Update 11/13/2012
Recent allegations of emotional and verbal abuse from Minibloxia’s ex-girlfriend were presented to the YouTube community by Creator GwamgoXD on September 16, 2023. This included allegations of sexual assault, pedophilic activities, and coercion. Minibloxia asserts his innocence, and his ex-girlfriend has since received death threats from his fans in the Roblox Bedwars community. Please note these are still allegations, and we will report back when and if there is more information.
The main thing for parents to note here is that Minibloxia and his friends (shown below) have a very young fanbase, many whom are underage, and it isn’t just an allegation to say that he has engaged in toxic behavior that children should not be exposed to.
-Cindy Marie Jenkins, Creative Editor of OutThink Media
Summary
I started reviewing these three Roblox gamers, but accusations of plagiarism make too much sense to ignore. My primary review– outside of the accusations– of these three is: If you like to play Bedwars in Roblox then you might find their videos amusing, but their vlogs are hard to watch because they’re so fake and too long. Also, they’re very repetitive.
Why Are These Roblox Gamers Accused of Copying?
Hat tip to YouTuber GwamgoXD whose video was the first to bring this to my attention. He uploaded his video called “How Foltyn STOLE Half Of His Channel” on December 10, 2022, and accused Foltyn of stealing over half of his videos from other channels, including the thumbnails. There is very little investigation of their alleged stealing so far, but the examples I saw and the comments under GwamgoXD’s videos reinforce his allegations.
Still, let’s look at what they produce. To be fair, stealing thumbnails may not be plagiarism as much as learning from the successes of others. However, many creators toe a very thin line between inspiration and stealing. Lifting one person’s thumbnail completely and just replacing their face with yours, which is what most of these accusations are, is the definition of plagiarism.
Foltyn
(840K Subscribers)
- Warnings
- Misogyny
- Bullying
- Kearsten Lance Foltyn launched his current YouTube channel in July of 2021. His subscriber count grew steadily until he jumped from 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers in the month of January 2022.
- Going by Foltyn, his channel can be divided into vlogs and playing Bedwars on Roblox.
- His vlogs are styled after MrBeast (whose aren’t these days?) but could use a better editor and are obviously scripted, at least when there’s conflict.
- His Bedwars videos typically involve pranking someone, specifically his little sister (I found no evidence that she is in on the joke). Watching him pull these pranks made me feel crummy for giving him the views.
Minibloxia & TapWater
761K Subscribers & 1.02M Subscribers
- Warnings
- Misogyny
- Bullying
- It’s hard to review Minibloxia or TapWater separately from Foltyn, because they all create the same kinds of videos.
- They moved into Foltyn’s house and created a joint channel called TMF_Team in June of 2023 (TMF stands for TapWater, MiniBloxia, and Foltyn, I assume). Here they recycle pranks like ordering everything on a menu in a drive-through, react to other videos, and of course, Roblox. It’s still a pretty new channel but it’s similar to the content on their individual channels.
- TapWater used to pretend to be other players to test his (now ex) girlfriend in different ways, like pretending to be an inexperienced player.
Algorithm Check
- If you watch any of Foltyn, MiniBloxia, or TapWater’s videos, your algorithm will turn into an almost endless cycle of their videos, including their content house TMF_Team.
Conversations
- Pranks are not fun in real life. We had to address this early with YouTuber PrestonPlays. A large number of his videos involve pranking his friends inside and outside of Minecraft. Very early on, when our children started emulating his prankster nature, we established the idea that pranks can be fun, but not if they’re mean. You also need to keep listening to your friends to see if they like the pranks or if they want you to stop.
- In these cases, the pranks are cruel or are at least portrayed as if they are true– and therefore cruel. It’s just a joke, I think it’s funny. I always tie this back to empathy. How would you feel if your friend was setting you up like this, and they were laughing at you? What if they never let you in on the joke? Why would you want your friends to feel that way because of something that you thought was funny? (This approach is tricky because it’s never a good plan to make your child feel like they are responsible for other people’s emotions when it is not something in the child’s control, as that can cause children to have false guilt and poor boundaries, leading to being more vulnerable to grooming. That’s why I encourage you to be careful with your wording.)
Content Categories
- Gamers/Gaming
- Playthroughs
- Pranks/Trolling
- Challenges
- Content House
- Controversy
Photo/Image Credit: Cindy Marie Jenkins, Canva, & Shutterstock
Read more: The Sad Ballad of Miranda Sings
Sources:
- Cikanavicius, Darius, “How Toxic Guilt and False Responsibility Keep You in Dysfunction,” Psych Central, 18 November 2018, https://psychcentral.com/blog/psychology-self/2018/11/guilt-responsibility-dysfunction#2.