This site contains letters from the people originally involved with the Sudomemo/Basketcase controversy that occured in Fall 2017, and the Sudomemo Files which was published a year or so later.
Dear Flipnoters,
This has honestly been a long time coming, and it needs to be done the right way. The following is a 2-part message - the first is addressed to the overarching Flipnote community on Discord (Sudomemo, Haven, Greasepit, etc) and the second is a much more personalized message for my friends, family and acquaintances.
I would like to say that I completely renounce my involvement in cancel culture, and that I fully and 100% renounce my involvement with the Sudomemo Files expose. It was a really big mistake, and my involvement helped rip apart the community and helped ruin Austin's life. I understand that I have been very confusing and wishy-washy about this for the last few months, but I am now completely resolute in this statement and decision.
Let me tell you why. I thought it would be okay to play judge, jury and executioner for someone because it was the "right thing" and no one else would do it. I truly, genuinely believed the false and biased claims I made against Austin. As time went on, this pride and this twisted way of thinking led me to do some really fucked up things. I would run secret groups dedicated to destroying the guy's life and spying on him. I would think up ways to sabotage his friendships with the other resigned SudoFiles members and destroy what trust they had. I would encourage people in my sphere of influence to always be on the lookout and to be paranoid that Austin or his staff was always there, watching and trying to wait for you to say something that they would twist against you. I would document and relentlessly archive everything, so that no matter what happened, it could haunt him *forever*.
Cancel culture makes people do evil things. It is the modern day equivalent of the Salem Witch Trials. It judges without mercy, it looks at the situation in a black and white way, and it puts people's secrets and mistakes on blast forever. It is the opposite of Love - It is hate, and it is evil. It ruins the mental health of both the victims and the perpetrators. It destroys friendships, it destroys careers, and it destroys sanity. It is NEVER worth it, no matter what.
I am sincerely so sorry to both Austin and the overall community for this. I am sorry for the friends I treated poorly during all of this, and for the terrible influence I had on an entire overarching community of impressionable kids and teens... all because I believed in a perverted sense of "justice". It wasn't right, and just because I believed it was didn't make it so.
That is what I want to end this off with. Some of the worst things we do as people come from genuinely deluding yourself into believing they're right and justified. But if it leaves a trail of hurt, and if it involves thinking up ways to destroy someone's life- It is *never* okay.
That is all. Thank you for taking the time to read this. There's a lot more I have to say about this later on, but this is just what I needed to say to everyone. After writing this out, I am going to be inactive from Discord for a while and really reflect on my actions and my future with how to handle community moderation.
I have given the sudomemofiles.com domain to Austin, and he's graciously agreed to host this message there for me. Thanks for reading, and again, I am sorry for my mistakes.
Pokebert
To whom it may concern,
My name is Jacob. I play the character of Sergeant Greasemixer on YouTube. In 2017, I acted on things that I felt were the right call at the time. I connected dots and came to believe that Austin Burk, Sudofox, was a pedophile. At the time of 2017, I had believed that his interactions with underage girls at the time had been redflags of sexual intent with minors. In October of 2017, I took it upon myself to create two 30 minute long videos explaining my perspective of the situation, and condeming Austin, painting him forever as a pedophile. A lot of people followed through with this and backed me and my ideas.
During this time, I failed to mention a few things myself. Like the fact that this video was scripted when I was 15 years old, and recorded/published when I was 16 years old. These words came through the eyes of a teenager who saw the world as black and white. A mistake I've lived to regret to this day.
The intention of bringing publicity to an issue should always be to help someone. It should always be to benifit somebody who needs it. It should be constructive, and my first installment of Basketcase was not this. The first installment of Basketcase was aimed with no intent beyond destroying Austin and preventing anything like it from happening again. I looked at a situation, thought my help was needed, and now need to admit that I was wrong.
The things Austin did at those times were sketchy. Uncomfortable. Creepy. Absolutely. Nobody denies this. Austin himself does not deny this. But no lines have been crossed to be persecuted as a pedophile. During this period, I had contacted Austin's local Police Department in hopes to bring justice in the right department. The police informed me that there was absolutely nothing that could be done, as there was no incriminating evidence of intent to solicit a minor. This comes from official Law Enforcement, not just personal bias.
The drama surrounding Austin Burk helps absolutely nobody. And every day that it continues, it wounds everybody involved. It wounds me in the sense that I can't move on. I am unable to look at mistakes I made as a teenager, eat them, and keep walking. It wounds Austin in a sense that he also can not move on. He is unable to look at the mistakes he made a MULTITUDE of years ago, eat his fucking peas, and keep walking. Because more teens and preteens keep trying to spoonfeed him 4 year old peas.
I began these claims and brought publicity to them. The Sudomemo Rebellion was my doing alone, and I denounce it. Austin's actions were not that of pedophiliac nature. They were the nature of a lonely, innocent, confused mind. Congratulations to myself, and everyone else who took advantage of that and fucked it up worse. You'll never be able to take that back.
What's done is done, but whatever is to come can still be prevented. If you continue to use my own words to torment people, I denounce you. You're a disgusting human, and you should learn to walk in the shoes of others. One day, you'll expose your own weaknesses, and I pray to God that nobody is around to exploit them and ruin your life.
Learn empathy, learn understanding. Learn forgiveness. One day, you'll wish the people around you had it.
Kind regards,
Jacob/Sergeant Greasemixer