By Lindsay Der
Loved by millions for years, David Dobrik quickly rose to stardom as the epitome of a Youtuber turned celebrity following his viral popularity on Vine. Characterized by charisma and charm— and the infamous 4 minute and 20 second time stamp— David’s videos amassed up to 37 million views. Those with cheeky thumbnails and alluring titles tended to get the most clicks, depicting David’s friends in sexualized circumstances. Shrewdly, David was careful to portray himself as the “straight guy” within his group, christened the “Vlog Squad,” providing a sharp contrast to the drunken, high, carnal mess of his friends. However, this year, some viewers have begun to heavily scrutinize some of David’s questionable videos in light of some allegations made by various people featured on the channel. In February, former frequent cast member of the vlogs, Seth Francois made an appearance on Trisha Paytas’, another one of David’s now estranged friends, podcast H3H3. He expressed his discomfort at being “touched by someone [he] did not consent to,” referencing a video posted in 2017 titled, “HE THOUGHT HE WAS KISSING HER!! (SUPER CRINGEY).” In the video, David orchestrated a prank in which a blindfolded Seth kissed 47 year old Jason Nash, while thinking he was making out with Instagram model Corinna Kopf. Additionally, Seth points to clips that refer to him as the group’s “token black friend” and play on racist stereotypes as the punchline. Soon after Seth’s testimonial was released, a young woman featured in 2018 video, “SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE PLAYED WITH FIRE!!,” accused Dom Zeglaitis, or Durte Dom, of raping her following the events in the video. Her accusations, along with commentary from Trisha Paytas, were published in an article from Business Insider. Despite a response video titled “Let’s Talk” from David posted the same day as the article, he was reported to have lost 100,000 subscribers by the next day. In the few days following the bombshell article, multiple of David’s long-time sponsors, including SeatGeek and Dollar Shave Club, announced the termination of their partnership with the YouTuber. Then, despite a second apology video, a week later, YouTube temporarily demonetized both David’s and Dom’s channels. After an almost exactly three month hiatus since the release of the Business Insider article, David dropped his comeback video, which has now reached 11 million views. His videos since have received significantly less views than before the scandal, which apparently left a bad taste in his subscribers’ mouths. Though the vlogger still receives upwards of 5 million views on almost all of his videos, his “boy next door” character is forever tainted; David Dobrik is truly a Turkey of the Year.