I know popular YouTuber Matthew Santoro because my son watches his educational videos and often quotes facts from them. Santoro’s videos are similar to John Green’s channel MentalFloss in that he gives fast-paced and interesting facts. I know YouTuber Nicole Arbour because she’s somewhat of a professional troll. Her obnoxious video, Dear Fat People, earned her headlines around the world and a spot on The View, when she stirred up sh*t when The View ladies arguably disparaged nursing as a profession. (Here’s the background on that controversy.) One of Arbour’s latest videos, Dear Feminists (NSFW language), characterizes feminists as women who hate men and don’t shave their legs. I wish I was making that up. In December, Santoro recorded an emotional and revealing video about the abuse he suffered in a previous relationship. He made the video private at first but accidentally set it to public recently. The response was positive and so he decided to leave it up. In the video (above), Santoro cried as he revealed how a former partner controlled him, cut him off from friends and family and once hit him in the face, which he described as more devastating emotionally than physically. He emphasized that abuse knows no gender and encouraged victims to come forward. While he never named the person whom he claimed abused him, Santoro’s former partner, Nicole Arbour, responded by posting a comment on one of her recent videos, writing “Heard the little bitch I dumped months ago is still trying to use me to get attention on his vlog channel. Ew.” [via Raw Story] Here’s some of what Santoro said in the video, which was heartfelt and powerful and really moved me. On being isolated from friends and family I pushed my family away, I pushed my closet friends away. It wasn’t always explicit… this individual I was with was extremely jealous… I had to cut every female out of my life and it was because everything was made to be about her. I lost my closest friends because I was made to believe everybody else was a loser. Claims she hit him on the face Early in the relationship I had a verbal altercation [after] I had a panic attack… and I broke it off with this individual. This person prevented me from leaving their home and said “you’re not going anywhere” at which point I was hit in the face for the first time in my life. When someone you care about strikes you there are so many emotions… you feel sadness… shame… embarrassment. You think ‘was it my fault?’… luckily I was able to leave that night. He broke it off but took her back Through manipulation… about a month down the road [she] contacted me and told me that [she’d] changed… and I took her back. That is incredibly embarrassing to say. What people don’t realize is, when I took her back the real damage was psychological… I cut everyone out of my life and my business suffered… everything became about her. He was manipulated and controlled I allowed myself to be in a relationship where I was controlled, where I was manipulated, where I was made to do things and act in a way that I never would on my own. It wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that I decided to break it off from her… I wanted my life back. I allowed somebody to emotionally and physically abuse me for almost a year of my life. It’s really embarrassing to say that, but it’s the truth. On why he made the video The reason I’m making this video is not to disparage anyone… it’s to tell you that domestic violence knows no gender [cries]. It happens to men and women. It’s something that men never talk about because we’re made to believe that we’re supposed to be strong. Men get hit too. Tell someone Men get hit too. Abuse knows no gender, it’s something that people don’t talk about… Whether you’re a man or a female, if somebody hits you, tell somebody. Tell a family member, tell a friend. Don’t bottle it up, because it will do damage to you that lasts for years. [From My Abuse Story video, by Matthew Santoro] Holy crap. I truly believe that this guy just helped SO MANY people by sharing his story so honestly. That must have been incredibly hard. After posting that really telling comment, Arbour recorded two videos in response to Santoro’s video. Arbour claims that she broke up with Santoro, not the other way around, and posted a brief video of the two of them together in which they’re goofing around and he play hits her, bites her shoulder and sort-of asks her to marry him. Here’s some of what she said: Claims it’s not true That [playful video with Santoro] was one week before I broke up with my ex boyfriend, who has recently put out a video, not saying my name but… insinuating that we were in a domestic abusive relationship, which was not true. It’s just not true. This sucks, because whether you like what I do or not as a performer… I’m a comedian… whether you like my act or my rants or not, I don’t care… but I had asked repeatedly while dating him that my private life not be put on the Internet and he repeatedly overstepped that boundary over and over. Claims he moved down the street from her after their first breakup We broke up briefly and he moved down the street from me after we broke up… in hopes that we would get back together and we did. We dated for a bunch of months after that and it was fine… Claims she broke up with him, he violated her privacy Something in my heart just didn’t feel it anymore… his lifestyle and the way that he wanted to be a youtuber and have everything public all the time wasn’t for me and I broke up with him and it was as amicable as it could possibly be at the time until his hurt over the breakup turned to anger turned to a whole bunch of lies… as my videos were doing well he suddenly [did] interviews about me and our personal life… I don’t want my real private life out there… Claims he’s just trying to damage her career His video that he put out is just another way to hurt me and my career that’s growing quickly. It is abuse… of his platform, it’s abuse to all the people who suffer from something. He didn’t suffer from domestic abuse. It didn’t happen. Don’t use kids to be a hate army. I think that’s what’s wrong with YouTube… the obsession with manufactured drama. He’s “taking a tiny little thing and spinning it” Crying wolf on a serious subject… and trying to fabricate a very large story and taking a tiny little thing and spinning it into something that just didn’t happen is sick. [From Abuse Story – My Side of Things by Nicole Arbour] Read those last lines “taking a tiny little thing and spinning it.” She never specifically denied hitting him. She did say that “it did not happen… there was no domestic abuse.” However not once did she say “I did not hit him.” After Arbour recorded that first video refuting Santoro, she recorded another video, claiming that “people are equating subscribers with truth” and saying that the court of opinion is on Santoro’s side because he has more followers on YouTube than she does. She then challenged Santoro to come on her channel and do a live stream polygraph test with the two of them. Again, I would have liked to hear her say “I never hit him.” I’m sure there’s more to the story than he’s claiming, there are always two sides to a story, but if she did hit him that’s pretty damning. Plus if he’s not telling the truth he’s an incredible actor.
