campfire
1d ago
Interesting. Do you think it helps his legal case to post the video, or that he's just so clearly legally safe that it's worth optimizing for his job?
The latter, 99% sure. The former, don't know enough about law to say for sure but I expect yes.
campfire
1d ago
Oh that's easy. 1) Discord mods are huge outliers in the population, they're disproportionately very progressive, chronically unemployed, and get off on petty displays of authoritarianism 2) Unlike the YouTubers who only made short statements, they had spent a full week dragging Greene's name through the mud and banning anyone who says "let's wait for his side of the story". Having to apologize after that and draw the ire of the people being unbanned is much more humiliating for them.
campfire
1d ago
You know I thought about tagging you in the post but I figured the content would summon you to the replies like the bat signal anyway
campfire
1d ago
Maybe hookups just suck
For men? Really? I think they're slightly suboptimal in the sense that you don't exactly know what you can "get away with" but it doesn't seem like most men dislike them
campfire
2d ago
Of course I jokingly mention Malazan Book of the Fallen in my post as the type of thing a sexless dork would read and this person’s bio is:
He/Him | Fiction enjoyer | anime, manga, movies and books | Malazan Book of the Fallen #1 series
Can people try not to confirm every stereotype this week? For the record I read the first three books and was somewhat entertained but turned off by the frivolous use of literal God-tier magic.
campfire
2d ago
A lawyer definitely signed off on the whole video. Greene would have known there's ~0% chance of him going to jail, but he was already losing sponsorships, subscribers, and publishers. His brand IS his job. Clearly the right move I think.
campfire
2d ago
Then we’re only disagreeing on semantics. I’ve only heard “pornbrained” used by feminists and sex-negative Christians to label most men’s natural preferences for youth, beauty, and variety as a modern aberration of the Natural Order. But you and @rincer_of_wind are clearly using it differently.
campfire
2d ago
Yes to all of the above, but the urge to consume sugar, salt, and fat was always there. Nobody accuses anyone who thinks ice cream is tastier than salad of being DairyQueenbrained. We rightfully discourage actually overindulging the urge because it has health/appearance consequences.
campfire
2d ago
Arguing that the temptation to cheat and men's desire for sexual novelty means men shouldnt be monogamous is asenine.
I didn't argue this. In hindsight I should have said "preferred" arrangement instead of "ideal". I do think monogamy is the best arrangement for a man in the long run, and definitely for civilization at large.
Its a very pornbrained attitude to life
I find "pornbrained" is generally a bad-faith, loaded word used to demonize aspects of male sexuality that have existed forever. I can only see it being accurately applied to an obsession with very niche fetishes. Ironically I think Christian conservatives are the most likely to agree that men are not disposed towards monogamy and that's why we need religious institutions to enforce it. I remember Christian apologist William Lane Craig being asked about free will and the interviewer gave an example like "what if a man says 'I'm genetically predisoposed towards wanting to sleep with every beautiful woman I see so I can't be held liable for the sin of adultery'" and Craig's response was "I think most men are, but that's not an excuse for sin".
campfire
2d ago
These people made the right move (to preserve their livelihoods as subculture-embedded personalities) even if they could see through Naomi’s crocodile tears as clearly as you could.
I couldn't disagree more, whatever "progressive brownie points" you'll get from "believing a victim" do not outweigh having to apologize for asking your followers to donate to a hysterical person that accused your friend when you couldn't even be bothered to wait for that friend's response. In a video that will live on your channel forever as a reminder of your foolishness. Even right after the accusations were made they should have calculated that they could get almost as many progressive brownie points if King produced more evidence or Greene was silent for 10 days (which is borderline an admission of guilt). They would not have jumped to condemn him if they didn't believe the allegations.
campfire
2d ago
I think people interpreted my words as me being anti-monogamy. That’s not the case, I like the benefits of monogamy. I consider it a worthwhile sacrifice like going to the gym for better long-term health is. Also on a societal level it’s clearly the best arrangement. Fertility rates would plummet without it.
campfire
3d ago
the sex is better
Yeah I don’t think this would dissuade me. Sex with the same woman, even if I really like her, feels like eating my favorite meal for dinner every day. It’s always good but at some point I might just start craving a simple Chinese takeout for novelty’s sake.
From an evo-psych perspective this also makes perfect sense: sex with another woman is almost always a positive expected fitness value-add.
I have an enormous amount of trouble understanding how anyone's response to any of this is "ah yes, let's post about my legal troubles on Youtube." I may be old.
He's a YouTuber, it wasn't just legal trouble it was to protect his image which had been tarnished, losing 60k subscribers out of 580k is massive.
barely have the time or interest to put up with/keep track of one woman at a time
Casual sex is very low-effort. Actually dating multiple women might be a nightmare but if all but one only want you for sex?
Do they? He's so far from a typical guy.
Well yes infidelity is not "typical", but the subset of men who cheat is a subset of the ones who can which is a subset of the ones who are tempted.
As promised here is:
A breakdown of the Daniel Greene-Naomi King sexual misconduct scandal
A fascinating case study in social media hysteria and gender relations. I said I'd post this Saturday but the situation kept developing since then so I waited a bit, though it appears mostly resolved in the court of public opinion by now. I did my best to be thorough but there were lots of detailed claims made by both parties involved and I couldn't be bothered to outline all of them, so let me know if there's anything important I've missed that should be added to this post. I did link archives of all relevant videos if you want to examine them yourself. You can also just skip to the end for my funny summary of the events.
First, the facts in the order they were presented to the public, without my analysis:
Daniel Greene is a Youtuber who mostly covers fantasy novels. He had 580k subscribers before his recent scandal broke last, and now sits at 521k (since I started writing this it has climbed back up to 529k). His videos regularly got 40k-120k views, he's interviewed best-selling authors like Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie, and I've heard his convention panels are regularly packed. He's published 3 novels himself and is working on a fourth. His discord sever was very active and had 17k users. He has been dating his gf Kayla Torrison since 2021 and they were engaged last September.
Naomi King is a self-described Actor, musician, author, and (as she revealed in a since-removed video this past Saturday) Vancouver sugar baby. The two had not publicly associated before this scandal broke.
In 2017, someone on Tumblr accused Greene of rape. This was mentioned in his Discord server in 2021, which he denied by saying he wasn't in the area at the time, and the incident wasn't brought up again.
On June 19th, 2023, Naomi King posted a video to YouTube where she mentions an unnamed friend took advantage of her in Vegas. She implies she had agreed to some sex acts with the friend but they went too far. She also implies that the friend had suggested they would have a relationship but they did not deliver on this after they hooked up, and that she considers this sexual assault.
In the 2-3 weeks after this, Greene took a "mental health break" from YouTube, and also froze his server. He returned on July 7th with his usual posting schedule and unfroze his server.
On February 10th, 2025 King posted a video on YouTube where she accused Daniel Greene of rape, and revealed that his lawyers had sent her a Cease and Desist letter threatening to have her social media taken down after her June 2023 video. I've shared an archive as she's since removed videos from her channel regarding the incident. Some of the text of the letter is in the video, but much is redacted. It inexplicably describes Greene as a "medical professional". Prior to the encounter that prompted this, she shared an 8-page letter with Green about the nature of their relationship which she heavily implied was platonic. She goes on to explain that he had tried talking her into having an affair with him and that she had turned him down. He had confessed, in DMs shown in the video, that "I will probably always be a cheater". But the two agreed he would visit her in Vegas where he would "spoil her like a friend" and he would spend the night with her. It was 4/20 so she had been taking 40mg edibles all day and according to her he was sober. He then allegedly forced his penis inside of her without lube, knowing she couldn't self-lubricate, and came on her "batok", which she describes as a sacred Filipino tattoo. The next morning, the two got breakfast and he paid for her tattoo, and upon getting her alone again, proceeded to allegedly sexually assault her again. After this, she sent his then girlfriend, now fiance (they are still not married as many people discussing this have claimed) a video about what happened and she responded calling them both "disgusting". The video ends with her having a panic attack and mentioning she has reported the incident to the Vegas police.
Greene was immediately condemned by many of his closest friends. Fellow Booktuber Merphy Napier made a post where she stated the claims were convincing and urged people to donate to RAINN, a charity for victims of domestic abuse. Jackson Dickert, who has <7k subscribers but hosted a mock interview show called Between Two Perns that featured guests as famous as Brandon Sanderson and Terry Brooks, posted a video where he tearfully claims he believes King and wants nothing to do with Daniel, who he had a close working relationship with. Greene's own Discord server erupted with users condemning him. There were a few dissenting voices saying people should wait to hear his side of the story, the mods banned nearly all of them for "fencesitting" or misgendering King, who someone mentioned uses they/them pronouns. They also asked people to donate to Naomi's paypal account to help pay for therapy and legal fees.
On Feb 12th, Greene posted a short video where he, very clearly reading off a lawyer-prepared script, admitted to having an affair with King but that it was fully consensual and had ample evidence to prove as much. He ends saying he'll be suing King for defamation.
On Feb 15th, King uploaded a 3rd video on the situation which, were it not preserved in an archive, is almost unbelievable. In it, she confesses to being a sugar baby (adding context to why Greene offered to "spoil her as a friend"), shares the lyrics to 3 songs she had written about him wondering if he would eventually choose her over his then-girlfriend, confesses she did sleep next to him fully naked, then proceeds to mockingly reenact the sexual assault that days prior she couldn't even discuss without crying. She admits she "did not say no" but that she did try to talk him out of sex before the 2nd alleged SA incident, where she performed oral sex on him and he came on her face while moaning he "thinks about this every time I fuck my own girlfriend". Then she admits they hung out the next day before they both flew home. She reached out to his gf Kayla and told her about what happened in a video where she tearfully confesses that she didn't want any of it and Greene and pressured her into it. The video also mentions that he had also taken edibles, contradicting her earlier statement that he was totally sober. She adds that the man mentioned in her first video was in fact Greene and that she was in contact with another woman he had sexually assaulted, which made her realize this was a pattern of behavior on his part that she had to call out.
The response to this 3rd video of King's was overwhelmingly negative towards her. The comments have likely been lost so you'll have to take my word that almost all were some version of "you're crazy and just exposed yourself" or "I believe you but this video looks REALLY bad for you, please get a therapist and a lawyer". Comparing the comments on the the first and final /r/Fantasy threads on the situation shows a similar effect. There is a MASSIVE shift in sentiment between the threads.
On February 17th, King posted a video titled I am SO SORRY. Oh my god.. It's mostly incoherent. She apologizes profusely to Daniel and Kayla for causing drama and says "I never said he raped me." This is a lie, whether she used the word rape or not she clearly said he forced his penis inside her. She adds, "I don't like this version of myself and am gonna fix it". King had uploaded an earlier version of the video that ends with the full text of the 8-page letter she had sent Greene before their affair, which she has since edited out and I cannot find.
Greene then posted a video titled Proving Naomi King Lied With Her Own Words. It delivers on its title and features Greene, his now-fiance, and his college roommate. Greene had edited the video to demonstrate how King contradicted herself in her own words, and added context to her claims. He points out that she had also given him edibles (she claims they hadn't kicked in yet by the time they had sex, but of course there's no way for her to be certain of this), and that she had specifically said she was taking 40mg of edibles at lunchtime and they only had sex at around midnight. In addition, the video she had sent Greene's gf Kayla has absolutely no mention of sexual assault according to Kayle itself, just King confessing to a consensual affair. King even mentions that she was cheated on 10 years ago, and hates herself for enabling Greene to do the same to Kayla. Texts King had sent Greene which were included in her OWN video included "Last night I said I wanted to do more BECAUSE you said you liked it" and "It seems only you are allowed to express any sort of lust". Greene then identifies the other woman who accused him of sexual assault as Madison, and his college roommate confirmed she had visited Greene in their apartment a year after the supposed rape occured and was completely cordial. He ends by asking all the creators who condemned him to issue a correction to their audiences.
On February 18th, King posted another video (which I can't find an archive of, will edit the post if I do) where she shares a phone call she had with another woman who accused Daniel of "sexual assault" in college and includes details of him just frankly being bad at sex. But worth noting she had sex with him on 4 separate occasions, despite describing even the 2nd occasion as sexual assault.
Greene then gave all his Discord mods an ultimatum to either apologize and remain or step down, and all but one stepped down. Most creators who weighed in on the issue prematurely have since issued apologies.
My scattered thoughts and analyses:
1- When it comes to SA allegations, people are still shockingly naive. Nearly 11 years after Mattress Girl's performance art and 8 since the start of #MeToo, the public still has no idea how to respond to claims of sexual assault. It doesn't surprise me at all that someone like King would accuse someone of Greene of rape, what's shocking is the alacrity with which some of his closest collaborators and the vast majority of people who viewed King's first video believed her. Since she largely exposed herself as a liar, people have been saying things like "ah his fake friends just had to get the cloutbucks from condemning him immediately, huh?" But this is an insufficient explanation for what happened. Obviously having to admit they were wrong and plugged the PayPal information of a known fraud is hugely embarrassing for them and so they wouldn't have done so if they didn't completely believe King's accounts. Anyone with even moderately sound epistemics on the issue should know that, while sexual assault is very common and supposedly only 5% of accusations are false (assuming that statistic I've heard thrown around is even true), a women who presents like King does is not >95% likely to be telling the truth. I'm going to editorialize a bit by pointing this out but: women have thousands of "icks" and "red flags" they'll list about men. There are entire social media trends built around this idea. He drives a Tesla? Likes Fight Club? Likes the Infinite Jest? Listens to Joe Rogan? Red flags, each one. I'm not even sure those are necessarily bad choices of interests to look out for. But men look for <10 in women and Naomi King seems to have most of them. She has a LOT of tattoos (including a full sleeve and almost completely covered back), multiple ear piercings including guages, shows signs of BPD, does sex work, is an actor, describes herself as nonbinary, and films her own panic attacks and crying on camera. These are all, based on what I've observed, correlated with being mentally unstable. I sort of assumed most of this was common knowledge. So what's going on here? I think part of it is that something deep in the human psyche says "when a woman cries, you have to protect her". Richard Hanania said it best.. Even other women, despite having likely experienced the way some women use crying to manipulate, were quick to jump to her defense. I also think a lot of men just don't fuck that much. Or married their high school sweatheart and haven't really experienced the dating/hookup scene. Even my limited experience helped my identify the traits I mentioned as being correlated with a) being good in bed and b) mental illness. My more sexually experienced friend also adds "is Filipina and is a nurse to the list" and King is Filipina or just very immersed in the culture (though I can't confirm the accuracy of these stereotypes). Now granted we are talking about the type of man who likes to read Malazan Book Of The Fallen. But there's gotta be a few certified GuysWhoFuck in that group right? Greene is certainly one of them. Or am I unfairly generalizing here and actually these traits aren't associated with mental illness and it's just a coincidence this one person happened to have all of them?
But that's just the surface-level observations about King, there's also her story itself which is extremely questionable even from her first two videos (the ones that, taken together, kicked off this whole scandal Greene is dealing with). Is it not extremely odd behavior to, as a single woman, share a bed with a man in a relationship who had tried pressuring you into fucking him for two years if you weren't actually planning on fucking him? Obviously the fact that she was willing to do this suggests she wanted it to happen, right? I did see one other person point this out and they were met with "wow I can't believe you're going with the 'she was wearing a short skirt so she was asking it' " defense and "I've shared beds with tons of people without raping them". As if what was described isn't orders of magnitude more suggestive than wearing a short skirt and that sharing beds with platonic same-sex friends is the same as opposite-sex friends who tried talking you into an affair. People really just think in memes. There's this idea that some men in the more patriarchal days of old would say things like "she was wearing a short skirt so she was asking for it" so people think anytime anyone remotely questions a woman's narrative it has to be shoehorned into this "wearing a short skirt so she was asking for it" meme and is therefore misguided.
And there's also the shocking naivety about drugs. Even now there are people saying things like "even if she verbally consented, it doesn't count because she was high". This is not a consistent standard anyone can uphold. Especially considering they had both taken edibles. Many couples get high and bone on a weekly basis, are we expected to believe either member can retroactively, at any point, point to one of those sessions and say “actually I was high so I couldn’t consent”? This is a ludicrous standard. There is a ton of middle ground between roofie-ing someone’s drink and raping their unconscious body and two people getting high and hooking up. Marijuana use is pretty common among Americans at 17% and surely plenty of people are having sex while high considering what an intense aphrodisiac it is ( there's even an Arctic Monkeys song about it) , and yet no almost no one is willing to push back on this?
2- Are narratives this easy to manipulate?
I wish I had posted my predictions about this story to a commitment scheme because I easily knew that these allegations were false and were the result of "the girl who didn't get picked" lashing out against "the guy that got away" even after her first two videos. It seems most people missed this. But this reminded me of Gell-Mann Amnesia. I only noticed the prevailing narrative was false because I bothered to spend a few minutes looking into the claims since I was interested in the particular Zoomer fantasy subculture. I don't have the time or willpower to do this for every claim/narrative I hear in the media (I still don't know much of anything about even the Neil Gaiman scandal), and yet I definitely internalize some of them.
Much was made of the fact that Greene sent a Cease and Desist letter in response to a video that didn't name him, many considered this immediately damning to his case. But I can't imagine why. King's video clearly provides a) a clear description of a person (a man King had played therapist for for three years who spent a few days with her in Vegas and b) a claim about what that person did (sexual assault). Obviously Greene would recognize the description matched him but that he hadn't sexually assaulted her. Even if he was innocent (as we now have very good reason to believe he is), he sent the C&D to avoid exactly the scenario that transpired. If people can't be trusted to see the truth about a simple love triangle while the evidence in right in front of them, how can they possibly be expected to come to the right consensus about claims in history, science, philosophy, and politics? We are almost all swimming in delusional narratives that we've internalized, fed to us by people with horrendous epistemics or bad actors trying to control the narratives themselves.
3- Men really aren't built for monogamy, huh?
A while ago I got into a debate with some people. I claimed, and thought it was uncontroversial, that monogamy is not most men's ideal relationship arrangement. Of course, neither is full polyamory (which involves knowing your girl is banging other men), but most men would love a relationship where their woman is exclusive to them while they can sleep with other women on the side. I was met with unanimous shock and disagreement. That "I just didn't respect women if I felt this" or accusations that I'm typical minding. But I suspect most men actually do agree with me, and the ones who claim otherwise fall into a two categories 1) Men who are sour graping. That is, they know they couldn't pull off an arrangement like this (which tbf is most men, including me) so pretend they wouldn't want it anyway. 2) Ones who "want" it instinctively but are opposed for religious reasons 3) The few who actually just disagree. Cases like Greene's seem to vindicate me. His girlfriend, Kayla, is an attractive woman (happy to cite my sources) who speaks Korean. Most men, in theory, would be happy to score even a 1st date with a woman like her. And yet he couldn't help but risk his relationship by cheating on her with a clearly unstable sex worker? This is very common pattern among famous/successful men. Maybe all it takes is the knowledge that they can repent and get away with it (she agreed to marry him following all this, after all). But clearly the impulse already had to be there. I remember some Motters experiencing envy at Gaiman's escapades when they were revealed to the press (I still don't know the details of them like I mentioned), so are we dispositionally different than the male population at large or just more honest?
4- This whole story is just funny
While I sympathize with Daniel's fiance, who had her partner's affair needlessly exposed and scrutinized by the internet, I can't help but admit the whole situation is otherwise hilarious. If some conservative culture war provocateur gave me this summary of a screenplay he was writing: Charming yet somewhat awkward and mildly woke YouTube fantasy nerd with a model girlfriend uses Black Lives Matter to slide into the DMs of a mentally unstable sex worker with full-body tattoos and guages. She talks him into cheating on his gf, partially by mentioning that as he is a bisexual man, it's normal for him to want to experience a relationship with a non-binary person such as herself despite the fact that she clearly presents as a woman. Despite all evidence that this was a jealous woman lashing out against the man who didn't ultimately pick her, the entire internet sides with her and plugs her paypal link because she's pretty and cries on camera. His close associate is an effeminate man named Jackson Dickert who has curly hair, and wears a beanie and clear-rimmed glasses. This man had been in consideration to take over parts of Daniel's channel from him, but upon being made aware of the deranged woman's accusations, immediately threw him under the bus without bothering to hear his side of the story. In Dickert's video he tearfully confesses he spent most of yesterday crying before calling his mommy who advised him to "act with integrity". He says he wants nothing to do with Daniel and urges his followers to start spaces for women (and trans and nonbinary folx ofc) to discuss fantasy without the presence of predatory men, concluding that "men who abuse women control the flow of information" (seemingly forgetting this entire scandal was kicked off by a much less successful woman posting a video on YouTube who was uncritically accepted by almost everyone).
My response would probably be: Dude, this is all way too on the nose. Everyone in this story is a caricature of what The Babylon Bee thinks progressives and woke young people are like. No one actually uses Black Lives Matter as a pickup line. And "Jackson DICKert"? I know Marvel got away with "Dr. Doom" but that was a comic book movie, bro.
And yet that's exactly what happened. Life imitates meme. Shakespeare couldn't have written a more entertaining drama.
Tagging @Pynewacket @YoungAchamian @rincer_of_wind @Fruck @malcontent who all wanted a breakdown of this.
campfire
7d ago
I've been watching Fantasy News weekly for a while, he does have an annoying political skew (the one time he made a video on a non-fantasy book recently was to praise gay erotica writer Chuck Tingle, and supported the needless race-swapping of The Wheel of Time show) but it was the best summary of the state of the genre and publishing ecosystem on YouTube. Admittedly, he's also responsible for me and many other Zoomers reading the Wheel of Time, which is one of my biggest inspirations as a writer.
I’ve been following this situation closely because while I wasn’t a fan of his, he was a big source of my reading recommendations since the pandemic and I hope to be a published writer myself someday. Is there any interest in a breakdown of the situation? On the one hand I’m one of a handful of people on the internet who is actually seeing the big picture here (mainly because every major platform including his discord is banning anything mildly skeptical of the girl who accused him) and it does have some culture war implications, on the other hand it’s very niche drama from a particular subculture.
EDIT: Message heard, breakdown coming tomorrow morning
EDIT2: Naomi posted a second video where she contradicts herself and adds new context to the first (all of which actually makes her look worse) so I'll need more time for this writeup.
campfire
19d ago
They're widely condemned among economists for good reason. Most econ grad students can cite 7-8 exceptions but these aren't outweighed by the economic costs or don't apply to already developed nations. Best case scenario is that they're just used as threats to receive other concessions.
campfire
20d ago
Anthony Jeselnik is great, his jokes pretty much all follow the same bait-and-switch format, but they always land, the bit on Eric Clapton's son always gets me
campfire
22d ago
There was an ACX book review submission (never posted on the blog as it wasn't a finalist) on The Wheel of Time, anyone have a link to it? It was part of a larger word doc compilation IIRC.
campfire
25d ago
How do they get away with just not working? Does Amazon not track every click you make on a work computer?
Sorry I'm not quite parsing what you're saying here, do you mean Zoomer men pretend to hate casual sex?
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