YouTubers such as Dan Avidan from Game Grumps, Carson King (Call Me Carson), and Pyrocincal have been under fire because of several different sexual/grooming allegations. 

Now two members of the Vlog Squad are being accused of sexual assault allegations. 

The Vlog Squad is a group of YouTubers who make vlogs, which are videos that document their daily lives for people’s entertainment. The leader, David Dobrik, essentially plans and films the videos. Over the years, their channel grew to be a big hit among teens and young adults. Recently, the group that seemed to be doing so well has fallen into hard times because of two sexual allegations.

The first allegation came from former member of the Vlog Squad, Seth Francois. Back in 2017, a prank video was filmed in which Francois was tricked into kissing a man, Jason Nash. He claimed Dobrik and Nash were abusive and that the prank was sexual assault. 

“It is so incredibly tough as a man to have to say that you were sexually assaulted by another man,” Francois said on the H3 Podcast. “The amount of trauma that you deal with, you don’t even want to explain it to your family and friends.”

YouTuber Scotty Sire came out defending the Vlog Squad by showing text messages of Francois saying he’d be “down for another kissing prank as long as he was clouted up.” This message made some people think he was only chasing popularity from the allegation, while others dismissed the text message, saying it was still sexual assault. In the same video, Sire claims Francois posted revenge porn of a female friend of his. 

The video was later taken down by Sire, who apologed for any grief he had caused because of it.

The second allegation is against Vlog Squad member Dominykas Zeglaitis, well known as Durte Dom. His shtick is that he’s perverted, but it seems that he is actually similar to the character he portrays online.

In one of Dobrik’s videos, Zeglaitis attempts to have a fivesome. One of the girls involved said she was encouraged to drink heavily and was raped. An ex-member of the Vlog Squad, Jeff Wittek, starred in that video and made a statement on Twitter about the situation.

“I would absolutely never ever sit there and let that happen,” Wittek wrote. “As for my involvement in the video, I was under the impression that it was a consensual bit.” 

Wittek released a video on March 21 titled “My Truth” attempting to clear his name, but he later took it down and apologized for how he originally handled the situation. 

Dobrik has taken a massive hit due to these two sexual allegations and created two apology videos. 

“I’ll prove to you that the mistakes I made before won’t be happening again,” Dobrik said in his first apology video. 

The comments were disabled on this video and Dobrik lost more than 100,000 subscribers. Many people disliked this apology because many of Dobrik’s videos contradicted his points, and he seemed very insincere.

After losing brand deals and subscribers, he made a second, more serious apology video. 

“I want to start this video off by saying I fully believe the woman who came out against Dom,” Dobrik said. “I also want to acknowledge the woman who spoke out against Dom in 2018. I’m talking about Ally, and then I’m talking about the other girls that address their problems privately or publicly. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you guys, I am sorry that I took Dom’s word for what happened.” 

Zeglaitis also made a YouTube video titled “Addressing the drama.” People began pointing out that calling sexual allegations “drama” made it seem like he wasn’t taking the situation seriously. The hateful comments and mass dislikes speak volumes. This “apology” was lackluster.

“You know when a YouTuber has hit rock bottom when he has to add three ad breaks in his ‘apology’ video,” commented Wauconda Broke Boy, a Youtuber known for dumpster diving.

Due to the allegations, Dobrik has lost many sponsors, including Hello Fresh, General Mills, EA Sports, Doordash, Dollar Shave Club, Honey, and Bumble. He has also lost thousands of subscribers and was demonetized by YouTube on March 26. He also stepped down as co-founder of the app Dispo.