Dr. Disrespect Scandals and Online Safety Lessons for Modern Parents

Could a single accusation obliterate a reputation built over years? This episode of Dad Mode Podcast dives headfirst into the controversial Dr. Disrespect scandal, where allegations of inappropriate behavior with a minor have set the online community ablaze. We dissect the complexities and long-lasting impacts of such accusations, scrutinizing the evidence, the role of cancel culture, and the opaque responses from platforms like Twitch. Join us as we unravel the intricacies and implications of this high-stakes drama that has left fans questioning what's true and what's fabricated.

As we shift gears, the focus turns to a topic that's crucial for every parent and content creator: online safety for kids. We tackle the pressing need for heightened parental awareness and involvement in children's digital lives, especially on platforms like Twitch and Kik. Learn about the essential age-appropriate guidelines, the risks lurking in the shadows, and the vital role of open communication to safeguard your children from potential dangers online. A light-hearted moment with our guest speaker's child underscores the serious responsibilities tied to navigating these virtual terrains.

Navigating the emotional minefield of online communication with children can be tricky, especially on platforms like Twitter and TikTok. We shed light on the challenges of conveying tone and emotion through text, sharing personal anecdotes that highlight the potential for misunderstandings. This leads to a broader conversation on the necessity of monitoring children's online activities while fostering trust and allowing for autonomy. Concluding with reflections on modern parenting, we offer practical tips on juggling family, careers, and beloved hobbies like gaming. If you found our discussion insightful, don't forget to catch us on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube at DadModePodcast. See y'all next time!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Turning off normal human male mode. Switching to dad mode. Welcome in to dad mode With your hosts Bearded, Nova and Morph.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Before we start this episode, I just want to say that if you ever suspect that a miner is in danger on the internet and being approached by a predator, please reach out to your local authorities. In America that is the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and in Australia that is the Center to Counter Children Exploitation. We can all do our part to keep our children safe online.

Speaker 3: 0:42

So, soberto, did you hear the news the other day about dr disrespect, kind of getting fired from a bunch of his sponsors?

Speaker 2: 0:50

it's been like wild few days, like, you think, the saturday where it the twitch employee like I guess for those who don't know a twitch, an ex twitch employee has come out and, uh, without naming names, said he was banned because he was talking to a minor, sexting a minor. I think the word was you're feral, you're hopping down. This is where I'm at as a parent now, but she's, yeah, that's happened. There wasn't much, I guess, merit to the person, so there's a lot of shade. It really divided the community base. Uh, then his own gaming company dropped him. The company they worked for dropped him on their own investigation.

Speaker 2: 1:33

This whole time no one has come out with anything. There's been no screenshots, documents, nothing. It's just purely tweets. He, you know, he say, she say situations, which is which is a rough thing. Like I'm gonna play a little devil's advocate here before we get right into it. It's a rough thing.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Accusations like that, especially with nothing behind it, can destroy a person, whether they're guilty or not. You know it. Um, it can really ruin someone's reputation for life. The stigma of you know, potentially was it true or not, whether there was a million you know things to say that he wasn't involved, it could still cast doubt over him and no one would still talk to him, but that's happened. Then there's been some weird emails and stuff shown out to people with no real credibility to them saying it wasn't the case at one stage. It was purely a part of his business and, yes, it was a minor, but no sexting was involved or anything like that. Then he's come out and put a long tweet up and in the gist of it basically said yes, I was talking to a minor, um, the conversations borderlined on inappropriate at times. But no, no rules were broke, no laws were broken, no pictures were sent, etc. Etc. Um, and you can take that with a grain of salt as well you know borderline inappropriate, does that? You know borderline inappropriate? Does that mean he was borderline inappropriate? Does it mean they were borderline inappropriate? Should the conversation have stopped?

Speaker 2: 3:10

Again, no screenshots or anything out there, so it's hard to paint a full picture. You're piecing it together. Yeah, since then, you know, I think trans sex workers has come out saying they were sexting with him on messages. Again, it's screenshot. It's realistically, they need Twitch. Twitch needs to come out and make a statement on it, which I guess they can't because there was a settlement and you know again a settlement he was banned from Twitch, yet he got paid out his contract. So that's that, you know. That throws a whole shade, if you know. To me if you're sexting a minor or just something inappropriate like that, that would be more than grounds to break a multi-million dollar contract. It wasn't like a contract for 30 grand, 50 grand or something we're talking millions here that they paid him out again. So the whole thing's confusing to me.

Speaker 3: 4:02

It is um, you know, and something you said earlier about, earlier about there's no screenshots or whatever and you can destroy reputations, and I agree with that that we shouldn't just prosecute people if we don't have evidence, because what I've noticed in the last however many years 10 years or so all he has to do is put something out there about someone and then that just becomes the truth, whether it is or it isn't.

Speaker 3: 4:29

Now, if it's all proven to be true, then he deserves what he's getting. But I don't think that we necessarily know and I agree with you about Twitch's angle If he had actually done something that violated his contract, like he's accused of, twitch had all the grounds to just terminate his contract. The fact that they paid him out millions and then didn't say anything about it says they had some questions. Maybe he says, well, I want to exit my contract or whatever, but whatever happened, he also came out and said that I didn't break any laws, I was never charged with anything, I didn't do anything. So to all these sponsors to just jumping on this, you know, um is is kind of I mean, it's not unexpected now with cancel culture. No, no, no cancel.

Speaker 2: 5:16

Culture is very quick to. You know you gotta, you gotta address these things fast. Yeah, the other part that we come in, and I know there's protection of a child, in this case we don't know the said age. To be honest, you know we don't, we don't know if that was 17 turning 18, 16 turning 17, 14. You know there's, sadly, I know it changes everywhere. I think 17, general consensus, like 16 to 17 is consent age, I guess. 18 in the US, 18. It's still statutory, I guess, statutory after a certain age. Before that it's completely different again. But you know, you don't, we don't know any of those details either.

Speaker 2: 6:01

When it comes to and I do sadly, sadly, I do say it does change a massive thing, because if the girl was 18, you know we probably would, then this is a conversation that wouldn't be happening on the, on the internet, but we don't know if she was 17 in eight months. You know, I mean like borderlining 18, like, and I sadly there is, there is like a little bit of a grey area there where it's like what do you say? You find out at the last minute. We don't know, you know, did they know about the age straight away? Did they find it. When the age came out, did the communication stop Again? There's so much to this story that is mixed, I guess, yeah, missing information to paint a full picture. Um, in a hindsight though, it's disappointing, it's disappointing it is.

Speaker 3: 6:51

So I'll say this too now, dr, disrespect has a very big fan base. That fan base has never included me. I'm just not a fan of, of his style of, of content, um. But more importantly, what I want to say is you know, it is important to realize that whether the person was close to being not a minor or whatever, he knew that he was probably doing something. That was at least the gray area. He should have known better than that. Yes, should have known better than that. Yes. Especially Every man out there who talks to a young girl or boy or same with women, adult women, like you know, you should not be doing that. It is illegal or immoral or whatever you want to call it. And if you think there's any question whatsoever that that person is not the age they say they are, don't engage. Why get yourself into this mess? Don't engage. Why risk it?

Speaker 2: 7:49

why risk it, especially in the, the level of fame that he was. You know how many people know who the doc is. Your eyes are on you. You know it's a and no one should do it full stop, but you can't, especially someone like that. You have to think about what the repercussions are going to be the examples that you're setting for your audience. There's lots of people that is um, I know you said that your. You know he wasn't a content creator for you.

Speaker 2: 8:18

My sense I don't mind seeing the clips. I enjoyed seeing the clips. Every so often I'd still watch some of the clips on youtube and it made me laugh. I never really watched a stream. I don't think I've ever seen a stream or anything live. I did get his podcast Not his podcast, his audio book on Audible, Hilarious. It was a great drive Listening to his autobiography slash a blend of reality.

Speaker 2: 8:45

He is a great performer. You can't deny that. He knows. You know, in terms of setting a streaming goal or being an entertainer, he definitely delivers on that. Yeah, and it's disappointing, as I said, there's so many people up there that's looked up to this guy and for this to come out, it shattered a lot of people's expectations and reality of you know who you can trust on the internet. Sadly, you know we look at internet safety with people. What's required to you know talking to that, and you know there is a bit of an onus on Twitch. There is a bit of an onus on twitch. There is a bit of an onus on twitch but it's not hard for someone just to click I am over a certain age to create an account.

Speaker 2: 9:35

You know, we've all been young guys. Every young guy knows, especially our age or above, knows the eras of the internet, when the internet was coming in, and the old dial-up days of getting onto sites that we probably shouldn't. And it's a simple are you over 18? Yes, yeah, I get it, we got that. But it's really hard, I guess, for some of these businesses to really protect children from getting on them, and, to a degree, parents need to be a little bit more insightful into what their children are doing on the internet A thousand percent.

Speaker 3: 10:10

So this all could have been avoided if Dr Disrespect just didn't respond to the person that was messaging him. But some of this, like you just said, falls on the parents. Parents need to teach their kids internet safety and social media safety, things like that, and teach them what kind of things are appropriate and what kind of things aren't. I'm not going to let. I wouldn't want my son texting a 35 year old woman, someone who's three times his age, like why, why would you, why would she do that? Why does she? Why does she need to be talking to my kid? Yeah, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:50

And I think this is a good thing. You know this is coming a good time for parents to you know whether you're in the gaming space, streaming space or not, and you are hearing these news because no doubt it's made Bloomberg and et cetera. It's probably a good time to have a chat to your children who are on the internet and just find out who they follow, who is their idol, what creators they like, just to an extent to make sure it's an appropriate one, it's appropriate for your children, you know, and to talk to them about these things. You know, is it safe to do that? I know.

Speaker 2: 11:32

I think I brought up my son, um, when he was younger, used to like a creator called dan tdm and I knew about, like he talked about him and that, and I know they did have like a drawing stage for it Because, as I said, this creator did focus more on the younger kids the Minecraft thing and his content was appropriate. It wasn't crazy swearing or anything like that. He was a good person. It seemed like a good person and I know that he did a good person. It seemed like a good person and I know that he did do. I think one thing they had was kids could email or send for a link or something like drawings. You know, kids draw like your cartoon show. You get your morning cartoons, shit like that. It was fine. My brother, my son, showed me this. He's like I did this to this thing. I'm like okay, can I send this in? Yeah, that's fine, you know.

Speaker 3: 12:20

I mean like yeah, it was a conversation we had at a time and I think that's that's fair, and I think you know one thing that nova and I have said for a long time is you don't want to necessarily be a helicopter parent, because that doesn't help your kid learn to trust themselves or you know, know how to take care of things if you're not around.

Speaker 3: 12:37

But you should not just ignore these things. I know that a lot of parents don't know what twitch is or kick is and they're not interested. I feel like you have a responsibility to find out what your kids are doing. Now. That doesn't mean you need to break into their phone and stuff like that, but teach them safety, teach them right or wrong, and then be aware of the things that they do where movies they see, you know shows they watch games, they play people that are their friends, especially online, you know. Yeah, pay attention to that and just try to make sure that it's safe what they're doing and that they know right from wrong and that they can reach out to you whenever they need to yeah, yeah, I think so, I think so, I think so.

Speaker 2: 13:20

But let's break into this safety stuff a little bit more. What do you feel is an appropriate age to be on Twitch?

Speaker 3: 13:27

Honestly, having been on Twitch for a number of years, I think you should be 16. I could make a case for younger, but me personally, my boys aren't going to go on there until they're 16. Yeah, I think that's fair and I see that not because of the swearing up, because, trust me, anything you say on twitch they've already heard in school. You parents out there you know that. Um, for me it's the, it's like the hot tub stuff and uh, you know the other kind of things like that. Yeah, you know, yeah there's.

Speaker 2: 13:56

There's a filter age, I guess, and I know, I know I think I've seen Dan from Twitch went on about hashtags and how making sure creators are using appropriate hashtags on their content so it's filtered correctly to the audience that it's needed, and you could create this 16-plus login. You could create a 13 plus login, um, but if creators ain't appropriately hashtagging their content, I have a monster on me. That means that they're still going to get filtered. How do you control that? You know, I mean, they're trying that. They are trying with auto, auto hashtags and auto filling in. What you know I noticed when I go to stream particular games, it says this game is for 18 plus. Should we have 18 plus?

Speaker 3: 14:47

Yeah, I think our guest speaker is drunk because the words are, I can't make them out.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Yeah, yeah, we've very gotten vocal in the last few weeks.

Speaker 3: 15:00

Oh, now she's eating your mic.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Yeah, she eats everything as well. Try to eat in your car.

Speaker 3: 15:05

Can I please have that back? So there's a lot of things that need to be in place to help keep the kids safe, but having conversations with them is one of the easiest things you can do is teach them how to protect themselves, how to look out for themselves, what's appropriate, what's not. If an adult comes up to you and whatever, use your head and don't engage it's no different than the.

Speaker 2: 15:37

The man shows up. You know, a man shows up in a white van offering you candy. Do you hop in? It's the same sense as the internet. You know what I mean. You can teach your children the right from. We teach our children things like that about stranger danger, and it should be no different on the internet.

Speaker 3: 15:53

Stranger danger really needs to be addressed properly in all fairness, though, like if today I saw a van and they were offering me, like reese's, peanut butter cups or something I'd probably just get in. Yes, I'm, you know, I love that yeah, yeah, we're.

Speaker 2: 16:09

You know, we're offering, we're offering coffee and a muffin. Take me where you want well, like as an adult.

Speaker 3: 16:15

You know, if you're like me and some people, I know you don't have a lot of friends. You're like oh, I'm gonna make a new friend. Yeah, they could be. They're offering me lunch, who knows who knows now, but that's, it's a little different for a kid than it is for for me, um, but you know, another aspect of this whole thing kind of going back to the streaming services is um, twitch, kick, whatever. They've all had a long history of questionable safety measures for kids and they've both had a history of questionable personalities on their platforms that they maybe don't do the greatest job monitoring or disclosing the public things that they've done monitoring or disclosing to the public things that they've done.

Speaker 2: 17:05

They did mention that you know throughout all this that maybe Twitch should have informed YouTube or other partnerships about why he was dropped at the time. Again, don't know. There was a settlement. It's hard to say, especially, I know, on your side of the world. The opportunities to sue over anything and nearly everything is insane. So you don't want to put yourself in that position where you know no one wants to put themselves in a defamation case. Basically, yeah, but it does beg the question if there was, or he has, how many others? How many other people are being on that platform in similar circumstances that nothing's being mentioned or come across?

Speaker 3: 17:50

yeah, I, I do like how upset your daughter is about this whole situation.

Speaker 2: 17:54

So angry about it really. Um, you know, she never got to, she never got to see the streams, but yeah, obviously she, you know, was interested in why everyone else is getting upset in the matter. Yeah, yeah, you are. Yeah, she's angry and angry. Oh, I was gonna say, though, the interesting part, I think twitch uh, not twitch youtube has even dropped his subscription off his oh, really, yeah, so youtube was the latest one to come for him. As far as I was aware, that's what I've heard has happened, and I know that there was talks that if he was to return after his extended break with his family, it would be kick. No drama, obviously kick, because you can do anything on that platform, if he's guilty as hell.

Speaker 2: 18:38

You know, they'd probably make a new clickable link or something.

Speaker 3: 18:43

Yeah, the worse you are as a human being, the more Kik wants you on their platform.

Speaker 2: 18:47

The more you're going to get from them too. Okay, you want a multi-million dollar deal? Don't worry, kill some people. Come here, burn down an orphanage, please. We'd really want someone who's burnt down an orphanage. We're willing to pay them $150 million a year to stream here, yeah, but yeah, it's an issue of time and I just think it's a good, good way for creators as a whole to to look at themselves and think about. Putting you, putting your own self, in these different positions, I guess, is the best way to put it. Put yourself in this position. Have a think, you know, before you open a dm, making sure how does it reflect you as, as a creator? Um, you know, should you be talking to this person whether they're at age, not age, you're married, not married? You know, yeah, what could come from a conversation with someone on the internet. Could this damage you or damage you as a brand, as an individual? You know, we all need to play our role with being safe on the internet and being smart and making the right choices.

Speaker 3: 19:55

Yes, and while there are a lot of measures that you know companies can take to protect their users, and there are tons of things that a parent can do to ensure that the kid knows right from wrong and how to recognize a bad situation, the most simple solution to this and this is to everybody out there don't diddle kids. It's that easy. Just don't do it. Don't do it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:29

It's a no-brainer.

Speaker 3: 20:32

Yeah, that would work. 100 of the time it would it would.

Speaker 2: 20:36

But yeah, I was being more bringing it up to uh. You know you get creators that cheat on their wives, cheat on you know. You know it's brand different things creators. I was just trying to extend it, I guess, into different things creators have done in their time in the space that uh can impact a person, you know, impact your brand.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Racism remarks you know pewdiepie many years ago, pewdiepie the n-word pub g. You know how that blow up with disney at the time. Yeah, yeah, he's doing great he's, he's fine still, but there's little things that people can say. It can be a word, a dm, anything that you put out there on the internet. How do you want that coming back to you in any way and how's it gonna? You know? How does it affect you as a person? Is that you? Can that be mistaken? I've done that multiple times where I've gone to reply to someone on the internet, whether it be twitter or tiktok, on a comment section or something, and I've actually typed the response and my I'm reading it this way. But someone could read it this way. Maybe I shouldn't post that you.

Speaker 3: 21:40

You know me for a while.

Speaker 2: 21:42

I type those kind of responses and then I usually just hit send I do usually do it, but there's been a handful of times where I've actually gone to click send and then I've thought about it going oh, this isn't probably going to portray the message that I'm trying to say correctly. Yeah, I mean, I had that own problem in my own life, even just texting my wife at times. I don't know, I'm going to slightly off cue here. My wife, if we're having an argument in any way, I like to speak in person, because then you get. Then I like to to um, I can see the emotion or the tone or anything like that.

Speaker 2: 22:16

My wife, on the other hand, would like to say no, we know, let's not talk about it, or I don't want to talk about, then wait till I've left and then text me and then wants to have that conversation in text but then gets upset with me over the messages and text. So to me I'm like well, she's not reading reading it the way I'm trying to say it, or vice versa. So we all have a different way of communicating, but for me I hate, um, sometimes, when I put things in text, it really scars me on whether it's coming out across the way I'm trying to say it, I guess yeah, uh, that that's gonna be a topic for a whole new episode.

Speaker 3: 22:47

But, yeah, yeah, I know I hear you. Everybody has a way that they prefer to communicate. Um, yeah, my mind is going a thousand different directions, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick to this one. So, um, you know, we could probably have an entire episode, an extra long episode, if we listed all of the things that streamers have been got in trouble for doing over the years. Like, don't think that just because twitch seems like a nice, safe little place, there's a lot of shitty people on there not all of them. There are millions of streamers and most of them are probably pretty decent people, but not all of them. So pay attention. Like, like bearded was saying, if your kid wants to go on, look at twitch or whatever. Um, that's cool, just watch who they're watching check in see what's check

Speaker 2: 23:35

in that's it. That's happening isn't like we said. It's not hard for someone to create an account, not hard for anyone to create an account anywhere because it's not um, you know, it's not back checked. I guess id is not back checked, the rest of it like that. But you know the you can say over and over and over again to kids and like I've had it over the years with kids, they want to get on certain social media and stuff as they get an agent. No, you're not ready enough. And then, yeah, they do. They do. Some of them try and sneak in accounts still and that you end up finding it, find the app on the phone, whatever you know. But you can't really stop them as much as you can, especially something like a web page that they're gonna log on.

Speaker 3: 24:15

They're gonna log on, yeah, hey you know, there have always been people adults that have done inappropriate things like this. However, the ease of doing it has increased as technology has improved over the last 10, 20 years. Yep, um, and I know that some parents like, as you're, as you're getting older, you sort of stop paying attention to society and things that are changing after a while. But in this case you kind of got to, especially if you have kids, you do, you do it's, I guess, public.

Speaker 2: 24:51

in public spaces it's a different thing, but it's the ability to dm people, whisper people, uh, privately message people on the internet, which is the part that you've really got to be aware of with your, with your children, and I do understand that as they get older, everyone needs their own privacy to a degree Yep, to a degree, but there's a bit of trust both ways as well. You can't yeah, I don't think you can sit there with an iron fist over your children and see every word that they type to every person. I know there are parents that do that and each to their own, each to their own that do that. But I think it's only fair that you should both have mutual trust in both the children to you as a parent and as a parent to your own children. Because if you're building that mutual trust and hopefully you're building all those foundations and things needed to make sure that they're making the right choices, I feel like if you don't have that trust in your children, you probably have let yourself down in a way as a parent to raise a child that can't be trusted, or raise a child in a way that isn't going to make the correct choices yeah, the choices that you would like them to do.

Speaker 2: 26:08

You know logical thinking as such, I don't know. We all have shooty moments, we've all done stupid things, um, but thinking more so, okay, my, my kids gonna know. Should I be messaging this person? Yeah, that's, that's right. I I like to think that my children would actually have a good think about these things, and you know the awareness I think my kids have a good awareness about that.

Speaker 3: 26:31

My biggest fear has always been, though, that my kids are going to do the same stuff that I did when I was growing up, and I I I hope they do not. Uh, I yeah, yep, I did some things in my day, so fortunately, I can already tell, like my, my older son he's he's getting around the age when I started to do stuff and he doesn't seem to have any inclination to do the kind of things that I did, yeah, which is great same, but I actually sorry.

Speaker 2: 26:59

No, my son probably. It sounds like he definitely will do half the shit that I've done, but the daughters, no, no, definitely not the daughters, which is good, oh yeah power points? Not a thing, any, uh, anything you want to say to wrap this up, probably, like I said at the start, now's a good time to actually check in with your children what they're doing on the internet, who they're speaking to, and have these conversations with your kids about whether they should be or should not be involved in these people's communities.

Speaker 3: 27:28

Yep involved in these people's communities. Yep and on. I'll say on the on the uh side of that, if you are talking to someone online or see someone in person and you're not sure if they're of age, just do something else, move along, move on from that situation. Just watching what's happening here in my background, that's all. That's funny. Your daughter, something else? Yeah, yeah, anyway, uh, we'll catch everybody next time yeah, you've been listening to dad mode.

Speaker 1: 28:04

Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, find us on Twitter, TikTok and YouTube at DadModePodcast and we can be found on every podcast site at DadModePodcast Y'all be cool. See you next time.