D’Angelo Wallace/Youtube
“Let’s have an awkward conversation.”
When YouTuber D’Angelo Wallace posted his latest video and uttered those five words, he was simply trying to start a conversation about the allegations surrounding one of YouTube’s biggest stars. But less than 24 hours later, his 15-minute video has reignited a debate about the responsibilities the YouTube community holds to one another and Cody Co, a longtime YouTuber who has been accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl when he was 25.
There aren’t many hard details about the Ko controversy, but here’s what we know: During a live podcast taping in May, content creator Tana Mongeau revealed in the “Hot Seat” segment that she slept with Ko when he was underage. “I was literally 17,” she said. (A representative for Ko did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment; a representative for Mongeau declined to comment.)
Though the remarks were made in a comedic setting, this isn’t the first time Mongjo, now 26, has been linked to Co. Rumors that the two are romantically involved have been swirling ever since Mongjo became a popular YouTube fan favorite and outspoken and controversial presence in the industry (her podcast is “Canceled”). But Co, who married YouTuber Kelsey Kreppel last year and recently became a father, has yet to make a public statement about Mongjo’s allegations. However, many online have blamed Mongjo as a victim or outright called him a liar, saying he was just lying for attention. So Wallace decided to blame Co and his community.
“The main point I wanted to make in the video is that, regardless of the fact that you can’t prove or disprove anyone’s allegations, there is still widespread misogyny that is extremely inappropriate,” Wallace told Rolling Stone. “Everywhere this issue has been discussed, it’s been rife with victim-blaming and all sorts of things that have no place in critical commentary.”
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Commentary YouTube is a popular subgenre of creators who deal in drama, rumors and allegations that has grown in popularity over the past four years, turning creators like Wallace into virtual pundits of digital culture news. But Wallace noted that little has been said about Co, who boasts more than six million subscribers on YouTube, and that Mongyo has often been called “unreliable” and a “liar” by Co’s most ardent fans. Wallace delved into the few details that have been made public, including a podcast clip from YouTuber Gabbie Hanna that appears to back up Mongyo’s claim that Co knew she was 17 when they got into a relationship. “I told a guy at a party one time that I saw him flirting with an underage girl, and I took him aside and I was like, ‘Hey, you don’t know this, but I know she looks a little older and she’s underage. Watch me,'” Hanna says in the clip, without directly naming Co or Mongyo.
Mongeau clarified that she doesn’t consider her sexual encounter with Ko traumatic, but said in a subsequent podcast appearance that she was upset by the harassment she received for speaking about it. “If I had a 17-year-old daughter or sister, [in the same situation] “I would commit murder,” Mongeau said on Trisha Paytas’ podcast, Just Trish. “What was really heartbreaking and kind of crazy for me was when this story started to spread and I saw so many people not believing me. I was like, ‘It’s because of Tana, so who cares?’ And then I started feeling bad for so many other girls who look up to me and want to speak their truth and see people not believing people.”
In the video, Wallace clarifies that he’s not accusing Ko of any crime, just criticizing her for not making a statement. “At the very least, Ko has an obligation to condemn the misogyny, victim-blaming, and any kind of cognitive dissonance that your viewers are sending you in the name of protecting you from allegations that you’re too cowardly to address,” Wallace says in the video. He also points out that while the Instagram comments are mostly focused on the allegations, the YouTube comments make no mention of them, leading Wallace to wonder if whoever was behind the account deleted them (Ko did not respond to a request for comment). But after Wallace’s video, the comments started appearing.
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“Tana shouldn’t have needed any more information to be taken seriously,” he says, “but men don’t listen to women in these situations, they listen to other men, so I could see there was a way to exploit this more directly by directly accusing other men, even if it was wrong.”
Since Wallace’s video, Reddit moderators on the official r/codyko have allowed members to post comments and statements about Mongeau’s accusations against Ko. On X (formerly Twitter), Ko was a trending topic for more than two days, and less than 72 hours after he posted the video, it had been viewed more than 2 million times, with nearly a dozen Commentary YouTube celebrities posting videos echoing Wallace’s remarks.
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Wallace said he’s pleased to see more people discussing the allegations against Ko and publicly calling out Mongeau’s accusers, but he said the main reason he wanted to speak out is for victims who might get the wrong idea from the debate.
“What I saw online was people speaking very openly and honestly about similar experiences, and they were being attacked, they were not believed, they were being discredited, and in many cases, it was because there was a huge social power imbalance between them and the people they were talking to,” Wallace says. “That’s where a lot of the frustration comes from. And I [hope] “People who see it will feel represented when they see that these allegations are being taken seriously and discredited.”