It is no secret that while my quality has increased over the years, my mental health has not. Now, there are many reasons for that, but one of the MASSIVE reasons is this. I was bullied and made fun of by the other big animators. For at least a year in my face, ever since then it has been behind my back. I haven’t ever proved my case, but now that I am in this new “era”, I am finally ready to open up about why I am the way I am.
This entire thing is split into two pieces. The way I was treated by them and the way they ran Animation Sins. Both kinda mix together. Now, I arrived on the scene a while ago. I was a huge fan of theirs and I remember freaking out when I found out that they knew about me. Enchantedmob mostly. My young self did what anyone would do and I would try my best to be just like him. My characters looked similar, I used the same songs as him, it was all out of love and I wanted to be just like him.
However, the treatment I got back was less than ideal. I was called a “copy” and I was forced to change my style, song choice, and more. I am glad that happened, I’ve developed my own style. That is fine. That is what the public knows. Behind the scenes, there was a little more than that.
I will admit, back then, I hadn’t found myself. I hadn’t found a style that worked for me. I would “copy” a lot, never intentionally of course, but I was influenced by a lot of things. I tried to be just like them, I looked up to them. I hope that as I grow better I can distance myself from that. I like to think I’ve done a very good job of it so far. If I have hurt anyone from my discovery of myself. I am extremely sorry. I didn’t have bad intentions, I was young and I didn’t understand things. For those who I did that to, I can privately apologize if you so desire.
The first place I can think of that started it all, I was live streaming and I got a DM from Enchantedmob’s manager. He asked a few things and asked to join a call with him and Seth so they could discuss a business proposal. Sure.
That is all great, here is where the mistreatment comes in. I was live streaming at the time, with a friend.
I was too young to realize it, but “This meeting is more important than your stream” and “1 hour streams are normally plenty long”. He told me that I should end my stream because my stream, me connecting to MY fans wasn’t important. You can see the young innocent me just doing whatever he said. You’ll see that a lot. I didn’t understand what was happening back then, only a year or so later did I.
During the call, I was told that I should join 3A Display. I was told that I would never be successful UNLESS I joined and I was told I would never be able to afford things, like a car. I don’t have any proof of this, it was a call and I never thought to record. I had a friend with me who kept saying to me “This is shady” and “Say No”. While he was younger than me, he was a lot more mature than I was. They asked for my income and being a naive 15-year-old, I gave it to them. They used my income and told me that “wasn’t enough money” and I should join 3A so I could make more. I didn’t make enough money to live. They were right. I ended up refusing the deal only because they told me I couldn’t upload videos that I made on my channel. I loved my channel and I didn’t want to abandon it. So I refused. Ever since then, things have not been well. (Side note, I did end up asking them to join again afterward, my friend tried to convince me that I should. I had second thoughts about it though and I never actually did it. I won’t share any screenshots of this conversation as it has private deals and finances with the company. Out of respect.)
I don’t have evidence for this, but I was added to a group with them. They said they wanted to be friends with me and I was super excited. It was a group with all of my favorite animators. Enchantedmob, his manager? A lot of others who are not involved. I remember being at a hot tub when they added me, it was a Friday I think. They posted a lot of memes and I thought it was great. That Sunday, I was getting ready for the day when I decided to do a bit of digging. I searched my name and found them making fun of me. The biggest one was they used my little face emoji from my discord server and put a gun emoji DIRECTLY facing it. Then they laughed about it. They made fun of my broken monitor and my most recent animation. I was 15 and immature. I didn’t know what to do. Everything was crashing down and I left the group and went into my server and told them what happened. I don’t think I had a friend group on discord at the time. They got mad that I went imminently to the public and that really pushed everything. My biggest regret from that is not taking screenshots. (I may have actually taken a screenshot or two, but they are LONG gone. If I did, my biggest regret is not SAVING the screenshots.)
Edit: it's been a bit and I have found some of the screenshots of them making fun of me privately in the group and the computer screen. I only have the screenshots of the those 2 cases, but I'll edit once again if I can find the rest) For context AndyBTTF was a part of that group with Enchantedmob and his manager, along with Isacx. This image shows that jokes were being made about me in this manor. Here is the screenshot with the computer monitor, here I am discussing the issue with AndyBTTF: I clearly state that I don’t think any of this is funny. |
Three months later. They start talking badly about me in public. I bring it up to him. He did end up apologizing at the end, but that is proof that they knew they were talking badly about me.
(The wording of that implies that he is trying to justify why it is okay to hate on me, at the time, he was one of the owners of the server.)
You’ll see that a lot, that was a joke, it is a weak excuse. I was actually told the jokes about me killing myself were just jokes too. Either way, joking around like that is NOT okay. Below is even more proof that I did not appreciate talking badly about me.
“There has not been any since we’ve talked that I am aware of. We have all been very nice to you since I believe.”
I sent those screenshots BEFORE I sent this last one above. The gossip only gets worse.
Stuff like that, to the right, is mentally destroying. My idol and friends think I should stop. How could I not think horribly of myself?
After another conversation about the gossip that was happening, it ended like this. We “cleared” it up but nothing changed for me. He said that if I needed anything, I could let him know. Then my server got hacked. And I asked for help. Ghosted.
You can see the next message was July 2nd. This next section is the whole outro thing. In Enchantedmob’s video, he used my outro song. I don’t own this song, but the way they treated me was not okay. You’ll see.
He starts by sending me the video. I thought it was cool and stuff, then I noticed. Now, he had NEVER sent any of his videos to me. This was the first time he did this.
Here is where it starts. “You must have copied us….” I’ve been using that outro song since 2016. You can see it here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXdEz5MSrdI)
Two years later and they are saying I copied them.
Notice the lies already visible.
You can see here, they are contradicting themselves.
I stopped talking to him, I let the conversation be for a month or so. Then, I get this.
That is where our conversation ends. Regarding the outro, I heard from someone else that they did it on purpose as a “joke”, they lied to my face and made me look crazy. Like they didn’t know what was happening. At the time it worked. You can see him teasing me, bullying me. They knew I had a lot of issues with the sins videos. From our DMs, you can see a lot of bullying and almost manipulation. They twisted reality to fit their needs and all of this made me feel horrible about myself. I was 15 at the time. I didn’t know how to properly deal with things. I worry that this kind of behavior is happening to more people. It is NEVER okay to treat someone like that. I looked up to these people and they tried to get me to join their side but I refused. Ever since then I was treated like trash. I would like to call out the fact that he did leave me alone. That is a very mature thing and I thank him for that. I’ve had people I’ve had to deal with who aren’t that mature. Massive props there. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, however. As a little 15 year old, it hurt so much. I still to this day remember that conversation vividly and I still am hurt by it. I hope that by doing this I can resolve those issues for myself. I wish I would’ve told people about what was happening. I could’ve saved myself from a lot of pain.
I do not support Animation Sins in any way, shape, or form. I don’t believe their approach to criticism is helpful to the creators. As a creator, I know first hand how damaging it can be. They have pushed me into horrible places that I never want to ever be again. (This does not mean I hate criticism. I love it. I just don’t like criticism that has layers of bullying and harassment attached to it. That is fair.) I’ve been saying for years that I have asked for them to stop, but they’ve told me that I can’t ask them to and stuff. Now, I am ready to defend my statement and back it up.
Animation Sins is run by a lot of the same people who were mean to me and stuff, I truly believe that they were targeting me in the videos and then sinning my videos was done to hurt me. They knew I hated it and they did it anyway. I have had many people say they are harsher on me, I haven’t watched most of them. I don’t watch them. I hate the waves of hate I would get. People telling me to stop, people telling me how much sins I have or how much I deserve, etc. It gets too much and it is very overwhelming. I had asked them to stop many times, they said no. They only stopped when I did something that I never want to remember, something I did when I was dumb and stupid and I was clouded in the head that I couldn’t see past things. The hate built up so bad that I felt like life wasn’t worth living anymore… I don’t want people to talk to me about this time, I don't want to relive it. But, it is apart of my story and I can be brave and tell it.
It all started with the You Belong Here Video from 2017. I had noticed a channel called Animation Sins and I wanted them to sin my video. Yep. I asked them to. I don’t have proof of me asking them, but here is one of the animation sins creator’s saying it. I asked because I wanted to receive criticism. I still do. At the time, I thought it would help me. I was so wrong. Here is them responding to my comment through Discord.
With this person, I truly believe they had good intentions. I will be blurring their name out. I will not publicly say who this person is, please don’t ask. It is not important who they are. They really helped me and were kind to me all these years. If you happen to know who this is, thank them for being so kind to me during these hard times and please keep their identity a secret.
So we got into a call and began working on the video. I remember giving them a lot of feedback… but most of my “sins” were rejected. I think I got one sin in. I would try to explain some of the sins as they’d write them, but I was told that it was a sin and I needed to stop talking. (You’ll see something similar to this later on)
I tried to find the document, but it seems to be deleted. I didn’t own it. I remember when the video came out, I was on the bus on my way home from school. I remember watching it and feeling horrible. I regretted it and I realized I had made a huge mistake. If you notice, I never commented. At least I couldn’t find a comment.
I promised myself I would never say yes to an Animation Sins video. I followed that promise. Yet, they still uploaded. They never asked again. (It isn’t just about the sins. If their version of “Animation Wins” wanted to make a video about me, I would ask them to remove it. I don’t want them to touch my content. Period. Regardless of the praise. They’ve done so much damage and I’d rather they avoid it at all costs.)
I was warned about the video and you can see I really didn’t like it. This person was extremely kind and it felt like they understood.
I don’t think everyone at Animation Sins is bad. There are good people in it. But it does go too far, even he admitted it, he thought it was harsh.
Now we get to the issue. Enchantedmob. Now, from now you know about how his manager treated me. I hid the names of the other people involved. They aren’t issues, they were very kind to me and they never were mean to me. Most of the bullying came from Enchantedmob. You can see Enchantedmob going hard on me.
I requested they take it down. They said they were bound by a contract. Fair enough.
You can see me trying to make light of the situation. He did agree that a lot of sins were unfair and harsh.
They told me that the Baldi video would be the last video. I think they mean the Baldi camping one. However, they uploaded one more. And they maybe would’ve uploaded even more but the thing happened. You can see my desperate attempts to ask them, to no avail.
All of this proves that I have been against this for a long time. Since 2018. I have requested for videos to be removed or stopped for a while. I couldn’t do anything with the people I trusted, so I went to the main man himself. Enchantedmob. As far as I am aware, he is the head of the Animation Sins channel.
(I would like to point out and defend myself against the argument that I hate criticism.)
Now, he tells me that he sins videos that deserve it. But don’t worry, he tells me that he is sinning his own video. I guess his own video “deserves it” too. What is it? Well, I was told from an insider that he hated that video. So in my eyes, “deserve it” means that he hates it. My logic isn’t too complicated. If he wants to sin his video and he hates his video, if he wants to sin my videos, he must hate my videos. (This may or may not be a different person.)
So imagine him telling you that he sins your videos because they “deserve it”, then thinking back and realizing the videos he sinned of himself “deserved it” too. He hated them. I came to the conclusion that my favorite Youtuber hated my videos. That is a feeling that I never want to experience ever again.
You can see here he calls out my lack of animation skills here, claiming I “drag my mouse” which I did not. At the time, I was REALLY proud of my work. This is an animator with many more years of experience saying that it’s impossible for me to like my own work and I shouldn’t be proud of it.
I WILL SAY… there is a fair amount of constructive criticism in there. I do appreciate him helping me. I do not appreciate that attack that he is doing it in. Words like “I don’t believe you” or “how could you be happy with this” add a bit of aggressiveness to it. Keep in mind, I was still beginning animation. I was proud of it! Everyone should know what it feels like to be proud of your work, even if it is bad. This is why I started to hate my videos. I was told I shouldn’t be proud of them by someone I looked up to. Imagine your idol telling you that you shouldn’t be proud of yourself because you aren’t as good as them.
Here we start the “It is fair use so you can’t do anything, so stop complaining.
I then tried to use some legal stuff to defend myself, trying to combat the “fair use” stuff, but I failed. Technically they are completely in the right. It is fair use and I can’t do anything. HOWEVER, the harassment and bullying I got is NOT okay.
“It is unfair to request that”. It is unfair to request that you stop publicly humiliating me, I am your main content? Okay.
I think that speaks for itself. When I tried to offer them a deal, he mocks me. The group had gotten together and drawn a bunch of pictures OF ME in humiliating things. Without my permission. If I remember right, they sent those to their public server. When they’d send it, I would say it was funny, but it really hurt me and I didn’t have the confidence to say how I feel now.
Now starts the ghosting phase. In this screenshot, I was ghosted for two months. I was only replied to once I COMPLIMENTED him. Now, he may be busy. I understand that. I have been guilty of doing the same, sometimes you just forget… I don’t think this proves anything, but it didn’t make me feel better. I didn’t feel important to them. When tied together with everything, it is understandable.
Again, I don’t think he is a bad person for ghosting. Everyone does it sometimes. It still hurts me though, I will try my best to not ghost people. I think it is a skill that I can improve in. No one is perfect and sometimes you just get busy.
You might ask why I don’t just address this in private. I’ve tried. Here is an example of that. Watch how he turns the conversation away from what I originally asked.
By this point, I had given up. He never, to this day, acknowledges the hate that I’ve gotten in that server. By the way, that “they” that I talked about was either me or a really close friend. I can’t quite remember. Now, I did ask the mods for help. Not a single one helped. In fact, I think one was on the hate bandwagon. “I don’t think this part has anything to do with me anymore”. IT IS YOUR SERVER. If you can’t manage a server, you shouldn’t have one! If I had a dog that I can’t control and that attacks people and I can’t control it, it would be dumb to keep the dog. Keeping it is putting more people and even yourself at risk. He gave a lot of great advice, but he never helped me fix the problem. He made me look like it was my fault and told me to just “ignore it”. Going back to the dog analogy, that is like me telling someone who was just bitten by my dog to “go to the hospital and get treated for it”. It isn’t my fault my dog bit you. I’m not the dog. I haven’t been the best at controlling my server at times, but I try. Even now, I haven’t seen it in months, I have an amazing friend helping me. He is absolutely amazing and is keeping things in order.
I have been dealing with this sort of thing for years. You can see the attacks in my face go for about a year, then they stop. From then on, all of the attacks were in private. They would talk smack about me behind my back and I am confident they still do it today. These are huge Youtubers who are acting like this. I was a huge fan of them. I worry that they are doing this to other people who can’t speak up. I am risking a LOT going after someone as big as them. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve learned I need to stand up for myself even if no one does. I don’t want them “cancelled” or hated on. My server will NOT drag anything, my server and my fans will NOT hurt ANYONE. I am doing this to tell my story. I am doing this to show how much it hurts when you leave things be. I left this be for over two years. I let it eat away at me. I needed to get this out. I don’t think they are bad people. A lot of the big animators have great intentions. However, you cannot treat people like crap. You cannot manipulate others just because they are in your way or they are possibly a threat to you. Right now, these people are adults, I am not. I still strongly believe that this still happens, behind my back. I hear things from people. All of this has sent me spiraling and it makes me not want to never come back. I am taking that pain and re-distributing it into my art, as you will see. The point is, no matter how big. Please, PLEASE stand up for yourself. NEVER let a bully shush you, never let a threat keep you quiet. I could have prevented so much pain if I had done that back then. (If I completely understood it too). I wish I could’ve fixed this a while ago. I wasn’t able to. Now, I can. I will stand up for myself and I encourage anyone who is being bullied to do so too. As a reminder. Do not send any hate to them. Do not “cancel” them. My intentions are to get my story out and to be completely open with you guys. I struggle a lot. Even now I am still hiding a lot of stuff, as I get more confident and comfortable I can hopefully release that tension and stress. Again, I do not want them to get hated for this. I do not want them to be canceled or for their careers to be ruined. This type of behavior is not okay and I will stand by that.
All of this happened behind the scenes and it hurt. For a lot of it, I was alone. I had no one to talk to about it and I struggled. I felt like everyone was against me. Those feelings only grew worse as time went on… I feel that once I release this, I will be able to heal. I won’t feel alone anymore. These people may not be bad people, but I now see the way they treated me WAS NOT okay and I wish I weren’t so young, I could’ve helped myself heal if I had known. I didn’t understand why I was hurting, but I was. I am sorry if this is too much for you. I just need to get this off my chest. Once again, I am sorry for everything I did to hurt people. I am not excusing that behavior. I am sorry.
I mean no ill-will. I am not looking for any sort of empathy. I am simply stating why I don’t want to do things anymore. Why I’ve been so broken and why I made some decisions that I did. Mainly, the decision I almost couldn’t take back. I am not canceling Seth, his manager, or anyone involved. Hopefully, you can understand.
To my community, I am sorry I ran out on you. I will make it up to you, I promise. I am sorry I just went away. I am sorry I disappointed you. I will try better in the future.
Ethan.
