James "John" (born: May 6, 2001),[1], better known online as John Swan is a Australian commentary YouTuber who makes highly-edited video essays. He is regarded as a core member of the commentary community.
Contents
YouTube
John Swan created his channel in 2014 and uploaded his first video on July 30, 2017 (it is currently unknown if older videos were deleted or set to private). He started to get more recognizable after posting videos on YouTuber Suzy Lu, exposing her for her hypocrisy regarding copyright. He then posted a video on Chris Hansen which bolstered his account to 100k. He makes videos that usually deconstruct and discuss YouTube drama and what goes on behind the scenes of them.
Swan was also credited as a producer at the end of James Marriott's music video, HIM.
Controversy
Pieman Allegations
Around December of 2020, a 16 year old commentator of the name of Pieman was accused of having an e-relationship with a 12 to 13 year old girl when he was 15. John was one of the first people to cover the story and stated that Pieman should "leave the internet" and alluding that Pieman was a pedophile. Pieman later tweeted out his suicide note quoting "I'm probably gonna upload my next video then just fucking kill myself". John Swan didn't back down on his original stance and claimed that Pieman was suicide baiting. Fellow commentator WillyMacShow confronted John about Pieman in Direct Messages on Twitter and John responded with "I deleted all of my tweets because someone was flagging my account lol, tweeted about it. I stand by 100%. You can disagree and that's fine". WillyMac later made a video about the entire situation, criticizing John of his handling of it and involvement[2] on May 16, 2021, Pieman tweeted on his twitter account that John Swan apologized to him in DMs[3]
Chris Hansen doxxing John Swan
On January 26, 2021, John Swan released a documentary[4] Chris Hansen's Hitman: The Anon Gene Files chronicling the harassment and abuse he received from Chris Hansen's associate, "Anonymous Gene". Gene and Chris were close, so much that he texted him more than his own son. When John Swan dared to criticize Hansen, "Gene" responded by doxxing John Swan, revealing his real full name, his address, pictures of his sister, his school (even trying to get in contact with his classmates) and other sensetive information.
Before this, Gene had sent several doxx threats to John, saying this would happen if he did not delete his videos[5] critical[6] of Chris Hansen. He was also leaking private text messages between himself and Chris around this time, even leaking Chris's number in the process. In the past John Swan called out[7] Chris' involvement with Gene, asking why Chris would involve himself with someone who gloated about doxxing others on Twitter. Gene had also made false accusations like John botting his subscribers and engagement. However John proved this was false[8].
John and 5 more accounts were suspended a week after the accusation of botting. What did John and the 5 accounts all have in common? They were critical of Hansen. Later in a live[9] stream[10], Hansen made comments about "drama channels spreading misinformation" and "drama channels using bots". In the same live stream he denies knowing Gene and said he "was acting on his own to support our effort". He said if he knew what Gene was doing, he would tell him to stop and he did not agree with doxxing as he himself had been a victim of it. He also denied his role in getting the Twitter accounts suspended. After John was unsuspended, Gene spammed Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, saying he wanted to talk with him as Hansen had been on the receiving end of harassment by several people, even attempting to seduce Dorsey's mother.
He also spammed multiple other Twitter employees asking why John Swan and other accounts were still allowed up[11], and a week later, even Hansen joined in in trying to get the attention of Marcia Dorsey, almost exactly how Gene did before.
Gene then began lying that John Swan was on a pedophile list on Queensland despite the fact that John has never been there.
After the doxxing of John, John was disheartened and announced he resigned. At the same time his friend Ay Star was doxxed[12], by Gene pretending to be a fan of his dad's music and begging to meet him irl. After he was doxxed, his dad's Facebook page about his band got a like. It wasn't from Gene. It was from Hansen's personal Facebook account. It couldn't be a coincedence because the page was inactive and his father hadn't uploaded music in a year. And its not like Ay Star had collaborated with his father. This happened a day after he was doxxed, and that meant Chris had both their first names and residences.
In the ending of the documentary, John theorized that Chris came back to YouTube because he wanted money to pay off his debt and the criticisms made by him and others could hurt that.
The documentary was praised by BriZ and SomeOrdinaryGamers.
Lying about Dream
On February 25, 2021, Bowblax uploaded a video that was an audiobook on a Google Doc made by John[13]. The doc stated that Dream was slandering him and he lied about him. It also stated that fake Dream said the n-word on Discord, while also sharing a Minecraft sex mod. When John was accused of impersonating Dream, he claimed an autistic 12 year old, who was a family friend, hacked his account and said it. Initially, a lot of YouTubers supported John Swan such as Optimus, Nicholas DeOrio, Bowblax and AugieRFC, and criticized Dream for punching down on a smaller creator. John also harassed multiple people such as HarleyTBS[14] when they doubted him. However later John confessed to lying, which shocked and infuriated several people including his friends, and took a hiatus. Shortly after, it was reported John privately apologized to Dream and each individual YouTuber who stuck up for him during the situation.
Return
On May 21, 2021, John returned to YouTube with the video "The Catastrophic Failure of Mixer - The Fall of a Platform". While the video got mostly positive reception, some still criticized him for not apologizing to Dream. He did stream an apology to Dream a few days afterwards. On August 17, 2021, John apologized directly to HarleyTBS, who accepted his apology.
Trivia
- He has a sister.
References
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JohnSwanYT
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQWYAZGiG4I&t=2s
- ↑ https://twitter.com/_ThePieman_/status/1394056223444533248
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfLQ2QkLZuA&ab_channel=JohnSwan
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZU7JRu8J64&ab_channel=JohnSwan
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ZzriCRhrc&ab_channel=JohnSwan
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMc0ozYdZs&ab_channel=JohnSwanling
- ↑ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0241045
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMc0ozYdZs&ab_channel=JohnSwanling
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR48Wn44XvY&ab_channel=JohnSwanling
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjPUaEPWOx8&ab_channel=JohnSwanling
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77yfanVSQn0&ab_channel=JohnSwanling
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jIChPOi6ak&t=501s&ab_channel=Bowblax
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP-pforWP3g&ab_channel=HarleyTBS
