EZScape // Collin · @EZScapeYT
4th Jul 2020 from TwitLonger
Regarding Apollo Legend
Regarding Apollo Legend:
I first found out about Apollo Legend through my YouTube recommended. This was during a period where I quit playing Runescape and creating YouTube videos for my mental health. Apollo's highlights of the speedrunning scene were my favorite content to watch, very similar to GRSmash.
One day Apollo posted a video "Speedrunning Needs Content Creators" and that video is what would eventually inspire me to create speedrunning videos myself. I took a slightly different approach to Apollo where his videos were about speedrunners reactions to things (fails, salt, pop offs, etc) and mine were about the speedruns themselves (skips, glitches, strats). I always admired and looked up to Apollo though, because in my mind he's the reason I've gotten this far in the first place.
But Apollo's content took a weird turn. He noticed that salty speedrun moments did exceptionally well compared to the other content he was creating. If I had to guess nearly 50% of the videos on his channel were salty speedrun moments (there had to have been 10-20 videos in the series). Now I don't think there's a problem with those types of videos existing, everyone enjoys a little bit of salt and if the people featured in the clips are fine with the clips being shared then there are really no issues. The problem is a lot of the people featured in these videos did NOT want their clips to be shared. These were people in their most vulnerable state, who probably have other things going on in life and may be acting out because they feel like they're in a safe environment or that nobody is watching anyways. The speedrun community also didn't like that people were starting to associate speedrunners with salt/rage. Eventually they struck back and started copyright striking his videos. I'm not sure if it was the strikes or just that Apollo had a change of perspective, but he eventually removed all of those videos (based on my conversations with him I believe it's the latter).
Another thing I didn't like about Apollo were his videos targeting Games Done Quick. These videos contained lies about the organization, the charities involved, and the organizers themselves. I could go deeper into explaining why, but CoolMatty (GDQ event organizer) 3 years ago explained all of this perfectly on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/6b0mhs/the_greatest_speedrun_ever_a_minidoc_about/dhjkr43/?context=3
When Apollo researches videos he only looks at evidence that suits his narrative and avoids all data or perspectives that would prove him otherwise. He has too much bias. I've spoken out about this before in this video made by Glink. Please watch from the timestamp 13:08 to 14:16 to hear more about how he's lied about the event's finances. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5TGFEoidEM&feature=youtu.be&t=788
Apollo if you're reading this please delete these videos. I think it's fine to criticize GDQ as they play an important role in our community, and it's fair to be protective of that, but these videos are propaganda and you know it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG6hPJpxzm4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlLvq_v38G4
While we are on the topic of Games Done Quick, it's time to talk about the RWhiteGoose video... yeah you know the one. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please watch DarkViperAU's videos criticizing Apollo about said video(s) as Apollo has deleted the video from his channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmcQEjoG0d0&list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeHQz20-Sb5EjiO9yxuWxVeR
I was so happy that DarkViper made these videos calling Apollo out, although I feel like I should have been the one to do so, but there's no way I could have done it as eloquently as DarkViper did. I'm glad we have people in the community like him and I highly respect him for it. Although people probably noticed that I was surprisingly quiet during the time that the Goose ban and Apollo video came out, and I'd like to explain more to why that was.
When Goose was banned, I was pretty vacant and busy with other things while it was going on, and truthfully at the time I didn't fully understand what he was banned for. I read through some of the imgur album (I have ADHD so it's difficult for me to read a large doc like that with nazi language and dogwhistling I didn't really understand) and it was obviously things I didn't agree with, but it wasn't until Darkviper's video and me giving an honest FULL read through that I comprehended what was really being said. As someone who holds a lot of influence in the community, I should have made myself more aware of what was going on at the time instead of putting my hands over my ears and saying "wahh I just wanna play video games fast guys, cmon." It was childish and in the future, I will hold myself more accountable on making sure I speak out about these kinds of things. I want speedrunning to remain an open space that anyone can participate in no matter who they are.
Now I was planning on tweeting out after I had my full opinions on Apollo's video, but I held back. The reason was because in a private discord server Apollo posted the video unlisted for a few of us to look over before making it live. He posted this video at 5 AM and I was so tired I didn't even watch it past the 2 minute mark. That was when I should have spoken up and stopped him from posting the video, and since then I've felt partially responsible for its existence. I felt like a hypocrite if I tweeted out about his video in hindsight when I should have expressed my opinions to him directly right there and then.
As time went on other people started posting videos lying about GDQ and I wanted to make a video debunking the claims and explaining why I support the organization. A lot of people don't know this, but I actually volunteer for GDQ creating all of the custom thumbnails you see on the YouTube VODs and I create the official highlights posted each year. So, I contacted Matty before working on a video like this to see if that was alright since I was affiliated with the org and didn't want to step on any toes. Matty was actually all for me making the video (he hates Apollo) but PR turned me down and said not to give it any attention, so I didn't. Honestly, they were probably right to turn me down, but I did try even though a lot people assumed I just didn't care.
I legitimately don't understand why Apollo made this video. He describes a hate mob that is targeting speedrunners which may or may not exist, with absolutely no evidence other than wq rambling. Furthermore, he blindly defends Goose which gives off the impression that everything that he said was okay, which it was NOT. Like how are you going to defend Goose when he's openly apologizing for what he said and accepts the ban. You really can't, but Apollo does it anyways and signals everyone to go subscribe to Goose... for what reason? Again, Apollo's bias is present in any video he gives his opinion in, to the point he defends white nationalism. Him and Goose were good friends (Apollo has an entire video dedicated to Goose and they worked closely together on Oceanside). Now I do not think that Apollo is personally bigoted because I actually have had conversations with him about this kind of stuff before, way before any of this stuff happened. But just because you're not a racist, you still defended one which isn't much better. Goose also didn't like that Apollo made the video either, I don't think he wanted defended.
In these regards I honestly hold Goose to a higher esteem than Apollo, because at least he apologized for what he did, and is taking steps to become a better person. That's literally all I can ask from someone, and I know that isn't enough for a lot of people and doesn't excuse what he said, but I'm not a hateful person. I don't want to continually shit on him and give him no reason to get better, but I'm also not going to endorse him either. Regardless of all of this Apollo has never apologized for shit, and I don't know why. You're allowed to be wrong, you're allowed to make mistakes, but you just delete your mistakes and never atone. I need some shred of remorse from you.
I feel so conflicted about my feelings on Apollo. He's always been so nice towards me and I've looked up to him as a content creator for so long. He's the reason I have everything I have today. For that reason, I let far too many things slide that I shouldn't have. I also felt like Apollo had some personal issues which were why he would disappear for periods and why even I couldn't get a hold of him for months. I worried about him, and I could never find an appropriate time to approach him where it wouldn't just make him feel worse. And I didn't want to lose a friend. I don't know if Apollo thought of me that way, but I wanted to be friends with him, I want to be friends with everybody. But I didn't reach out to him, I never did enough to make sure he was alright, I never expressed enough to him that I didn't agree with what he was doing, I'm a bad friend. Friends don't do all of that and then make a twitlonger when it's most convenient, but here I am, tired of being silent.
For a long time I thought a speedrun drama channel was necessary, so I always appreciated Apollo being there to cover stuff going on in our community, but I was so wrong. We don't need a fucking Keemstar. Bringing our community drama to a large audience has only fueled hate towards people that have only made the heinous act of cheating in a video game. We should be more responsible with who we expose and make sure it's only people that deserve it, not to farm YouTube views, as tempting as it may be. I started getting less of the opinion that Apollo was out for justice rather than views when he started uploading videos during the Caveira ordeal. During this time he uploaded 3 videos about Caveira in order to help defend me, which was a nice gesture, but he NEVER TOLD ME HE WAS MAKING EVEN A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE VIDEOS. I felt really weird about this because I felt like he was just posting the videos for views rather than trying to help me. His videos had misinformation in them and didn't include relevant information all because of his lack of communication.
That's all I want to say. Ben I appreciated you for a long time as a friend and as a content creator, and I wish you the best, but please stay out of the drama sphere. You're not responsible enough to handle it with care, and frankly our community doesn't need it. I wish you luck with the Billy Mitchell case because despite how I feel about you I still want that fucker to go down. Please do not go down a path of harming yourself, I do not want that at all, I just want you to be better because I know you're more than capable of it. Suicide is a trigger for me, a lot of people know this, and I sympathize with anyone going through those thoughts.
This is why I always end my videos with my silly saying, because no matter what life is worth living. And no matter who you are, or what you're going through right now, I hope you all have a beautiful life.
- Collin