Underage YouTube Sex Scandals Rock Pokémon Community

The Pokémon YouTube community is currently engulfed in a series of scandals as five different influencers face sexual assault allegations involving underage partners. MudkipMama, Dekadurr, KingNappy, Mizumi and Bise Productions have all been accused by members of the live streaming and video communities of inappropriate behavior. Most have deleted their Twitter accounts, going silent after the backlash. The drama began March 27 when Felicity Lucille, a Twitch streamer known as AttackonSylveon, posted a 25-minute YouTube video where she unpacked a traumatic experience she had in 2015 with Nathan Putnam, known as Dekadurr or NintendoEncoder on YouTube. She said he had been messaging her on Snapchat while she was on a family vacation; Lucille was 15 at the time. "He was Snapchatting shirtless pictures of himself, which I thought was weird," she says in the video. Through tears, she explains that she felt "pressured" into sending him pictures even though she "didn't want to do it." For years after Putnam would continue to send Lucille, now 19 years old, messages that made her uncomfortable. At one point, Putnam sent her a YouTube video of Tyler the Creator's song "Too F--king Young" which is about fighting the urge to be with an underage girl. Lucille found it "very creepy." She even claimed that Putnam threatened her, saying that if she spoke up about what happened he would share the photos with her friends and family. "For the longest time I blamed myself for this and I still kind of do," Lucille says in the video. (Lucille did not respond to a request for comment from Newsweek). In the original video, she chose not to "name names" but later released a 10-minute follow-up where she revealed the identities of Putnam and other men who sent explicit pictures to her while she was underage, including streamer BiseProductions. Bise admitted fault, and issued an apology tweet on March 29, writing, "I am truly ashamed of myself and disgusted at myself… I was in a dark place at the time but that does not excuse this behavior." He has since deleted all of his social media accounts. Evidence of Putnam's behavior started to appear online, as others shared sexually explicit messages sent to underage girls. Lucille released the second video last weekend, when Putnam was at PAX East in Boston, where he had been scheduled to compete in a community Super Smash Bros. tournament. Once word got out, he was barred from the tournament and removed from PAX. Content creators who worked with Putnam in the past admitted having seen warning signs. KingNappy, a fellow YouTuber and friend of Putnam, invited him and guests like MudkipMama and JayYTGamer on his YouTube collaboration show "Prime Time." Jay was one of the first to comment on Putnam, tweeting "I will admit that in the past when this happened a few of us would pull him aside and try to speak to him and tell him to fucking stop that pedo s**t." In a Twitlonger on March 31, Jay elaborated, saying that their group of friends had been aware of two instances where Putnam had contacted underage girls but gave him a "chance to change." "My approach on the situation years ago was awful and I truly apologize for not handling it properly," Jay wrote in the Twitlonger. KingNappy faces his own allegations. This past weekend, he was accused of grooming and messaging underage boys by GameboyLuke, TheHeatedMo and others. He released his own statement about Putnam on Twitter and claimed "nobody was aware" of what Putnam was doing and "they would have taken action years ago." In a subsequent livestream, however, Nappy did admit he had known about the first two instances mentioned by Jay. Putnam has since deleted his Twitter, YouTube and Instagram accounts and remained silent about the allegations. Ryan Foley, who goes by KingCorphish on YouTube, was living with Putnam up until the allegations came out. They had met online in October 2017, and Putnam "was very supportive of (his) channel," Foley told Newsweek. Over the course of 2018, the pair spoke every evening over Discord, providing him with input and help on YouTube intros. "Him giving us advice like this slowly turned into him controlling our content it felt like," Foley remembered. They agreed to sign a lease together, with Foley fronting most of the costs like rent, appliances and furniture. "Once our names were on that lease, he seemed like a completely different person. He became very angry with me, very controlling, and it made me feel trapped." On April 1, Foley had tried to get Putnam to leave the apartment they shared but Putnam stayed because "his name was on the lease." Eventually, on April 3 Putnam left the apartment and still owes Foley over $3,000. "I was not aware of him talking to underage girls," Foley said. "No one in my friend group was aware of anything he's done. None of us knew he was talking to underage girls, none of us knew he was harassing girls, none of us knew he was threatening families. He managed to keep all of this very hidden from us…. Now we're all left feeling used, manipulated, and lied to." This was just one in a series of accusations that have come out over the past week as part of a #PokeMeToo Twitter movement. MudkipMama, also known as VegasJamie, has been accused of sending lewd and inappropriate messages to underage boys. Pokémon dataminer Mizumi has been accused of soliciting nude photos from underage girls by multiple women. "The Pokémon Community is supposed to be (a) place where people can come together and enjoy themselves," Philly Beatty, a YouTuber who has been archiving the tweets, streams and videos surrounding this controversy told Newsweek. "Unfortunately, there are people in this community that exploit others because of their popularity or influence. In the end, it's the community's job to make the platform a better place and we do that by speaking out."