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Boyinaband Grooming and Abuse Allegations 2022.

2022 Boyinaband Grooming and Abuse Allegations

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Overview

2022 Boyinaband Grooming and Abuse Allegations refers to unconfirmed accusations that English YouTuber Boyinaband (real name Dave Brown) allegedly groomed his young fans and abused several girlfriends physically, emotionally, financially and sexually, including a fan named Rachel, who he purportedly started dating when she was 17. The allegations were brought to light in September 2022 when a letter written by a group of his ex-girlfriends that was originally sent to Brown's family was posted to the /r/boyinaband subreddit. The allegations spread online over the course of the month, inspiring discussion and memes about Boyinaband using his song "Don't Stay in School." The post and poster alleging abuse was deleted between October 12th and 20th, resulting in some people concluding that the allegations were fake.

History

Who Is Boyinaband?

Boyinaband is a YouTuber and musician with over 3 million subscribers as of late September 2022. In the past, he has worked with big creators including Pewdiepie for his T-Series diss track "Congratulations" (shown below, left) and iDubbbz for his song "Asian Jake Paul." He is best known for his song and music video "Don't Stay in School," a song about how school doesn't teach you important life skills and knowledge (shown below, right).



September 2022 Letter Posted To /r/Boyinaband

On September 7th, 2022, Redditor astekas_ posted a now-deleted letter to /r/Boyinaband[1][11] written by "a group of girls who knew and dated" YouTuber and musician Boyinaband, real name David Brown, for between one to six years. The letter is preceded:

First of all, thank you for your time and understanding. We want you to know that we intended and tried to handle this as privately and as quietly as possible. Some time ago, a group of his ex-partners wrote a letter to his family in hopes of stopping the outgoing pattern of abuse. Below, you can read that letter. We know there were more victims of his in the past and if you’re one of them, and we didn’t find you before – message us. All we want to do is to tell you that you’re not alone and that none of it was your fault. Thank you.

The letter accuses Brown's family of enabling his behavior, which has led to "dangerous situations that included years of lies, manipulations, and emotional, financial, physical, and even sexual abuse of many young girls." It then describes how Brown had a relationship with a fan known as Rachel, or "Rachie," when she was allegedly only 17 years old and he was 23. She purportedly became a fan of his at 15.

The letter then describes a May 13th, 2011, upload to Brown's YouTube[2] channel where he showcases a song featuring Rachel's vocals where she sings, "Take me without my consent" (shown below) and describes how Brown allegedly has "a pattern of preying on his young fans," writing that he "discards them for new ones as soon as they disagree or refuse to do whatever he wants. It is written, "he acts similarly with his friends," discarding them when they stop doing what he wants.



The letter alleges that Brown has a porn addiction and is attracted to preteen girls and women who dress like children. It also claims that most of his recent girlfriends are 10 years younger than him. It is then alleged that Brown coerced multiple girls into being polyamorous (as he is) and that he coerced girlfriends into losing weight and getting unhealthily skinny. General abuse is also alleged, such as berating and mistreating girlfriends emotionally and physically. The letter calls Brown out for using his depression as an excuse to get away with this behavior. The P.S. at the end of the letter reads:

P.S. Let this be a lesson about romanticizing those who are mentally ill, especially with a young audience. We think and talk about depression when someone is sad all the time or suicidal. We never talk about the ugly parts of it. Of how people like that can be manipulative, abusive, and can hurt people. And the voices of those they hurt along the way also need to be heard, and this pattern of behavior needs to stop. If we can stop just one girl from ending up hurt, I'll sleep better at night. Please do the same. Thank you.

At the bottom of the post is a link to an Imgur[3] gallery with images including screenshotted DMs allegedly between the group of ex-girlfriends, a series of DMs from a girl who Brown tried to convince to go polyamorous and evidence of Rachel being 17 at the time the two dated. The post gained over 7,900 upvotes in a month (shown below, click to expand). On September 14th, Redditor armahillo, who used to work for Brown under the monicker "Homeslice Aaron," commented on the post sharing a story about how Brown cut ties suddenly after he refused to write a script for him.[4]


Dave from boyinaband - over a decade of abuse underneath an almost perfect public persona Content warning Dear Fans of Dave from Boyinaband. First of all, thank you for your time and understanding. We want you to know that we intended and tried to handle this as privately and as quietly as possible. Some time ago, a group of his ex-partners wrote a letter to his family in hopes of stopping the outgoing pattern of abuse. Below, you can read that letter. We know there were more victims of his in the past and if you're one of them, and we didn't find you before - message us. All we want to do is to tell you that you're not alone and that none of it was your fault. Thank you. "Dear Brown family, friends and fans of Dave from boyinaband We apologize for contacting you this way. We are a group of girls who knew and dated David in real life for (depending on the person) 1-6 years. Some of us met some of you personally. We know you love David and want to see him as a good person and a role model. We were also the people who once loved him and cared about him deeply. We understand that you want to see him happy. Still, decades of enabling his abusive behavior have led to many horrific and dangerous situations that included years of lies, manipulations, and emotional, financial, physical, and even sexual abuse of many young girls. As you know, David is now a 35yo polyamorous man with over a decade of provable history of dating girls much younger than him, including his highly gullible, obsessive, young fans. As you know, he once dated Rachel, who was 17 when he was 23. Rachel was a fan of his band and fell in love with him when she was just 15yo. David ended up hitting her and telling that to at least two of his future girlfriends (which we can also prove). Let us add that this relationship in many countries would be considered as p---------. There are two videos on his channel that include 17yo Rachel. In one, he brags about waking up next to her. In the second, he makes her sing a song with the following lyrics: "Take me without my consent" (everything is below). He has a pattern of preying on his young fans - after they admire him and write to him on his social media, he starts to date them. He then tells them how much he loves them ->, that they are replaceable, and finally discards them for new ones as soon as they disagree or refuse to do whatever he wants. Most of those encounters include him renting an Airbnb to be with those girls for a few weeks, then discarding them. We know this is difficult for you to read, but it needs to be said. He also has a provable p--- addiction that includes him being attracted to pre-teenage girls, women who dress to look like children, abusive p---, and assaults. He's a hebephile. It's sickening. Especially considering that he dedicated his career to "helping" struggling young people, and ended up harming many of them. Many of his past partners ended up in years of therapy due to the trauma caused by David. He has a pattern of dating and sleeping with a specific group of girls - younger (most of his recent girlfriends were 10 or more years younger than him), over whom he has power and control, and who are never his equals. What we mean by that is young, poor girls, often students with no big careers yet, whom he can impress by his "success" and money. He exclusively chooses girls with a vast gap in money and influence so he can manipulate and mold them. Most of them were too scared to speak about it due to this reason. His preferences also include a physical superiority over his partners - looking very young, pre-adolescent, usually very skinny, and if not, he encourages them to lose weight, calling them lazy and disgusting. That's from a man who made a song with Jaiden Animations to "help" girls with anorexia. He coerced multiple young girls into being polyamorous, even if it was something they had never considered before him. He advertises it as a superior way of living which is highly inappropriate if not abusive. He tells his partners that they're replaceable, disappears if they don't do everything he wants, and treats them with zero empathy. They mean nothing to him outside of his pleasure, his wants, and his entertainment. When girls want to leave, he either blocks them before they can confront him or uses his depression and suicidality as cards to force them to stay until he gets bored of them. He uses his depression to control girls by justifying why he treats them like garbage or playing the victim card. He refuses to take any personal responsibility and accountability for how cruel, vindictive, callous, hurtful, and abusive he is. If you ever wondered why years of therapy never really helped him, it's because he cannot face who he really is, and he's unable to take ownership of the things he did, painting himself in bright light in front of his therapists. Over the last few years, he repeatedly mixed his medications (including antidepressants/ADHD medication with whiskey and weed). He used, abused, and left so many girls that he could, at this point, write an alphabet from the first letters of their names. Please remember - he advertises himself as a male feminist to the entire world - while in reality, he is an abuser of multiple young girls. He acts similarly with his friends - treating them badly, as replaceable. Lying about them to make himself look good or to get what he wants. For example, when after having no contact for more than a decade with his bandmates, out of the blue, he tweeted that they used to ignore his self-harm which was a lie (confirmed and confronted by his bandmates on twitter and on reddit years ago). Darren admitted that they talked after, and both apologized, but Dave never acknowledged that and left that tweet on his frontpage for almost two years now - sending his Twitter mob on his past friends who have normal lives, and Dave got thousands of sympathy tweets from young girls that strongly relate to the problem of self-harm. He does things like that to get attention and pity all the time. Again, we are sorry that you had to read it. We are not his "haters", not witchhunters, and not strangers. We don't want anything. We're not interested in being associated with him in any way. All we want to do is to warn his young fans about what can happen to them. Like you, we used to care about him. But he has to be stopped. Ours and yours enabling of this has to stop. He needs to face himself and meet the responsibility for the people he hurt before even more young girls get severely damaged, which they will then carry for the rest of their lives. Depression cannot be used as an excuse to treat people this way. Treating any human being this way is inexcusable. Nobody has been left by him unharmed. Below, you can find a little bit of proof of how he treated people, confirmed and proven by multiple of his ex-girlfriends and friends that he had hurt and replaced over the years. We know that you care about the persona he made for himself on the internet. We know you just want him to be happy. But he's not happy, he destroys people. He's an abuser, a groomer, a hebephile. We know this is hard. We never wanted to do this but what about those girls? What about future ones? They're people. This needs to stop, he needs to be stopped, please. Sincerely, What started as 5 girls is now way in the double digits P.S. Let this be a lesson about romanticizing those who are mentally ill, especially with a young audience. We think and talk about depression when someone is sad all the time or suicidal. We never talk about the ugly parts of it. Of how people like that can be manipulative, abusive, and can hurt people. And the voices of those they hurt along the way also need to be heard, and this pattern of behavior needs to stop. If we can stop just one girl from ending up hurt, I'll sleep better at night. Please do the same. Thank you.

Post Deletion

According to the Wayback Machine,[12] sometime between October 12th and 20th the post and poster were deleted. It is unclear why they were deleted.

Online Reactions

The allegations inspired memes calling Boyinaband a pedophile and referring to the allegations in general in late September 2022. For example, on September 25th, 2022, Twitter[5] user @polqmai shared the letter, garnering over 2,800 likes in a week. On the same day, Twitter[6] user @c0nmanabq posted a Dramatic Crossroads meme about YouTubers either becoming sex offenders or starting mediocre music careers, writing, "boyinaband did both💀," garnering over 5,600 likes in the same span of time (shown below). On September 27th, Twitter[7] user @viperjpeg posted, "NO WAY BOYINABAND HAS BEEN OFF THE INTERNET FOR SO LONG BECAUSE HES A PEDOPHILE??????," garnering over 65,000 likes in six days.


William @cOnmanabq boyinaband did both.. Mediocre Music Career Sex Offender YouTuber When they hit 10 Mil made with mematic www

That day, September 27th, Twitter[8] user @BradenIsBased posted, "Very nice of Dave from Boyinaband to tell his dating pool how to avoid him," including a screenshot of the thumbnail for his song 2015 song "Don't Stay in School," his most viral video, garnering over 67,000 likes in six days. On the same day, Twitter[9] user @wybiestwin posed a clip of Brown singing, "I was never taught what laws there are" from the same video, captioned, "boyinaband in court," garnering over 2,100 likes in the same span of time (shown below).


On September 29th, 2022, Twitter[10] user @VINYL404 posted a meme joking that fans of Boyinaband, Shane Dawson and other canceled YouTubers deserve financial compensation, garnering over 130,000 likes and 13,000 retweets in four days (shown below).


.+ MIKE (L) MYERS @VINYL404 if you ever watched onision, boyinaband, capndesdes, shane dawson, tobuscus, skydoesminecraft or jeffree star as a kid you're entitled to financial compensation and free therapy for life 2:56 AM Sep 29, 2022 Twitter for iPhone ... .

The original sound for "Don't Stay in School," and memes using the song in general, saw an increase in virality on TikTok around the same time (examples shown below).


https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7149659962237635886
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7148790941191703854

On October 2nd, YouTuber kracc bacc posted a meme using the "Don't Stay in School" clip in reference to the allegations, garnering over 473,000 views in a week (shown below).



After the Post Deletion

Following the deletion of the post alleging abuse between October 12th and 20th, 2022, some people assumed that the allegations made were false. Beyond the deletion, some people also pointed toward the fact that nobody else has come forward with allegations and no first-hand abusive or grooming behavior from Boyinaband has been captured or shared. For example, on October 26th, Twitter[13] user @drs_5000 posted, "Anyone else find it weird how the open letter we had about the Boyinaband/ Dave Brown got deleted?"

Search Interest

External References

[1] Reddit – Dave from boyinaband – over a decade of abuse underneath an almost perfect public persona

[2] YouTube – Dance Pop Tutorial Day 7

[3] Imgur – Dave from boyinaband

[4] Reddit – armahillo

[5] Twitter – polqmai

[6] Twitter – c0nmanabq

[7] Twitter – viperjpeg

[8] Twitter – Very nice of Dave from Boyinaband to tell his dating pool how to avoid him

[9] Twitter – boyinaband in court

[10] Twitter – VINYL404

[11] Unddit – "":https://www.unddit.com/r/Boyinaband/comments/x8em0f/dave_from_boyinaband_over_a_decade_of_abuse/

[12] Wayback Machine – archive

[13] Twitter – drs_5000

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Alright men, listen up!

We here are all veterans of conflicts such as these.

We all remember being in the trenches of the Battle of Projared Bay

We stormed the beaches of Game grumps during the Sexbang Skirmish

And we lost many during the shelling at the Fedmyster Fray

We all remember what to do. Don't accuse until you see the proof in their evidence!

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