned from a social media platform. In August, Keem whined about Ethan Klein “harassing” him enough that YouTube banned Klein for a week. Somehow, Keem seems to have powerful enough contacts behind the scenes that he can bend an entire platform to his own bidding. Regarding Defnoodles, Feitosa believes that Keem played a role because the ban came shortly after Feitosa responded to slanderous claims that Keem had made about him. Keem also tweeted in celebration of Feitosa’s ban just minutes after it happened, before Feitosa himself even realized his account was suspended. All of Feitosa’s evidence is viewable on a highlight saved to his Defnoodles Instagram account. It’s funny that Keem goes to such an extent to get people banned, considering that he’s been ban-evading for his entire career. Keem has had three separate channels banned by YouTube, and his current channel is technically operated by his manager. He exists on YouTube solely because of a loophole. He’ll also happily harass women, and send his followers to harass women, but can’t take any form of harassment himself. It only counts as harassment if it’s directed towards him, apparently. Hypocrisy from this man is not surprising, after everything else he’s done. My genuine hope is that one day YouTube cracks down on him for ban-evading, just like he has tried to force them to do to other creators. I long for the day I can check Twitter without seeing a tweet from “good guy Keem.”
kaitlyn_fehr@emerson.edu
American exceptionalism explains pandemic response Lucia Thorne Beacon Staff As Americans, we have been taught to believe that the U.S. is the pinnacle of what a nation should be. To question the authority of our nation would be borderline-treasonous, as this is the best the world has to offer. The only time the general public seems to question America’s actions is when a whistleblower releases graphic footage or recordings of our government committing horrific actions. So, why would they choose to show us the horrors of COVID-19 when they can just show us numbers and statistics? Seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand people have died of COVID-19 by the time that I write this story. Over 729,000 people, people just like you and me. They had loved ones they left behind. They had dreams, aspirations, and memories. They had a favorite movie, a favorite song, a favorite food; maybe they had the same favorite food as you do. But why do I expect no one reading this to feel saddened by this knowledge? Because 729,000 has just become a number in our minds, and unless one of those 729,000 was someone you loved, it has only been numbers since the start. This lack of human connection perpetuated by numerical reporting led to short lived public pressure on the Trump Administration to solve the pandemic, as the exhaustion of lockdown and the abandonment of normalcy persisted. Nineteen months after the start of the pandemic, has led to little accountability being sought after––the typical response to wrongdoing in the U.S. The U.S. was doomed to face drastic issues in the fight against COVID-19 from the start, all thanks to the pandemic that has infected American minds since
Courtesy Lucia Thorne its beginnings—American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism, the belief that the United States is superior as a result of inherent and unique differences that set it and its purpose apart from others, has always been at the heart of this country and its ideals (or better put, its entitlement and savior complex). That superiority stepped foot on North American soil from the very moment that the Mayflower reached the shores of Plymouth, Massachusetts with the intention to “bring civilization” to the Americas. This ideology permeated throughout the founding of our nation and onward, from rallying cries during the Civil War to the preserving the “soul of our nation” in the 2020 presidential election. Most recently, American exceptionalism can be seen by the surplus of misinformation and partisan political conversation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since COVID-19 began spreading in Wuhan, the virus became a controversial topic. Instead of showing some sympathy to those becoming infected with a terrifying, new illness we knew nothing about, the blame game began.
On top of blaming China for the worsening of the pandemic, news coverage only showed the numbers increasing but not the tragic spread of a disease. This dehumanized coverage created even less urgency and care in the minds of Americans because as we all know, if it’s not happening in the U.S. or in our immediate circles, it’s not actually a problem. Then, the circulation of disbelief and misinformation began to spread with the virus as it finally reached the U.S. The campaign of lies surrounding COVID-19, led by former President Donald Trump, infected enough of our population to create divisiveness and the perfect breeding ground for the virus to thrive. Trump would often make claims about the “superiority” of the American response to COVID-19.Trump would say things like, “America has developed a testing capacity unmatched and unrivaled anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close,” and “We now have the lowest fatality (mortality) rate in the world.” Trump said he “launched the largest national mobilization since World War II” against COVID-19, and America “developed, from scratch, the largest and most advanced testing system in the world.” All of these statements were false, and all of them promoted the idea that the U.S. is better than the rest of the world, when in fact, we were failing in ways that a country supposedly as great as ours should never fail in. This misinformation only served to create an image of success while in reality, we were failing in our response colossally, both in preparedness and public policy. Based on the pattern of exceptionalism, this seeming disregard for today’s mistakes costing hundreds of thousands of lives will be watered down in the history books. All in the name of keeping
America exceptional tomorrow. Education in the U.S. has always historically put the U.S. on a pedestal, even painting the U.S. as the champion for the greater good when committing war crimes. In the past decade, the country’s curriculum has been attempting to abandon the “see no evil” approach to education when teaching on America’s wrongdoings, but has been met with successful pushback from conservatives. In 2015, conservatives were outraged over the Advanced Placement US History course curriculum, leading to the College Board’s revision to include more positive recountings of the nation’s history. More recently, the debate has revolved around the teaching of critical race theory in classrooms nationwide– which is scrutinized by conservatives for the same reason—it paints the U.S. in “too negative of a light.” Not only has there been push back from the general conservative public, but the government has also attempted to take action by threatening to cut funding of schools teaching CRT and states outlawing the teachings altogether. Teaching about race in schools is not the only attempt at truthfully reflecting on America’s past in recent years. Former NFL quarterback Colin Kapernick began a movement amongst athletes after kneeling during the national anthem to protest the continued oppression of Black people and people of color. Within a few weeks, Kapernick began to receive death threats over his actions, as well as other NFL players participating in this form of protest also receiving backlash. The Miami Dolphins would not be escorted by any police deputies until they stopped kneeling, at the demands of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
Clearly, criticism of America is a touchy subject for many. American exceptionalism perpetuates the idea that true patriots love the nation no matter what, even if it means crushing opposition’s criticism of the nation––better known as nationalism. They want to keep doing what America does best: hide behind propaganda to hide atrocities committed against its own people, especially minority groups and other countries since the establishment of the first colonies. But what happens when America can’t get away with sweeping something under the rug? Change finally happens. The Vietnam War is a great example of what overcoming American exceptionalism looks like. After years of protests, the horrors of war in Vietnam were finally broadcast at home and the Pentagon Papers were released, which proved to be enough to rally the general public together to call for an end to the war. It eventually became enough public pressure to withdraw troops and end the war. This war shows American exceptionalism can be defeated by undeniable evidence of failure and wrongdoing, and maybe if the pandemic was shown in a more human and realistic context rather than overwhelming statistics, it would have been different. But it can’t be different. Over 729,000 people, people just like you and me, that had loved ones they left behind, that had dreams, aspirations, memories, that had a favorite movie, a favorite song, and a favorite food, and that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for us to realize just how tragic this pandemic is, how human it is. It’s time we look within ourselves and how this desensitization and toxic idolization of our nation has poisoned your minds and actions.
TW: sogyny On A death b Neelu public har are dent sh lays in continu
