beware-monstercat-phantom

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Aero Chord’s Play Your Part Music Video

So far, this is the only video Monstercat has removed from Aero Chord. The reason why is due to the presence of a 15 yr old in the video.

This is likely due to YouTube’s guidelines prohibiting sexualization of minors.

Reupload of video for you to check for yourself is here - https://vimeo.com/459494738

This girl also is dating Aero Chord and has defended him on Twitter.

If they were able to remove this one music video, what reasoning do they have to continue to monetize the rest of Aero Chord’s music?

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It’s sad that Del engaged in that behaviour on their official subreddit, and still gets to help Monstercat with their clothing line.

Friends of Phantom have either messaged others trying to convince them that 2ndKeeper is a bad person, or they go on public forums to spread that opinion, without disclosing their association with him.

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Anna Yvette originally brought this issue up a year ago, so we think her perspective as an artist that worked with Monstercat is valuable. If she believes there’s something fishy about this statement, there might be a good reason why. 

Sacha’s statement to his discord that was posted last night and shared to his now privated twitter. Also, discussion under an artist who has been advocating on this issue tweeting about Sacha blocking them, since this is where others have pointed out that Sacha made this statement (we assume that they didn’t see this statement before making their tweet about the blocking).

Update: Two people have confirmed that Sacha posted the apology on their twitter.

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Months after Monstercat said they were no longer working with Aero Chord, his music is still kept on his channel. The only song that seems to be missing is “Play Your Part”, which had a music video where Aero Chord sexualized his 15 yr old girlfriend (he started dating her at 26).

Don't listen to his music in a way that he gains from it (monetarily or otherwise). Don’t add to the view count on these videos please.  

Imgur album with more screenshots of how accessible his music still is on YouTube: https://imgur.com/a/YESQFet

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These are MYLK’s emails from the police concerning Aero Chord. He is still wanted for sexual assault in the UK and “remains wanted for this offense and is still circulated on the Police National Computer so that if he does attempt to enter the country, this will flag at any border control.”

These are her tweets:

https://twitter.com/mylkofficial/status/1301106018554908672

https://twitter.com/mylkofficial/status/1301097716966187009

https://twitter.com/mylkofficial/status/1301100260467634177

Monstercat hasn’t removed his music so if you are still listening to his music in a way that he earns money from it, please, please, please, stop supporting a sexual predator. In addition to what he did to MYLK, he sexualized a 15 yr old in his music video for Play Your Part that he directed and dated that same 15 yr old at 26.

If you are unaware of this entire situation, we have a few posts summarizing it.

https://beware-monstercat-phantom.tumblr.com/post/626001459334545408/aero-chord-sexually-assulted-mylk

https://beware-monstercat-phantom.tumblr.com/post/627354340426973184/other-allegations-against-aero-chord

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Rationale for why some people have issue with Tokyo Machine (Polish) using Japanese Culture for Branding

We’ll start off by saying that Tokyo Machine = Eryk Kowalczyk = Xilent, for people who are not aware.

Xilent’s social media features Eryk as himself (he is white and Polish) and his alias was established in 2009 and now has 20.3k followers on Twitter.

Tokyo Machine features Eryk obscuring his face with goggles and a mask. This has led to people assuming that the person behind a music alias that is heavily inspired by Japanese culture (e.g. making songs titled “moshi” [a greeting in Japanese] and “saikou” [roughly translated from Japanese as meaning “highest”]; having an animal mascot crew with names ending in “-chan”). This alias emerged around 2015 and notably has deals with providing music to games such as Rocket League.

For proof that Tokyo Machine is Eryk, there are screenshots and links from Shazam and ASCAP.

https://www.shazam.com/track/352244945/crazy

https://www.ascap.com/repertory#ace/search/workID/894083125

There has been discussion on Twitter about why people have an issue with this, since many people of non-Asian descent have been inspired by Japanese culture in the past. A common thread that people have pointed out is that because Monstercat actively removes comments/posts of people mentioning that Tokyo Machine is Xilent on platforms where they have the power to do that, and because Eryk hides his face and hair (which obscured his ethnicity as a side effect), people are uncomfortable of a white man having success with a brand centered around Asian culture where the logical assumption if you don’t know who they are is that they’re an Asian person.

I will quote from some Tweets that we have seen of this discussion.

I just find it laughable that a white person found success by making his entire artist alias about Japanese culture (which made me and others assume he was Asian), but Asian people find that they have to whiten their names on resumes to get job opportunities

Harvard study about it: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews

Not to mention that I'm realizing that I find it uncomfortable that someone can "Asianify" themselves to make money, but Asian people don't get to stop being Asian at the end of a workday. With the stuff in the USA about the "China virus", I worry about racially motivated attacks

Cause I doubt if racists after 9/11 didn't know the difference betweet a Sikh and Muslim person, they're not going to know the difference between a Japanese and Chinese person.

yeah, i doubt xilent is doing it intentionally out of malice 

white artists like these may have good intentions, but they end up receiving more success/recognition than members of groups that influenced them because they're disproportionately favored by the industry 

Pretty much this. Also on a social scale, Asian people don't get to be Asian whenever they feel like it. I know in acting, we keep getting typecast and that sucks.

it could be argued that the usage of japanese culture is respectful, but the project misleads people to think that the person behind it is japanese 

Yeah I thought he was Japanese. I mean the guy puts on a mask, googles, and a wig, and everything is Japanese related so that's an easy assumption to make. Although I remember people trying to compare skin colours to see if he was Asian and that was something 

Asian culture also has some toxic aspects if you're born into it so while not every Asian person feels this way, I honestly don't feel comfortable knowing that a white person got successful off of putting on a mask, goggles, and a wig and being all like "moshi moshi, kawaii"

Just unfollowed Tokyo Machine. I knew he was Xilent but I had no idea he was trying to pull a Rachel Dolezal. It makes me sick that Monstercat was helping him do this. 

I just spent a while trying to explain how problematic it is that Asian people in the West have felt pressure to whiten their names to get job interviews, but a white person can base an entire music alias around Japanese culture and be more successful than their previous alias

It hurts cause I don't get to stop being Asian when I feel like it. When I process photos of myself, I try to "unyellow" my skin. (Relevant reading - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/read-crazy-rich-asians-director-s-letter-coldplay-yellow-1135826)

I'm also concerned about all this "China virus" talk because if racists can confuse Sikhs for Muslims, they can confuse all of Asia for each other.

Also I don't really get as bothered by being influenced by Japanese culture (e.g. Puppet who is on the same label) as much as putting on a wig, mask, and goggles and then having the label go to the extent of using automoderator to remove any post/comment with "Xilent" in it

Why are they letting everyone make the reasonable assumption that the person behind a Japanese centered alias is Japanese and hiding that the person is Polish if it isn't a big deal to them?

I know that DotEXE became Summer Was Fun and no one hid that...not sure what the need was to suppress talk of TM = Xilent.

I'll just leave the imgur album here with a lot of removals of people bringing it up - https://imgur.com/a/v5VXnu5

For ease of access, screenshots of removals of the comments/posts of people talking about Tokyo Machine being Xilent will be posted here. Source links are in the imgur post.

Another comment on r/EDM where people were also discussing this. One commenter pointed out that the ASCAP database was eventually updated to remove mention of Eryk being Tokyo Machine, except from “party”. (https://www.reddit.com/r/EDM/comments/b9iz9b/list_of_reasons_why_i_think_xilent_is_tokyo/f1cx54o/?context=8&depth=9)

What we can take away from this that it would have been less harmful for Monstercat and Tokyo Machine to have been more forthcoming with who the artist was behind the alias instead of actively hiding it. 

Japanese culture is becoming more popularized in the West, but misleading people, whether intentional or accidental, to believe you are of a visible minority when you are not and crafting a persona out of someone else’s culture that you wear for a few hours to make money off of performing is hurtful to the people who don’t have the option to take off a wig, mask, and goggles and go back to being white.

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Sacha’s statement to his discord that was posted last night and shared to his now privated twitter. Also, discussion under an artist who has been advocating on this issue tweeting about Sacha blocking them, since this is where others have pointed out that Sacha made this statement (we assume that they didn’t see this statement before making their tweet about the blocking).

Update: Two people have confirmed that Sacha posted the apology on their twitter.

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There were accusations of Rogue supporting JK Rowling during her transphobic tweeting and that he supports rolling back women’s rights.

We found the reply from him to JK and some tweets about his idea about the idea of a gender pay gap.

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Maya has spoken out before about the things she has seen in the Monstercat community. In addition to anons discussing how the 16 yr old girlfriend of Aero Chord was called “mom” in Sacha’s server, and the screenshot of Sacha telling someone to not listen to their doctor after they were diagnosed with depression, this sounds in line with what people already know about the server.

https://twitter.com/starryraindrop/status/1300208695712927745

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Just wanted to link to our Twitter because there is a lot going on recently that we will have to look through to write up about on this blog.

Here are some relevant screenshots (names have been redacted where people did not want their names there).

https://twitter.com/MonstercatToxic/status/1299947823232843777

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A reblog with a statement from an anon who has alleged some things about how Sacha has changed how music is accepted to the label. Screenshots haven’t been included since this is just one person’s statement and to respect their wish to be kept out of this.

another issue i always had with the label, one that i learned more and more about over time, is how terrible they are with helping small artists

they used to be better at getting small artists and helping them grow, but ever since they started getting more corporate, they've been doing less and less of that

they have so many small incredibly talented artists submitting to them, and they turn them away because they won't be profitable

and instead sign big artists who'll bring in more views

i was furious when i learned about all the artists sacha had denied

some artists who are very well-loved in the community got denied purely because sacha was biased against them

the split should've been between larger established artists, and smaller artists who need recognition

sacha denied artists and called them "porter [robinson] copies" even though their music sounded nothing like porter

but because hes so biased towards certain styles, and unfamiliar with others, its all the same to him

he denied a submission just because he didnt like the title

without even listening to it

theres so many things he's done wrong, i really cant believe he's still employed there

im sure when he eventually gets fired, many of the staff members will rejoice

i feel bad for the employees there who have to deal with him 

and thats another thing that i find off about sacha

hes playing games all the time with artists

and getting all buddy buddy with them

which, i mean, technically theres nothing wrong with that

but something about his behavior towards the community in his own server doesnt sit right with me

and the fact that he's turning away small talented artists who need more recognition and instead making a big deal out of playing fortnite with big artists

Another anon:  

 I mean, if he let an underaged girl be called "mom" by adult men

That's weird

Why would you let grown men call a 16 yr old "mom"

First anon:

yeah idk about the mom stuff but that seems really weird

The 16 yr old girl being referred to here is Aero Chord’s girlfriend, who was popular in Sacha’s server.

SachaVibes

SachaVibes is the label A&R for Monstercat, meaning he has a say in what artists are on the label. He also runs his own discord server and has said some homophobic things in the past. Additionally, he told someone to “fuck what the doc said” when they were talking about their depression.

This is one person’s opinion of Sacha and how he influences the culture at the label.

Something else some people don’t agree with in the community:

Tweets have also been found that are Islamophobic and homophobic:

This is another reason why it is concerning that the label CEO wants to target 9 - 12 yr old Roblox players.

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A reblog to update this post with a tweet from Razihel:

https://twitter.com/RazihelOfficial/status/1297934632034406400

Other Allegations Against Aero Chord

MYLK’s post about Aero Chord committing sexual assault caused other people to speak up about other red flags surrounding him. 

Said the Sky’s manager came out with Aero Chord approaching her on Facebook under the pretense of talking about music business, since she was Twine’s manager at the time, and then proceeding to flirt.

https://twitter.com/ashstahl_/status/1276905040477687808

People in the Monstercat fan community knew of Aero Chord’s relationship with another fan who went by Spu/Kitty. This was also discussed after MYLK came out with her story. Spu responded to Anna Yvette’s tweets about her involvement in the Play Your Part music video and her relationship with Aero Chord and did not deny it. She also claimed that someone on the Monstercat staff flirted with her, despite knowing she was 15.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monstercat/comments/hfwyl0/mylk_on_twitter_im_done_being_silent_aerochord/fw0omcw/?context=8&depth=9

Knowing that people knew in the community about a 15 yr old dating a 26 year old Monstercat artists, would you still feel comfortable about the label trying to attract new fans aged 9 to 12?

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These are just teenagers with music opinions. I get that these artists work hard, but this is a really immature way to deal with it. These are minors and some of them look up to you and may emulate your behaviour.

I am glad that some of them apologized and stuck around to talk after, but I don’t understand the reasoning behind starting this kind of thing. 

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Reblog for visibility of the response. I wish you well.

Edit: I would like to apologize if any of what was written was an attack on another person.

I am also unaware of who UBF and these other people are, but if UBF is a manipulative person, I’m sorry that what I wrote was support for a manipulative person.

“Max Coscio”, “The Stingray That Killed Steve Irwin”, “Algo Kaoso”, and “Jaz” all seem to also have changed their perspective on what was going on in that last screenshot, and I did not mean to only praise UBF for what they wrote. It is a good thing that everyone involved realized that it was crossing a line and learned to stop.

The Monstercat Google+ Group

Another thing mentioned in 2ndKeeper’s reflection is the unofficial Monstercat Google+ Group that disliked her.

This is the text of the letter that was sent to her (https://docs.google.com/document/d/17mIWo0g5DwBcix8oza8FoZBakxDuICACL7z1pXUtu9U/edit):

First and foremost, I would like to say that you are a very, VERY shitty moderator. Not that that’s the entire premise of this.

Threatening bans left and right at every fucking HINT at breaking a rule, you’ve even managed to get onto my “which member of the mcat subreddit would be more of a nightmare to have let into this community?” poll in the Monstercat Google+ community.

Delta Heavy - I Need You  ←(that’s a link!) 

I believe it was you whom said, “Please do not post information about this release, since it has been leaked. Doing so again will result in a ban.” after I mentioned I Need You. However, Delta Heavy announced this in their AMA, noting: “Yes we are, but we can’t really say much more than that ;)”, and then previewed it in a mix THE VERY NEXT DAY AFTER YOU SENT ME THAT MESSAGE.

Oliver Queen/SMLE, Stephen

You seem to be very confident that Oliver was incorrect about the SMLE release. However, after extensive research of literally yesterday, I’d say he was right. After all, 2 Me was released yesterday. It took him three tries until you accepted that he was right, somehow. It’s the same story with the Stephen release. The cover art was a leak, the songs were not. Stephen tweeted that he was releasing music that day, and everyone knew, or assumed, he was talking about the Monstercat release, since he had announced it last month. How did you not know that?

Threatening bans, left and right

Going back to my other account known as /u/soupandchili, you and the other mods acted on my “””wrongdoings””” in the sub quite a lot. And I commented on a post entitled “Declan James on Monstercat?”. Going by your standards, it wasn’t accurate, seeing as there was no explicit saying of “on Monstercat”, and you should get a ban warning. See what I’m getting at now?

Conclusion: You’re a shitty moderator that has no business policing the sub, nitpicking every user’s posts.

Plus, you couldn’t appreciate my “subcat x 2ndKeeper OTP” joke from a while back? jfc.

You can also see that the writer talked about it on other Monstercat related subreddits - https://www.reddit.com/r/teekaytank/comments/7ypo32/im_here_to_talk_about_why_2ndkeeper_is_proved_to/

While they were discussing it in their Google+ group, they realized that they need to remember that a “bad” moderator does not equate to a bad person. One person said that “this constant amount of hate over the past few days has crossed the line”.

Many fans of Monstercat have started up offshoot discord servers or other social media groups, and they may voice their dislike of other people in that community in them. Since they’re not part of an official community, Monstercat moderators have decided to be hands off about this. It is a huge loophole to have people in their “family” slinging mud at each other as long as they are smart enough to do it in a dm or a different discord. These people only met each other through their community anyway and they also spend a lot of time talking about their community.

It’s really disturbing to have them promise “family” to young people aged 9 - 12 from other communities like Roblox and try to limit their responsibility over their official communities. If they want to target children, I hope that they can have the ethics to try and keep them away from this kind of behaviour.

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Just an off topic PSA and food for thought.

Some of this sounds like what she faced with Monstercat, but I’m glad she seems wiser for it now.

Since I’m a university student moving into the workplace, I just felt this was important for me to share (credit of text goes to Canada Learning Code) so young people understand that if they face this situation, it’s not okay and it is workplace harassment.

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The Monstercat Google+ Group

Another thing mentioned in 2ndKeeper’s reflection is the unofficial Monstercat Google+ Group that disliked her.

This is the text of the letter that was sent to her (https://docs.google.com/document/d/17mIWo0g5DwBcix8oza8FoZBakxDuICACL7z1pXUtu9U/edit):

First and foremost, I would like to say that you are a very, VERY shitty moderator. Not that that’s the entire premise of this.

Threatening bans left and right at every fucking HINT at breaking a rule, you’ve even managed to get onto my “which member of the mcat subreddit would be more of a nightmare to have let into this community?” poll in the Monstercat Google+ community.

Delta Heavy - I Need You  ←(that’s a link!) 

I believe it was you whom said, “Please do not post information about this release, since it has been leaked. Doing so again will result in a ban.” after I mentioned I Need You. However, Delta Heavy announced this in their AMA, noting: “Yes we are, but we can't really say much more than that ;)”, and then previewed it in a mix THE VERY NEXT DAY AFTER YOU SENT ME THAT MESSAGE.

Oliver Queen/SMLE, Stephen

You seem to be very confident that Oliver was incorrect about the SMLE release. However, after extensive research of literally yesterday, I’d say he was right. After all, 2 Me was released yesterday. It took him three tries until you accepted that he was right, somehow. It’s the same story with the Stephen release. The cover art was a leak, the songs were not. Stephen tweeted that he was releasing music that day, and everyone knew, or assumed, he was talking about the Monstercat release, since he had announced it last month. How did you not know that?

Threatening bans, left and right

Going back to my other account known as /u/soupandchili, you and the other mods acted on my “””wrongdoings””” in the sub quite a lot. And I commented on a post entitled “Declan James on Monstercat?”. Going by your standards, it wasn’t accurate, seeing as there was no explicit saying of “on Monstercat”, and you should get a ban warning. See what I’m getting at now?

Conclusion: You’re a shitty moderator that has no business policing the sub, nitpicking every user’s posts.

Plus, you couldn’t appreciate my “subcat x 2ndKeeper OTP” joke from a while back? jfc.

You can also see that the writer talked about it on other Monstercat related subreddits - https://www.reddit.com/r/teekaytank/comments/7ypo32/im_here_to_talk_about_why_2ndkeeper_is_proved_to/

While they were discussing it in their Google+ group, they realized that they need to remember that a “bad” moderator does not equate to a bad person. One person said that “this constant amount of hate over the past few days has crossed the line”.

Many fans of Monstercat have started up offshoot discord servers or other social media groups, and they may voice their dislike of other people in that community in them. Since they’re not part of an official community, Monstercat moderators have decided to be hands off about this. It is a huge loophole to have people in their “family” slinging mud at each other as long as they are smart enough to do it in a dm or a different discord. These people only met each other through their community anyway and they also spend a lot of time talking about their community.

It’s really disturbing to have them promise “family” to young people aged 9 - 12 from other communities like Roblox and try to limit their responsibility over their official communities. If they want to target children, I hope that they can have the ethics to try and keep them away from this kind of behaviour.

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Regarding what 2ndKeeper described happening to her in 2014 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/17XKP61wxQYTHSUR7sAfiWEnsMBI83H9hhScZUbpNVhc/edit#), there are a few imgur albums with screenshots of messages from April 2014 to September 2014. This was before she was modded.

https://imgur.com/a/UgID4

https://imgur.com/a/RDkpf

I think this experience would explain why she disliked what had happened with the mods speaking badly about her behind her back and why she wrote her reflection this year. It sucks when you as a moderator have the power to push out toxicity, but years go by and you have made no difference.

With the new stance encouraging people not to talk to the moderators of their official communities about backroom toxicity because they “don’t deal with dms”, I can see how it would be frustrating and demoralizing for her to be modding there near the end when she went through months of toxicity and would presumably not want others to go through the same thing (e.g. the situation with Rin). 

I would hate for the 9 - 12 audience they’re targeting over at roblox to go through these things. There are some modmail messages showing that the moderators at the time were serious about helping 2ndKeeper through this period of time, and I think that was important to her and really helpful in dealing with the amount of throwaway accounts that were posting onto the subreddit. Sadly, the moderators shown in these images are no longer with the subreddit.

https://imgur.com/a/ncpKk