Because all of us have finally seen what was in Vaush's folder, we figured to compare it to what was said about it on the show. We remembered some descriptions not representative of what was actually there. That was all this was going to be about, but upon looking back at the episodes (After Dark #136, H3TV #107, After Dark #137 and H3TV #108), we discovered many more discrepancies.

This is not in defense of Vaush. There were files that should not have been there, the leak should not have happened, he's said disgusting things, and we believe it was fair and even warranted to compare the event with his actions and arguments. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation has been spread and mistakes have been made, and that is on top of the crew distributing "CP" which originally was the only thing that we thought was wrong with the coverage.

THE FILES

For an overview of the files, we suggest this video. It's the most complete and unbiased source we could find on the matter.

Some of the descriptions, like that of the folder names and that there was "loli stuff", "no-real images of horse cocks", "King Rauru", "VTuber Natsuiro Matsuri" and a "threesome" were correct, but claims like the following were not:

"A folder full of loli porn."

"A loli folder."

"There is 20 completely raw-dog naked fucking porn where, cartoon mind you, still of like young girls."

We are of the opinion that any loli is too much loli, but it wasn't a folder dedicated to or full of it. Most of the porn was of no concern whatsoever, verifiably depicting adult characters. There were four pieces of media that could've been perceived as having young girls in them, two of which actually did. Again, that is two too many, but that also means there was no reason to make it out to be any worse.

"I found a Twitter thread saying that one of the animes depicted in these thumbnails are apparently of a... the main character in that anime is 16."

"So in the anime, she is specifically 16 years old."

"In the picture from the horse file she looks even younger honestly."

This is mostly just a confusing collection of claims. To set the record straight, the 16-year-old is the VTuber's avatar, not from any anime, and it wasn't in any of the horse images.

"Those are like children, below 10 years old."

It's bad enough that there was a young girl depicted, but none of the depictions were as young as that.

"There was a girl who looked very young who was sucking off a horse."

"Girl looks like 13. And sucking off a horse."

There wasn't any media with a horse getting sucked off, let alone by a young-looking girl.

"Pornographic drawings of a horse fucking a child."

"He wants to be the horse, okay? So in the folder, there's images of a horse fucking a child. Therefore, if we're gonna do the math, if he's the horse... I mean, do I need to say it? You know, if he's the horse and the horse is fucking a kid, you know, that's just kind of what it is there, brother."

The single girl getting fucked by a horse could by no means be perceived as a child, and there weren't multiple images of that either. We found several creators blindly believing and spreading the above (mis)information in turn, for example Bowblax saying:

"I heard H3 describe one of them on his stream today as "a little girl getting fucked by a horse"?"

"A little naked kid sucking horse cock!"

"The little kid was getting fucked with a horse... by a horse or sucking a horse or some shit."

That also means the following responses to Vaush claiming people were free to lie about the drawings were wrong, with the show itself unfortunately being guilty of that too:

"Lie? Oh, he's not being honest now."

"He's kind of like: "Oh, some photos going around weren't even the right ones, there's just... some were just completely made up"."
-"Which ones then?"

THE CONTEXTS

We were told many times over that all the context for Vaush's arguments was shown:

"We showed all the contexts. I didn't cut him off. Everything you're saying, I showed it all."

"Here we very deliberately and intentionally and in great detail and effort and time looked at all the clips in their full context."

"Vaush and his supporters will tell you the following things: "It's out of context, all the clips of him". It wasn't. We looked at the context."

"We made a huge emphasis on putting everything in context and watching it in the full entirety of the clip."

"We went through efforts to show the full context."

"The entire conversation revolved around showing the full context of everything so that people couldn't say I took anything out of context."

"We showed the whole fucking thing."

"We showed the full context of... actually, we really, truly did."

"I knew that they were going to say this and in anticipation of it I made it fucking crystal clear, we dotted our I's, crossed our T's in every way possible, to show all the context."

"We showed all the context, people."

Most of us took this for granted, not the least for how often it was said. However, we noticed a big contradiction regarding some context that was supposedly already shown. This made us check the clips by ourselves to see if and when the full contexts were actually shown:

"We haven't really been able to find more context on that one, right?"

"Vaush, I've been looking for the context of that one, if you... somebody has it, please send it 'cause I really, again, I don't know where that could possibly go."

The context of the video, with Vaush saying "it is possible for an adult and a child to have a sexual relationship and for it to have positive outcomes on the child as well", wasn't shown, while the show sourced the stream video and thus already had access to the entire context. Although the clip started in the middle of his argument and clearly put emphasis on the stated possibility, we do think the parts shown still portrayed its essence fairly. The context doesn't change what he said, only why and how he said it.

The full context is that a chatter asked him about the different kinds of utilitarianism, which he explained using the ethics of lying and of teachers sleeping with students, explicitly saying such is bad. Him getting heated over some chatters is what led to the clip as seen on the show. The clip removed any nuance and made it seem the other way around, that he first argued such a positive outcome is possible before saying "The rule utilitarian, which is what I am, would say: "Even though that individual outcome was good, the act was still bad".". He had made clear his stances and said it was bad in advance.

As for the clip with Vaush saying he had "yet to hear a convincing moral or legal argument as to why possession of child pornography should be illegal" and comparing it to child slave labor, only a later explanation from him was shown. Upon watching it, Ethan said:

"I don't believe him. I don't believe that that's what he meant."

"You changed your story, motherfucker."

The original context hasn't been shown to this date, with the incomplete clip brought up several times and making it to every single episode on the matter. In the original stream, Vaush added that "none of it is ethical" and that "the answer should be that all of these things are bad". That is quite the context to leave out, as it is him denouncing both kinds of child abuse as opposed to using one to justify the other. No matter how bad and flawed the argument, there is no question or doubt he actually meant it that way and that he didn't change his story later on.

The above arguments were the very two shown and discussed in the initial episode on the matter, alongside the compilation from the 'YouTube Police Department' that was brought up on several occasions and that the crew pushed back on. In each of those instances, Vaush's stated beliefs were objectively clipped or presented out of context.

The context of the clip of him answering which hypothetical strip club and stripper ages would be the most popular in America with "I think it would be somewhere from 14 to 17" was never shown either. He specifically called the show out on this, which was only mentioned by the crew in passing. The stream and video clearly show it was an educated guess regarding society, with Vaush even citing his source for it and being repulsed by the questioning. The crew did present it mostly correctly, with Ethan insisting that:

"That's no way that's true."

"This motherfucker wants to fuck 14-year-olds."

The context of the very next clip, of Vaush asking: "Does anyone else get the feeling that like men, at least in the West, are kind of like taught to be kind of a little pedophiley?" and with his video title clearly stating "NETFLIX PEDOS", was also left out completely, with the crew again trying to clear it up. In the very stream and video, Vaush addressed Cuties and Netflix specifically advertising it with a provocative movie poster, Hollywood being full of pedos, Trump being friends with Epstein and Roy Moore and openly bragging about walking into a dressing room at a teen beauty pageant, barely legal porn, r/jailbait, calling it all out and saying such needs to be disincentivized.

Ethan prefaced another clip, of Vaush telling pedophiles to get help, with:

"This shit again, man. This bro was like: "I'm going to react to a clip of a conservative conspiracy theorist raving about how liberals are sexualizing children, I'm going to respond to this by comparing CP to cobalt production"."

"I've seen this clip but I haven't seen this context."

What Vaush said wasn't yet shown or discussed on the show, and no CP, child slave labor or cobalt production was brought up in it at all. Ethan backtracked afterward by saying something that hadn't happened, at least not on air:

"We saw all this and we're like: "Oh, that was good". We're like: "That was good, that you said that"."

The clips of Vaush talking about loli or saying "Tacoma wept" were shown in full, and we strongly feel it should've stayed at that with how poorly the other clips were presented. We also noticed that every video brought up was timestamped to start at the same exact moment as its supposed clip chimp, meaning it was going to be engaged with the same and that all prior context was going to be ignored by default.

THE DEFENDERS

About people jumping to Vaush's defense after the first episode, Ethan said:

"I feel like I was being gaslit by a bunch of pedos."

"You will hear these arguments for two reasons from his fans and his defenders. The only two reasons that I can see: 1) they've been misled by Vaush and they don't grasp the entirety of the depravity of what he's into or, and I'm sorry to say this, 2) they also watch what he watches."

Had the coverage of the files and clips been as correct as it was made out to be, that would've been a fine conclusion to draw. However, with the coverage being objectively bad and wrong, it would only be obvious for people to come to Vaush's defense for those things, even without being his friend or fan. This also means that not just insinuating it but also actually calling those people pedos was completely unwarranted.

We couldn't find much wrong with Tipster's responses to the matter. From all we've seen, his coverage was a lot more accurate than the show's, even regarding the files which he said not to have seen. However, we don't agree with Keffals' coverage and video response.

THE OTHER WRONGS

There were other things we found problematic. For example, one of the main reasons for the deep dive given was:

"The loli shit was not out in the open. There's a new wrinkle in the fabric of this story."

That is incorrect. Not that it makes it any better, we think it makes it worse even, but Vaush had been caught with loli before, down to characters of the exact same ages. We found a whole other context video from 2020 with him addressing it too, titled "(Almost) Everything I've Ever Been CANCELLED For". It's almost an exact copy of the latest context video.

"There will never be a time when CP is produced ethically."

"There is no humane CP."

We agree, had it not been that the show constantly conflated the terms CP and loli, and said about loli that it "didn't harm anyone". Both can't be true. Either loli is a humane and possibly ethical form of CP or it could never be ethical or humane, or it's not actually CP. We think the main issue is that the terms were combined in the first place for no real reason. We can only assume it was done to make the situation out to be as bad as possible or worse.

"Do you agree that in some cases adults and children can have positive sexual experiences together? Can you answer that? I'm curious, 'cause that's what he said."

We think there couldn't have been a more obvious moment to make a "your mom" joke at Ethan, as inappropriate and as little of a joke as that would actually be. With how many times the specific topic and question were brought up, we think it should've been engaged with much more honestly and at least truthfully. Do we not live in a world where child marriages and such relationships are legal in far too many places? Is the show not located in the state of California where it's legal too? We think it shouldn't be that way, of course, but it is. Not to forget that there are Romeo and Juliet laws and situations no one bats an eye at.

"They say: "In the lore, this character is like a billion years old"."

"Maybe he's gonna do the argument where: "Oh, these characters are actually a thousand years old"."

Going by what was said on the show, those statements would rationalize CP and be comparable to Vaush's own arguments. We thought we were to combat loli apologia, not provide more of it, let alone without discussing and pushing back on it.

"I don't justify the shit that I did. I'm happy... I'm not happy but like, I engage with the stuff that I've done in the past openly and honestly and as frequently as I need to because I'm aware that stuff I've said and done are extremely offensive and mean, and these are things that I'm reckoning with and have served to help me mature as a person."

"Let's cut out the CP justifications. Let's stop philosizing about CP."

Vaush had apparently already cut the CP "justifications" several years ago and already openly addressed and reckoned with it on many different occasions, with Ethan playing a big (some would say the biggest) part in him having to do so again this time around.

"What is this shit, pedo-jacketing? These people have the funniest, silliest, dumbest phrases for serious ass shit."

Anything is funny, silly and dumb if you make it out to be. We found it a little odd that after coining the term "lolipops" for Vaush defenders and using that everywhere, like in the episode's title and thumbnail, Ethan would criticize an older term not nearly as funny or silly, especially given its serious ramifications.

Those were our main concerns. There were quite a few more issues, like everyone freely looking at and talking about the sourced files without verifying those to be correct, or going in on Vaush saying he was "into Midna growing up", so presumably just as a child, or attacking not just his terrible arguments but also him saying "however" and correcting course, or complaining that he made an overly long video that was already announced to be a big one just for his fans and being able to simply skip ahead.

We think it's fair to say that truly everything was constantly painted in the worst possible light, without any consideration or hesitation, by at least the Kleins.

THE CONCLUSION

We think there was a lot of potential for a great and important discussion about the topic at hand, but unfortunately there is no way to say the show tackled it properly and truthfully. There is so much out there when it comes to Vaush engaging with bestiality and loli, that any and all of the clips with arguments regarding real children had no place being there. We do think it's fair to say those clips and arguments were terrible and could make for excuses and justifications for pedophiles and predators, but we can't possibly say that he meant it in any bad and harmful way or that he was somehow projecting in those cases.

Anyone coming to his defense after the first episode as for the misinformation and missing contexts was fully in the right to do so, even though not all of them did so in a right way. People definitely shouldn't have been called pedos over that, and we couldn't find any good reason why the bridge with Tipster got burned over it.

The show single-handedly muddied the waters and, dare we say, poisoned the well, spending the most time on Vaush's old arguments and making it so that he barely had to engage with the things that truly mattered in this case: his continued carelessness, the folder and files, him criticizing loli and comparing interest in it with pedophilia while having it on his computer, and him possibly getting the help needed. The "one-two punch" was only introduced deep into the second episode, and even then it wasn't made the main point of contention while it should've been the only point from the very beginning.

On one hand, we would like to believe that the show was engaging with everything in good faith, that it was all believed to be correct and true, but with the sheer amount of objective wrongs and Vaush denouncing the bad and evil in the full contexts of every single clip that wasn't about loli or Tacoma weeping, we can't help but think there was more malice to it. In hindsight, we fully understand and can't blame anyone for saying it was done in bad faith.

We aren't satisfied with Vaush's context video either. It was in line with what was discussed on the show and with what actually was in his folder, but we don't think his excuse for merely making a joke about jerking off to loli suffices. Even though it was a joke, there clearly was quite some truth to it as well, even going off of everything else he said about it. We would've liked to see him talk to Ethan to discuss the matters more fairly, and we don't understand why he backed out of that.

One thing is for certain: we can't trust Ethan anymore when he claims the full context of anything was shown or when he says something like:

"Listen, I've never been on this side of an argument where I'm so clearly right and it's not even debatable."