EchoBlog

Recently, two YouTubers from the now-defunct Sad Milk Collective have been caught in a battle of accusations against one another, alleging abuse, misinformation, and even sexual misconduct. Illuminaughtii (Blair Zón), a YouTuber known for providing commentary on MLMs and internet controversies, and The Click (Mark Deck), known for creating content related to various subreddits, have both created videos responding to each other’s accusations. Like many YouTube-related scandals, there’s a lot of information to sort through if you’re trying to stay up to date on the drama; in an effort to help you achieve that goal, here’s a comprehensive summary of what we know so far.

On April 20, Illuminaughtii (hereafter referred to as Blair) posted a series of tweets accusing LegalEagle, a channel run by American lawyer Devin James Stone, of copying her own channel’s editing style. In the now-deleted tweets, Blair claimed Stone’s editing team reached out to her own regarding her editing techniques, and when no response was given, they plagiarized her instead. Stone responded by providing clarification, saying the two editing techniques both channels use are common and not exclusive to Blair’s channel, while iterating that his editor was looking for help with a plugin, rather than actively trying to copy a unique style.

Blair apologized privately the next day (she would publicize the apology in a later video) and that matter, at least, was resolved; however, this is YouTube drama we’re discussing — it rarely lets up that easily. LegalEagle’s thread gained traction in the following days and several of Blair’s old colleagues began to share accusations against her.

A few days later, The Click (hereafter referred to as Mark) posted a Twitter thread regarding recent plagiarism allegations made against Blair that had resurfaced after LegalEagle’s response. Mark was previously a member of Sad Milk, a collective of YouTubers primarily run by Blair, and had split from the group over two years ago. In his Twitter thread, Mark said he left the group because of Blair’s unprofessional behavior and what he referred to as “poor anger management.” He claimed he, along with half the group, left Sad Milk after a final meeting where Blair allegedly berated him for being a “bad friend” and “lazy.”

After his departure, Mark claimed Blair then spread misinformation about him to turn his previous friends and community members against him, even going as far as unearthing old videos where a teenage Mark used slurs and inappropriate language. Mark says he has apologized for the videos, and that he aims to be transparent about his old videos, which he writes have “aged like milk,” but that Blair continued to discuss the videos because she wanted to lead people to believe Mark was kicked out of Sad Milk for inappropriate behavior, rather than leaving of his own volition.

He then went on to accuse her of attempting to take over his Discord after his community grew larger than hers, and that she intimidated him and other former Sad Milk members to stay quiet about mistreatment.

A few days later, Blair responded by uploading a 42-minute video addressing the allegations made against her. In the video, Blair first addressed comments from another YouTuber, Hbomberguy, accusing her of plagiarizing a documentary in one of her earlier videos. Blair defended herself, saying it was more a case of poorly citing the source rather than intentionally plagiarizing; she argued she originally believed the video clearly showed she was quoting, but acknowledged she could have been clearer to avoid confusion.

She then got to the meat of the video — addressing Mark’s accusations. Blair explained that Sad Milk initially started as a fun project among friends who also happened to be YouTubers; the group would comment on any content, primarily from Reddit, they found “cringe.” According to Blair, she found herself primarily responsible for the channel and was in charge of finances, hiring editors, creating the discord, and maintaining a recording schedule. Due to her heavy workload, she quickly became burnt out and grew aggravated with her fellow content creators for not pulling their weight; in a meeting with the rest of Sad Milk, Blair claims she told the others she didn’t wish to discuss a certain topic (she isn’t clear on what that topic is, but implies it’s related to either finances or her debating leaving the group) and when she reluctantly joined the call, she blew up at Mark, who left the call in response.

After quickly apologizing for hurting Mark during the meeting, she then goes on to accuse him of using “horrifying language and slurs” in front of her and other Sad Milk members while gaming, even after they told him the language was unacceptable. Then, she addressed the accusation that she was trying to take over Mark’s Discord; her concern arose when a 19-year-old used Mark’s Discord server to “brag” about “dating” a 12-year-old. The offending Discord member was blocked from multiple servers, but Blair accused Mark of allowing the conversation to continue on his own server, only banning the offending user when she showed screenshots to their mutual friend, One Topic. Blair then alleged that Mark’s Discord moderators were sharing graphic sexual content with minors in the server, and attempting to groom those minors. She confessed she wishes she had never befriended Mark in the first place, and that when Mark’s channel was terminated for alleged sexual content, she regrets helping him bring it back online.

Blair then addressed allegations that she withheld pay from YouTuber Wonderstruck, who she hired as a salaried employee during a rough time in his life, but lost a large amount of her viewers’ goodwill when she posted his suicidal message in the video. Viewer responses were torn; some were concerned about the accusations made against Mark, but also were disgusted by Blair broadcasting her former employee and friend’s vulnerable message shared with her in confidence, regardless of whether or not Wonderstruck had failed to complete the work assigned to him.

On May 2, Mark responded to Blair’s response by posting his own 33-minute video. In the video, he addressed the accusations that he allowed a predatory conversation to continue in his Discord Server by saying the only reason it took him longer to ban the problematic user was because the conversation happened at 2am in his time zone, while he was asleep. He then provided screenshots with timestamps of when he removed the user, and clarified that when a Discord moderator was found to be sharing graphic sexual artwork, he was quickly removed from the moderation team. Mark shared a conversation between him and Blair, showing direct messages that Blair seemingly shared out of context to paint Mark in a poor light, which Mark believes was to gain further control of his Discord.

He then addressed Blair’s accusation that he used slurs while still an active member of Sad Milk; after sharing messages between him and another former Sad Milk member, Oz (who worked for Blair for a short while), Mark shared that he was not aware of the meaning of a particular slur until 2020, and acknowledged he could have definitely used it within the time frame Blair alleges. He went on to say he no longer uses that word (but also doesn’t believe it to be “too outrageous”) as he doesn’t want his community to feel unsafe.

Mark then accused Blair of running an organized smear campaign against him after he left Sad Milk, saying Blair spread multiple rumors about him and used several accounts to sway public opinion against Mark. He shared screenshots of Blair frequently bringing up past instances where he had used inappropriate language, and encouraging former friends to make content that painted Mark in a bad light. According to Mark, Blair was “hyping up” others by sharing their mutual distaste for Mark in a private Discord and even paying staff members as much as $200 to sift through his old content in order to find material they could use to make Mark look bad, specifically him using slurs (which Mark says she also uses “behind closed doors”). The screenshots and private messages Mark shared in his video are allegedly from former staff who grew tired of Blair’s behavior and decided to “expose” her after ending their professional relationship.

Later in the video, he accused Blair of using an alt Reddit account to continue her smear campaign against him. When comparing a private message from Blair’s official Discord account with a post made on the Sad Milk subreddit, Mark found that the two were identical and was led to believe Blair created the second account. The same account, according to Mark, allegedly harrassed him, his staff, and former Sad Milk members throughout 2020 and 2021 on multiple social media platforms. Mark strongly believes the account was created by Blair so that she could anonymously harass her former colleague, and shared a message between Blair and Oz, seemingly acknowledging that Blair was behind the account.

A lot has happened so far in only two weeks and with both Blair and Mark making serious allegations against each other, it doesn’t look like this scandal will reach a conclusion anytime soon. Watch this space for developments.

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