Worst YouTuber Segment: The Disgusting Decline of IAmSp00n

Side Note: Please do not go and attack or harass this person.

What a complete and utter surprise that we are back to bring you another post. We haven't talked about any Minecraft YouTuber's in a while so why not talk about one today. Yes, I've discussed many of them in the past like BabaStreams, Steveee, Naya Momoko, Luke TheNotable, JellyBean Ft. Clones and the list goes on. Check out those posts if you're interested, buy anyways today we are going to be talking about IAmSp00n; a Minecraft YouTuber that used to be part of a server called Hermitcraft in 2012 and has done things related to SMPs, but was caught due to sexual misconduct and therefor leaving his channel abruptly. He hasn't been active since 2020.

IAmSp00n (also known as Samuel Earney) started his account on September 1, 2010. Roughly six days later on September 7, 2010, he uploaded his first video titled "Let's Begin" where he did his first commentary video while playing Call of Duty. He posted his first Minecraft video titled "Minecraft Season 1" and therefor continued with standard Minecraft uploads (as well as other games) on his channel. 2 Years later near the ending of summer 2012, he began a new series and joined a server titled Hermitcraft. After joining, he met popular YouTuber's like generikb and xisumavoid and would do a collaboration with xisumavoid and ZombieCleo. His channel kept on growing and growing and gaining popularity due to this. One of his most popular and yet most viewed video on his channel is titled "Journey - Gameplay / Playthrough (No Commentary)" which sits at around 2.4M views.

The Fall:

Sexual Misconduct / Response:

On February 22, 2019, Samuel uploads his final video titled "My Last YouTube Video." In the video he explains that he doesn't really do much content on his channel anymore and had switched to streaming games on Twitch. The video was received generally positive gaining over 300 likes while others disliked his approach with it. The dislikes are at 120 currently. So he fulfilled his Twitch career for a while until mid 2019.

A google document explaining his departure and the people he hurt.

Roughly a year later (on June 21, 2020) after the breakup with Samuels previous girlfriend LadyNasse, he came out with a document about his departure including disconnecting every network while leaving them up. The document says:

"I’ve spent a few hours staring at my monitor, trying to figure out what to type in response to everything that’s been going on and said about me. I’ve talked to multiple partners I’ve had in the past, I’ve talked to my community, I’ve talked to those close to me, and I’ve talked to PR/Community representatives to help me put words down. But, unfortunately, I’ve still got nothing. There’s no proper or appropriate way to address any of this as my actions have not been proper or appropriate. Firstly, I think the most sensible thing is to apologize. No excuses. No discussion. Just an apology. I’ve hurt countless people because of my overly sexual and flirty behavior towards people that deserved much better than what I had to offer. I’ve betrayed people who cared and loved for me. There is no “justice” that I can serve up that will undo what I’ve done. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for anyone who has felt wronged by me. I’m sorry for anyone who I’ve led on. I’m sorry for the people that I kept secrets from in order to try and continue my behavior.

Regardless of when any of what you see is said to have happened, I want you to believe them. Whether something happened 5 years ago or happened last week, people deserve to be heard and deserve to be believed. No amount of discussion, evidence, or debate is going to change that. And, although I would like to talk about things that happened and didn’t happen, it’s not necessary or relevant. What is obvious is that this behavior has gone on throughout my career and I directly benefited sexually from it while the people on the receiving end were negatively impacted. I own my platform and the actions that were taken on it.

I am very good at making things about me. But, this is not some kind of sweet validating moment. This is not some weird act of martyrdom. This movement is much bigger than me. This movement is about removing people from the industry that have used their privilege to gain power over people and manipulate them to their own advantage. And, as much as I would like to think that I’ve used my platform for entertainment, escapism, and overall “good,” the bad things that I’ve done outweigh that by a longshot. Effective immediately, I will be discontinuing my various networks indefinitely. I will most likely leave them online, but you will not see any activity from me on them. I will be contacting my sponsors and partners and asking that they remove me from programs and services so that they aren’t held responsible.

Thank you for the past 11 years. I was lucky enough to be included in so many amazing projects and involved with some amazing people regardless of my actions that happened behind closed doors. I will always love the gaming industry and what it has done for so many people." - Samuel Earney.

In terms of the response, it was received a mixbag. Many users supported him and, on the road, to getting help while others thought that it wasn't proper. Users also pointed out the disgusting behavior of Samuel.

Brief statement from littleshia. Check sources for full statement.

Brief statement from Curvyllama. Check sources for full statement.

Speaking of disgusting behavior, right after he posted the document, victims had come out to talk about their experiences with Samuel. LadyNasse was the first one to call him out as a racist back in 2017, even when the BLM was making news coverage. Few days later, a few victims came out to explain their experiences with Samuel including littleshia (his previous girlfriend he broke up in 2019). The statements coming from the victims are quite damning and curvyllama provided screenshots of the conversations on the live Twitch chat. The messages range from him swearing to even downright disgusting.

A news article from ScreenRant talking about Twitch stepping in.

A reddit post on r/LivestreamFail talking about the Streamers.

A spreadsheet containing the accusers as well as the victims.

What you see when you go to his Twitch.

After the evidence and backlogs of the streamers abusive powers, this prompt Twitch to start banning the streamers who were accused of sexual abuse. A few news outlets like ScreenRant and WIRED covered this topic. At the time I'm making this post, only a few of them were banned including Samuel Earney of IAmSp00n. Now when you go to his Twitch account, it has been banned for violation of their terms of service. Since it's been roughly 3 years, I highly doubt that he will ever return and if he does, then I'll keep this post updated if anything new comes out.