Let’s not forget that groomer is a hot button word to get your article clicks. If you’re asking why people on line did X, it’s useful to know if X is a thing that will get you clicks, and calling a youtube star “groomer” is one of those things.
Evidence and proof is not needed, reference right wing attacks on the idea of allowing LGBTQ people to be in the same room as a child.
There seems to be little evidence that Miranda Sings had the same intentions as a pedophile when interacting with children.
I’m not sure what specific clicks they are, or who the people are who are generating them, but I certainly agree with that premise in general. A lot of awful people call people who aren’t groomers groomers, definitely.
Where I am coming from is that the OP asked “is there really a story here,” and the second post said yeah, people are calling her a groomer, what’s that about? And then you click on the article and it turns out she was in chat rooms with little kids, asking them their favorite sex positions and if they were virgins, and then asked one individual for pictures of his one butt.
So like, yes, there’s a story here. I don’t know if she was attempting the crime of soliciting sex with a minor or not. I do understand how people who learned those facts could say “that’s a groomer!” for reasons not related only to right wing outrage farming and clickbait.
Because, I mean, as accusations of grooming go, “she took me into her confidence as a very young child and made me feel close to her, and then asked me a bunch of stuff about sex” is pretty much in the middle of the bell curve. It is far from unheard of for the victims of grooming to describe it as something else. That’s not proof that there was a sex crime, and I’m not saying it is. But it’s not like there’s nothing here.
Group chats are the modern version of chat rooms. She’s even clearly talking to people she doesn’t know personally.
Look. In your OP, you accused people of lying when calling it grooming. You said it was clickbait, and clickbait is a lie. So someone came in to explain their logic, to show they weren’t lying. You can still disagree with them, but the point is, they weren’t being dishonest.
Personally, it’s the asking for a pic that is weird to me. The joking around, I can see as just trying to fit in with kids. But asking for a pic starts to seem like there’s something more.
It’s not about you. If you were the only one using the term it would be about you. It’s about the wider issue. This appears to be about a 3 on the outrage-o-meter. If she was actually grooming someone it would be a 10. My uncle would tell me dirty jokes when I was a kid. Was it appropriate? Probably not. Was he grooming me for something? Absolutely not. Grooming has become a buzz word for all manners of inappropriate behavior as well as some appropriate behavior. The original meaning which was used in my profession for a long time should still hold weight.
Read the article, and I have no particular opinion on Colleen/Miranda other than this post reminding me I knew who she was, and vaguely remember watching the Comedians in Cars episode. I’d certainly not thought of her since seeing it.
The employment stuff to me sounds extremely problematic. If the accusations are true, then they should face appropriate consequences.
The sex stuff, however, is missing a ton of context. The “asking for pictures of his butt” thing seems like it could easily be nothing at all. “Pics” is a very common request used in a supportive or complimentary way. I see this on car forums where there is zero sexual overtones: “my new wheels are great!” “Pics?” But also on other forums where there could be some sexual intention, but there isn’t, it’s purely supportive: “I look so cute in this dress!” “Pics?” “Oh yes you do!”
So, should she have checked herself before asking a teen “pics” after he said his butt looked good? Absolutely. Was her interest prurient or just to be supportive of her friend? Without context, it is impossible to know.
Similar with the other sexual talk. Characterizing the participants as “little kids” is factually wrong. These are teens and tweens who are probably thinking and talking about sex constantly (unless gen-z/alpha is somehow way different than all who’ve gone before).
Was this sex talk teen initiated in a place with a trusted adult? Was it adult initiated in an attempt to seem cool or edgy? Or was it adult initiated with grooming in mind? Without context, it is impossible to know.
Finally, in many of these celebrity misbehaving scandals, I start giving lots of benefit of doubt thinking “surely it can’t be that bad,” but frequently when a bit more information comes out I move to “uggh, that’s worse than I thought!”
Lately on social media I’ve seen lots of accusations of (usually female) celebrities of “grooming”, based on the flimsiest of evidence. It’s mostly nonsense, IMO.
Yeah, whatever happened with just describing someone as a “creep”?
And you and I know that if we come up with a new term of art for the criminal behavior, the trolls will just grab it and start using that as the fashionable smear.
I mean, sure, if someone’s inapproptiately creepy with minors, or even their act is heavy on the “punching down”, call them out clear and loud, and have them explain themselves, for our judgement.
Guess this is what happens in an age when any random yutz can gather a followership. Or self-appoint themselves the nemesis of other random yutzes.
So I had a wild 24 hours with this story. The Rolling Stone piece does seem to play things down–it could be that they are doing due dilligence and not giving play to things that are not 100 verified by them… but the Huffpost articles go a little bit harder.
I initially thought this was pretty overblown–she’s a creep and toxic but not much more. I do think “grooming” is being WAY overused by everyone nowadays. And inasmuch the popular usage means something pretty specific…she wasn’t “grooming” anyone the way we use the term now. She wasnt trying to manipulate and prepare these teenagers for a sexual relationship with her. And when you call someone a “groomer” in 2023 thats what the culture thinks you mean.
I have friends who are being pedantic and saying she’s a groomer in the traditional usage…but that’s NOT what people are meaning when we get down to it.
She absolutely was inappropriate and shitty to these people and its REAL bad, but we dont need to make up stuff and assume an intent that wasnt there.
Also… since when is she “a Children’s Youtuber?” Thats the weirdest part… was that ever her target? None of the stuff fron her that I saw presented her as children’s entertainment.
Also #2…we also aren’t talking about her abusing her relationship with little kids… these were all teenagers and in some cases literal adults…just slightly younger than her. Yes–sending a bra to a 13 year old who won a contest on your discord (or fansite or livestream) is very inappropriate. Discussing and in some cases sharing screenshots of onlyfans pages from other people in the friend circle with underage members of a group chat…ALSO gross. There’s levels of horrible is what I’m saying…
I’m not a fan so my knowledge of her act is not complete. I also had that impression. She does an act that on some level can be attractive to young teens but it has never been packaged or meant for children. There has always been adult content. Kind of like the Peewee Herman character when it was a stage show. The later tv show was kid friendly but at first the character was not. Someone with more knowledge of the content can correct me if I’m wrong.
I think you’re about right. She is doing a parody of something that older people will be less likely to understand. It’s the younger demographic that would watch the youtube influencers whom she is parodying so they get the joke.
I have been aware of her for many years and I didn’t know why. I looked at her Wikipedia article this morning and it turns out that she grew up in Santa Barbara where I live. She had been performing here locally before she hit it big.
Grooming is not an individual act, it’s a pattern of behavior intended to desensitize a child to increasing levels of sexual activity. Did she do that?
Was she trying to manipulate this child into having sex with her?
If she wasn’t, then she wasn’t grooming, she was doing a different inappropriate/creepy/unethical/illegal thing with these kids.
B: “Hitler was the most horrible person in history and was directly responsible for millions and millions of murders. However, he probably didn’t actually eat people - in fact, he was a strict vegetarian.”
As to the thread title question — that this thread was the first some of us heard of any of the people or incidents involved, does not mean we’re “out of touch”.
It just means that AS HAS BEEN NORMAL for most of the existence of humanity, we’re not aware of Every. Single. Possible. Thing. that’s happening.
Which helps keep our sanity.
Mind you, greater awareness of things that used to be swept under the rug is a great plus. It helps fight domestic abuse, corporate corruption, political opression. BUT a constant bombardment of news of Bad People doing Bad Things creates an atmosphere by which “everyone, everywhere” is up to no good. This helps feed the whole plague of moral panics and conspiracy theories and polarization/radicalization as we keep getting stampeded with outragebait.