The Completionist

The more and more I'm reading into this... I think I take back what I said earlier about feeling bad for Jirard. This whole situation just seems so gross and scummy and dishonest.

So i guess we are finally getting that Donkey Kong Country 2 video soon i reckon

There's no shame about giving someone the benefit of the doubt, when there is still reasonable doubt. The fact that you were willing to adjust, because of everything since the initial accusations killing that doubt, is also perfectly normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

Yeah, the fact that Jirard is seemingly doing everything he can to quash that doubt is no one's fault but his own.

A video uploaded today by Moony (whose day job is attorney) offers a legally-savvy analysis of the claims being made on each side of this.

To be honest, I've watched far more of Karl Jobst than I have of The Completionist, and I'm quite disappointed in the former. His wheelhouse is talking about cheating in videogames (speedruns, etc.); he really didn't have any business trying to cosplay-lawyer a subject revolving around California tax law.

I haven't watched the video yet, but a couple of those points don't seem to hold water. The point about Jirard simply being negligent is contradicted by the Discord call where Jirard confirmed that he at the very least knew about the money not being donated before the latest Indieland. The point about setting up an endowment fund seems questionable too. Once again, this is contradicted by the Discord call when Jirard gave no indication of that and said it was "not fucking cool" that the money hadn't been donated yet. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the response video Jirard didn't mention setting up an endowment fund. So that seems like an overly charitable interpretation. I'm not a huge fan of either Karl or Mutahar, and I'm sure they've made mistakes handling this, but Open Hand still looks pretty shitty.

Edited by TommyFresh on Dec 31st 2023 at 6:09:15 AM

Moony indicates the charitable reading (negligence) as a mental exercise both on a basis of innocent-until-proven-guilty legal presumption, and in counterpoint to Karl and Mutahar's stance, which he feels starts from the single most uncharitable position possible and works backwards from there. I doubt my explanation of the points can fully capture the nuance of the argument.

And Moony is upfront about not having a horse in this race; for him this is more of an unpacking. There's a lot of Hanlon's Razor potential in this whole debacle; none of Jirard, Karl, or Mutahar have much concrete personal understanding of legal issues, so anger, panic, etc. can easily factor into it. It's messy.

In any case, at the very least, one certainly should not be alleging specific legal infractions (using terms which are by nature very complex) based on the results of a quick googling — let alone loudly and publicly.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Jan 1st 2024 at 1:22:22 AM

On Reddit, the attorney Moony admits that not only has he not listened to the call, he didn't even do enough research to know the call existed.

And I think going into the technicalities about what is or isn't legally punishable is missing the forest for the trees: people gave their money thinking it was going to a good cause, and it did not go to that cause. Whether or not it can be proved in a court of law to be a specific violation of California's codes, that's a bad thing. People are and should be pissed about that, and would be whether or not Jirard can loophole out of culpability.

So like, he didn't watch either video?

Coz like, the call is in both videos.

This literally makes his analysis pointless. If he's not watched the video, then he hasnt watch any of Karl or Mutahar's statements in the same video.

What a waste of time.

It is a bad thing, to be sure, but nuances of legality/illegality and specific intent are important. It is not merely a semantic distinction.

At any rate, I'll just let the video speak for itself with whatever insights and/or flaws it has. Moony's a reasonable video essayist, and hardly averse to revising his views on a matter. It's a more valuable contribution to the discussion than any third-party drama-parrot YouTubers will have made, I'm sure.

EDIT: Checked the discourse around Jobst's reddit response, and Jesus was that a mistake. Toxic echo chamber assuming active malice on Moony's part and citing sources that do not corroborate that as "proof". Ugh.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Jan 1st 2024 at 2:24:37 AM

The problem is that we're not a court, and discussion threads are not a trial. If you make a poorly-researched video about a contentious topic while clearly taking a side, in a video claiming to be an unbiased expert take, you're going to get dragged. The fact that he repeatedly says we must assume the most charitable explanations of Jirard's behavior when we already have evidence from the call that those explanations are untrue is enough to break the video.

And again: none of us are jurors in a fraud trial in the state of California. Why should we care if what Jirard did is by-the-book illegal and proven as such beyond a reasonable doubt, when it being deceitful and immoral is not in question?

To my recollection, Moony doesn't say anything about us "having to" accept the most charitable reading, let alone "repeatedly". If that's a secondhand account of the video you're gathering that from, then your source isn't reliable. He states that he is using that framing as a hypothetical, and notes that even Jirard's "best-case" scenario would not fully clear him of malfeasance. (And, indeed, notes multiple areas of Jirard's conduct that are dodgy.)

As for why it matters: legal hot water. It's a bad idea to use terms that have specific legal weight when a person hasn't been charged. To give an example: journalists have to use "alleged" when referring to a crime someone's been charged with unless they have already been convicted (in Australia, at least).

Moony missed a specific key text because his material consisted of the initial primary sources, which is on him. What irritates me is the assumptions of bad faith — as far as I'm able to tell, he's not "going to bat" for Jirard unless a person really wants him to be. (And I'm soured by the fact that Karl's Reddit response was about as extreme as possible — roughly "this was a COMPLETE mischaracterisation, EVERYTHING in it is wrong, this MUST be an enemy with an agenda" — as if he were unable or unwilling to even entertain the idea of nuance.)

That being said, I'd like to de-escalate this discussion. Moony screwed up, but let's not make claims about the nature of his screwing-up that go beyond what is evident. That is all I suggest.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Jan 2nd 2024 at 2:56:27 AM

x3

Given that from I've heard of Jobst having been into PUA culture, felt he had "N word privilege" because he claimed it wasn't racist in Australia(apparently the same for using Jap), and apparently buddies up with alt-right types, are you really that surprised?

More on topic, I see this less as Jirard being malicious and more incompetent and out of his depth failing to keep on top of things as both Jobst and Muta as little more than opportunists who saw easy content farming since they could have you know...passed the ball to better equipped experts instead of trying to play pretend lawyers and turn the whole thing into a media circus for no one's real benefit except maybe their own.

I'm just gonna leave this quote from another forum.

By Jirard's own admission he knew the money hadn't been donated before the last Indieland, so at minimum he knowingly lied then. And even if this sort of thing is common in "less good" charities I still think it is a moral failing for the director of the charity to be that ignorant for nearly 10 years. And then knowingly lie to people in order to get more donations. And this whole ordeal at the very least resulted in the money being donated, so to say it benefitted no one is inaccurate.

Edited by TommyFresh on Jan 1st 2024 at 6:48:36 AM

Jobst responds to all those topics in a previous video, back when Billy Mitchell supporters initially brought them up (start watching at 4:00)

https://youtu.be/3_jcpig-C2s?si=e5gIhqaN-wHN9yJ6

The claims are out of proportion, or at least have a charitable explanation. I additionally want to point out that the offensiveness of terms does change depending on where you are. For example, spaz is considered offensive in the UK but people in the US generally don't have the same ableist connotation. Obviously the n word is bad, but I can forgive someone for saying it is okay to use it while singing someone else's lyrics, when it happened several years ago and when that person has apologized since.

Getting back on topic, Jirard turned malicious the second he released his response video. Even if we ignore his behavior since the controversy started, ignorance does not excuse what happened. Presuming ignorance also involves a huge leap in logic given the number of people involved and how long this has been going on for.

Edited by Blegh on Jan 1st 2024 at 10:05:55 AM

Nope I didn't post this in the wrong thread. Perfect response from Pat on the charity fraud via his character committing desert fraud.

And Frank filling in Karl's role.

it should still go in Pat's thread..

Did that recently, but I thought those following recent events would like the dig at Jirard.

And yeah, the video has already aged well as Jirard did actually put up a video and trying to brush past things.

I'm honestly not sure if this is the right thread to post this, but Karl just posted a looong video responding to Moon, the person who made that video posted up above analysing the Completionist situation from a Lawyer's perspective.

He seems to think that Moon literally has no idea what he's talking about. And he calls it "one of the most glaring examples of the Dunning Kruger Effect I've ever seen."

I'm honestly very interested to see where this all goes. Because everyone's attitude is kinda rubbing me the wrong way here.

Edited by GNinja on Jan 21st 2024 at 3:39:50 PM

Moon even agreed on Reddit that he was wrong about the situation, too.

I'm of two minds about this.

On the individual-to-individual level, I'd like to say that most of this has been handled maturely. Moony apologised sincerely for legitimate mistakes, and Karl has fully and unequivocally accepted said apology, so that itself is settled, full stop. (Naturally, there are a vocal minority of rabid morons in Jobst's audience trying to gainsay Jobst's prerogative decision, but I unhappily accept that no amount of padding in the world would allow Jobst to release such a video - which, there's no reason why he shouldn't, it's return fire - without intrinsically inciting some people's passion for internet blood. Some types of internet drama content are like a blood sport — the audience is there to see people get hurt, just with feelings of moral catharsis thrown in.)

On the other hand, Moony was being civil and conciliatory well before this response video came out, and the framing Jobst has used in his response video rubs me the wrong way. As early back as his Reddit post on the day Moony's old video came out, Jobst's "public" face has been unsettlingly(?) black-and-white. As if he felt compelled to be hyperbolic (e.g., original Reddit reply indicating that 'the ONLY reasonable assumption is that this guy has an agenda').

It feels like Karl decided in the very moment that he was going to make a huge drama video about this, and compartmentalised that for the purposes of making sure the red meat was as raw and bloody as possible (not unlike how some rather nasty pundits are supposedly entirely friendly off-set). That may not even be true. It just feels like it. Like I said: conflicted.

At any rate, the resolution was civil. The two have made their peace.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Jan 22nd 2024 at 4:13:21 AM

x3: Generally speaking, Jobst seems to agree with IniuriaTalis and Ghilz's general points about Moon's analysis. Despite touting his superiority as a lawyer, Moon is ironically very ignorant about even the basic facts of the situation and Jirard as a person, outside of what he could gather from just skimming through the initial video from Jobst (and not even watching Jirard's response video). (24:17)

Other notations:

• Jobst addresses the profiteer claim usually used to downplay his credibility, a crux of Moon's argument. Each video had a sponsor booked months in advance with no specific video topics in mind. Out of the three videos, two of them covering the Open Hand situation, he lost money on the initial Jirard video because he rescinded the sponsor and their $8K. This is in addition to the frivolous $49K defamation suit he's already with Billy Mitchell. (5:25)

• Moon talking about the legal definitions comes across as semantics in Jobst's view. Not only do the definitions that Moon sourced in his video match up with Jobst's, but the intent of Jobst's video was supposed to be more informal awareness since he's not legally convicting Jirard in an actual court. It ultimately doesn't change what Jobst is accusing Jirard of doing. (25:50)
  • Moon's semantics also come up again where he assumes whenever Jirard claims he worked with Alzheimer's Association or USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, Jirard didn't mean monetarily (arguing that it could even be an intentional morally correct decision). This contrasts written and verbal statements from Jirard stating otherwise. (33:25)

• Jobst points out that Jirard tends to engage in a lot of exaggeration and arguably lying. Crucially, this seems to be the case regarding the timeline of his own mother's diagnosis to her passing. (45:50)
  • This is the reason why Jobst doesn't buy the Hanlon's Razor rationale, which portrays Jirard as being more bumbling and "a poor public speaker" in Moon's view. Jobst points out that Jirard's a very accustomed public speaker and small-time actor, citing his recent gig at the revived G4 as a major host, and theater college degree. (37:04)
  • Despite telling Mutahar and Jobst that he was planning to end Indieland in 2023 in the Discord call, Jirard proceeds to vocally make statements at the event only talking about doing a 2024 edition. (1:20:55)

• Moon goes so far as to make a similar defamation insinuation threat that Jirard did, along with an eager sense to potentially cover it, despite how different this matter is handled between Australia and California. Moon even concludes with a satirical edit of Llamas with Hats, portraying Jobst as senselessly killing Jirard and the Open Hand Foundation repeatedly with his videos, while Moon reminds him of the fatal effects of his actions. (1:25:40)

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Jan 21st 2024 at 1:11:24 PM

Aye, I can easily understand why particularly the last section of Moony's video (monetisation onwards) would have left Jobst seeing shades of red in the aftermath. And Moony agrees with this; he took his corresponding punch-to-the-mouth with appropriate humility, and Karl certainly seems to think so.

I respect Moony for the depth of his apology, and I respect Jobst for accepting it. (Besides Moony's public posts on both Reddit and YouTube, Karl has also stated that the former has apologised in private, and that he respects the former for it. Nobody but Karl gets to decide what is sufficient here.)

Mulling it over, I think it's mostly audience attitudes that leave me with an unpleasant feeling about this. Karl's usual video subjects are actual shysters and 'villains', not the well-meaning-but-underinformed, so I imagine his audience are primed for the former (hence the crazed insistence from some of them that Karl should destroy Moony's life rather than accept an apology). Unfortunate, but not really avoidable.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Jan 22nd 2024 at 6:24:57 AM

The slow going nature of everything also means that people are going to pounce on any new developments and overreact, however minor they may be.

Remembering his old videos is quite sad since I have a lot of nostalgic love for his content that is now tainted.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Apr 2nd 2024 at 10:17:47 AM