The Vlog Squad is a coalition of vloggers, made famous by YouTube’s (former?) sweetheart, David Dobrik. Before David’s vlog hiatus due to the pandemic, his videos were known to be a mere 4 minutes and 20 seconds and packed full of wild “bits” that left you in shock. The vlogs averaged over 10 million views each, he released a tour of his new house about a month ago and it continued the trend of over 10 million views, proving people were more than ready for his return.

However, around this same time controversy surrounding David and the squad began bubbling after an ex-member, known as Big Nik spoke about his time in the group on the H3 podcast. Big Nik has dwarfism, and jokes made in the vlogs were often aimed at making fun of his height. “I was just treated like this punching bag, everyone’s just joking about me and mocking me, then the fans in public are doing the same. I had a good long look in the mirror and I was like ‘wow, I’m really depressed,'” explained Big Nik.

After this, a larger allegation was made after ex-member Seth Francois says he was sexually assaulted as part of the bit. In the now-deleted vlog, Seth is told to make out with someone under a mask after being told it was Corinna, who was known as the pretty girl in the vlogs. However, after making out with the masked figure, he finds mid-forty-year-old Jason Nash was the actual person hidden underneath. Seth had tried to bring to light issues with his time in the Vlog Squad in the past, but was called a clout chaser by David’s fans. This time he was able to garner an audience willing to listen, and after begging for a response from David for almost two months, the matter was finally addressed. Except for it was addressed by loyal Vlog Squad member, Scotty Sire, in a now-deleted video where he appears to act as a messenger between Dobrik and the public. The video was criticized for not being directly from David, Scotty looking like a puppet, and making excuses for the situation rather than just apologizing to Seth.

On March 16th David finally responded himself with a 3-minute video titled “Let’s Talk” despite him turning off the comments and the like or dislike button. He uploaded this video on the channel used for his podcast Views, the channel with the least amount of subscribers of his three, and people had a lot to say about the apology itself. Though up to a matter of opinion, the overwhelming response was negative and it was clear people weren’t going to let him off that easy.

The biggest accusation is actually not against David himself, but ex-member Durte Dom. In an article written by Insider, a girl named Hannah describes her experience being in the vlog and explains that she was raped. In the deleted vlog from 2018, David wanted two girls to have relations with Dom. Hannah explains, “I immediately felt really uncomfortable because I was under the impression that we were going to meet these cool creators, we were going to hang out, maybe film something.” After the girls decline the offer, the vlog cuts and David says they were able to convince the girls to participate with “master persuasion.”  In the Insider article, she said they were bought alcohol (despite being under drinking age) and she was so drunk that she was stumbling out of the apartment and was unable to remember what happened when she woke up the next morning. Hannah texted Dom asking to take the video down from David’s channel after realizing what had happened and how uncomfortable it made her, and the video was removed.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the first time Dom has been accused of sexual assault. In 2017 YouTuber Ally Hardesty accused Dom of assaulting her, to which she faced tons of backlash from fans before finally getting an apology from Dom admitting to his “mistakes”.

Though not the one who directly committed the crime, David was criticized for enabling it to happen and being a bystander to the situation. After all of these things were being brought to light, people began to realize David has always been an enabler in his videos, allowing for racist and ableist jokes to be put in his vlogs over and over again. A critical player in this has been Trisha Paytas, a fellow YouTuber who was previously in the vlogs due to her former relationship with Jason Nash. Two years ago, Trisha pointed out how awful the environment in the vlogs are and some of the messed up things that went on in the vlogs after her and Nash broke up. Like a family tradition, she was simply attacked by Dobrik fans and was painted as a crazy person due to her dealing with mental illness. She is the one who brought to light that vlog squad member Brandon Calvillo was dating and engaging in sexual relations with his 17-year-old girlfriend, while he was 23. She also expressed how uncomfortable she was with a joke pushed by David that popular YouTuber Tana Mongeau should have relations with Trisha and Jason, Tana was 19.

On March 22nd, David uploaded another apology, this time on his main channel with all commenting and liking features enabled. “Even though I got consent to post that video, I should have never posted it, I want to apologize to her and her friends for ever putting them in an environment that I enabled that made them feel like their safety and values were compromised, and I’m so sorry.” This is just a short portion of the 7-minute long video, he addresses power dynamics in his videos that he claims to not have realized before, apologized to Ally for giving a platform to Dom, apologized for never privately speaking to the girls, apologized for his past offensive jokes, and announced he’s taking a break to create a structure in his videos that allows people to feel comfortable enough to speak their minds if a situation doesn’t feel right. Ultimately, people questioned things in the apology as well as if he only made it due to a large number of his sponsors dropping him, but most of these are not our apologies to accept, and we’ll never be able to be 100% sure until we see actual change in his content.

As for Dom himself, his Instagram is now private, he has not made any tweets, nor uploaded on YouTube.